I present report No. 26 of the Selection Committee, relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday, 25 June 2018 and Tuesday, 26 June 2018. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today. The committee's deliberations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed at the table.
The report read as follows—
Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business
1. The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 19 June 2018.
2. The Committee deliberated on items of committee and delegation business that had been notified, private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 19 June 2018, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 25 June 2018, as follows:
Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MR SHORTEN: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Fair Work Act 2009, and for related purposes. (Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018)
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
2 MR KATTER: To present a Bill for an Act to re-establish confidence in the banking system, to separate retail commercial banking activities involving the holding of deposits from wholesale and investment banking involving risky activities, and for other purposes. (Banking System Reform (Separation of Banks) Bill 2018)
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
3 MR WILKIE: To present a Bill for an Act to give the community rights in relation to the development of phone towers and certain telecommunications facilities, and for related purposes. (Telecommunications Amendment (Giving the Community Rights on Phone Towers) Bill 2018)
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
4 MR BANDT: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Fair Work Act 2009, and for related purposes. (Fair Work Amendment (A Living Wage) Bill 2018)
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
5 MS MCGOWAN: To present a Bill for an Act to provide for the appointment of the Regional, Rural and Remote Education Commissioner to establish a national focus for education, training and research to enhance access, outcomes and opportunities in regional Australia, and for related purposes. (Regional, Rural and Remote Education Commissioner Bill 2018)
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
6 MS BANKS: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises the positive effect of the Government's measures for a stronger economy mean that essential services are guaranteed including the Government's:
(a) support for education and childcare; and
(b) measures to support more choices for Australians to live longer, healthier lives; and
(2) notes with deep concern that the Opposition has no plan for a stronger economy that will deliver essential services to Australians.
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Ms Banks—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
7 MS VAMVAKINOU: To move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges peace, re-unification and reconciliation in Cyprus through the progress achieved during 2015-2017 United Nations-sponsored Cyprus peace talks, including the framework set out by the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres;
(2) congratulates all those involved in the Cyprus peace talks, especially the personal commitment by Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci;
(3) expresses full support for the United Nations Secretary-General's Good Offices in Cyprus, and supports the resumption of negotiations at the parties' earliest convenience;
(4) recognises that even though the 2015-17 Cyprus talks took place between two compatible and affable leaders and a rather diligent United Nations, Mont Pèlerin, Geneva and Crans-Montana reminded us that the difficulty in constructing a new peace paradigm in Cyprus is not only exacerbated by inter-communal division, but is also vulnerable to external, regional and international tensions;
(5) reaffirms its support for an enduring, peaceful, comprehensive and just settlement based on the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, and encourages all parties to sustain their commitment to the reunification of Cyprus;
(6) realises that many Cypriots have fled to Australia over the last six decades and the Cypriot diaspora in Australia can make a positive contribution to peacebuilding efforts in their former homeland;
(7) welcomes the bicommunal contacts, engagement and exchanges, resulting from the continued crossings at the Green Line, as evidenced by the work of the Cyprus Academic Dialogue, the Bicommunal Kyrenia Initiative, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, the Home for Cooperation and others;
(8) congratulates the grasswork action by two Australian friends of Cypriot background, Yalcin Adal and Stavros Protz (Tzortzis), for their 16 day, 350 km Cyprus East2West walk from 21 March to 6 April 2018, as a symbolic gesture of reunification, peace, hope, reconciliation and friendship, and all those who supported such an endeavour, especially our High Commission in Nicosia; and
(9) calls on the Government to continue its support of the peacemaking efforts in Cyprus including considering re-appointing a special envoy on Cyprus to promote dialogue, peace and reconciliation.
(Notice given 9 May 2018.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 noon
Speech time limits—
Ms Vamvakinou—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MS COLLINS: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the public release of the latest quarterly data on the home care package waitlist has been delayed by the Government; and
(b) there was a commitment to release the data two months after the period that the data covers, but this timeframe has now not been met;
(c) the data has been sitting on the desk of the Minister for Aged Care without any action being taken;
(2) further notes the:
(a) latest figures showed around 105,000 older Australians are now waiting for a home care package they were approved for;
(b) average wait time for a high level package has blown out to more than a year; and
(c) demand for home care packages grew by 20,000 older Australians in the last six months of 2017 alone;
(3) condemns the Government for the aged care crisis it made on its watch; and
(4) calls on the Government to be honest with older Australians and immediately release the latest round of data on the waitlist for home care packages.
(Notice given 18 June 2018.)
Time allotted—50 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Ms Collins—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
2 MR ZIMMERMAN: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the first major international humanitarian effort of the Commonwealth of Australia following Federation was to mount relief efforts for orphans and other survivors of the Armenian Genocide;
(b) Australia's relief efforts were supported by Armenian relief committees established across the nation;
(c) the Australian Government made available the government steamer Hobsons Bay, to support those humanitarian relief efforts; and
(d) an Australasian Armenian relief committee was established by Reverend James Cresswell in 1922 to coordinate Australian relief efforts;
(2) recognises:
(a) the extraordinary humanitarian efforts of the then newly formed Commonwealth of Australia for the orphans and other survivors of the Armenian Genocide, as well as the other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire including Greeks and Assyrians, as one of Australia's first major international humanitarian campaigns, which set a proud tradition of international humanitarian efforts by Australia;
(b) the tireless efforts of all of those Australian individuals and organisations involved in this historic humanitarian effort mobilising a broad spectrum of political, civic and religious leaders, including James Cresswell, Edith Glanville, Jessie Webb, Stanley Savage, Isobel Hutton and Cecilia John, as documented in the University of NSW Press publication Armenia Australia & The Great War authored by Professor Peter Stanley and Vicken Babkenian; and
(c) the special bond between Australia and Armenia forged by the humanitarian efforts of the newly formed Australian nation to support the Armenian people during one of the darkest chapters of modern human history; and
(3) calls on the Australian Government to ensure that this important part of Australia's history and the role of individual Australians supporting the victims of the Armenian genocide is properly commemorated.
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr Zimmerman—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
3 MS HUSAR: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that the rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon is the 30th instance of a woman being killed by men's violence against women in 2018;
(2) recognises the importance of providing strong leadership in changing men's behaviour towards women to prevent such behaviour by men;
(3) understands that:
(a) at least one women a week in Australia is killed at the hands of a man, usually a current or former partner;
(b) one in three Australian women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15; and
(c) one in five women has experienced sexual violence;
(4) acknowledges the social and economic impact that violence against women has on our communities; and
(5) encourages all Australians to not wait until International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (White Ribbon Day) in November to be active, engage on this issue and take action.
(Notice given 18 June 2018.)
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Ms Husar—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
4 MR CREWTHER: To move:
That this House:
(1) congratulates the six teams comprising Australia's brightest high school students chosen to compete in the International Olympiads for science, maths and technology;
(2) recognises the work and effort these students put in to win the coveted spots in the team;
(3) notes that the Australian Government has committed a total of $4.1 million over four years to help our best and brightest compete globally; and
(4) looks forward to hearing about the performance of the teams following the Olympiad.
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.30 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Crewther—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Notices—continued
5 DR LEIGH: To move :
That this House:
(1) declares that:
(a) given new cars have multiple onboard computers, real time access to digital files and codes—which vary from car to car—are needed to complete many aspects of a repair or service;
(b) car manufacturers generally own and control this technical information and in many cases are the only sources of re-initialisation codes and software upgrades;
(c) independent car repairers—who comprise the vast majority of Australian mechanics—are at a competitive disadvantage, since most car manufacturers do not supply the same information to independent mechanics that they provide to authorised dealers;
(d) the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's New car retailing industrymarket study report (14 December 2017) concluded that the industry's voluntary code has failed to address the problem;
(e) failure to address this problem is hurting small businesses, increasing prices for consumers, and providing less choice, with the impact being most acute in regional areas; and
(2) calls on the Government to adopt Labor's policy of mandatory information sharing, which would:
(a) require car manufacturers to share technical information with independent mechanics on commercially fair and reasonable terms;
(b) create safeguards that enable environmental, safety and security related technical information to be shared with the independent sector; and
(c) provide a level playing field, benefiting consumers and independent mechanics alike.
(Notice given 21 May 2018.)
Time allotted—40 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Dr Leigh—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
6 MR GEE: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that a significant part of rural Australia is currently drought declared;
(2) further notes that farming families and the agriculture sector more widely are a vital part of the Australian economy as well as the Australian psyche;
(3) recognises the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources for their efforts in touring drought declared areas in NSW and Queensland;
(4) congratulates the Government for deciding to extend the Farm Household Allowance from three years to four years; and
(5) acknowledges that this assistance will help the nation's farmers.
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Time allotted—45 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr Gee—10 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 1 x 10 mins + 7 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day
1 National Disability Insurance Scheme: Resumption of debate (from 21 May 2018) on the motion of Ms Husar—that this House:
(1) acknowledges that the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS):
(a) supports a better life for hundreds of thousands of Australians with a significant and permanent disability, and their families and carers; and
(b) will provide about 460,000 Australians under the age of 65 with a permanent and significant disability with the reasonable and necessary supports they need to live an ordinary life;
(2) notes that:
(a) the NDIS began in a number of trial sites around Australia from July 2013;
(b) the NDIS is now operational across Australia;
(c) as at 31 December 2017, there were 132,743 participants with an approved plan with the NDIS and 9,523 children receiving support through the Early Childhood Early Intervention approach; and
(d) the NDIS roll-out in Western Australia will commence 1 July 2018;
(3) calls on the Government to urgently address delays and inadequacies in the NDIS operations and roll-out, including:
(a) funding adequacy and access to the scheme;
(b) NDIS plan approvals and plan renewals;
(c) access to adequate health services, care and supports, housing and other essential services; and
(d) ensuring that the pricing structure of the NDIS enables service providers to deliver high quality support to participants in the scheme including for group activities that are being threatened by the current model;
(4) reaffirms its commitment to:
(a) ensuring Australians with a disability continue to get the support they need;
(b) the scheme roll-out continuing to ensure a smooth transition for people with disability and support providers; and
(c) an adequately funded and resourced NDIS; and
(5) encourages all Members of Parliament to support the NDIS roll-out and the access to support it provides to people with disability.
Time allotted—40 minutes.
Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Notices—continued
7 MR FALINSKI: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises the important role that local government plays in Australia;
(2) notes the continuing support that the Australian Government provides to local governments around Australia including:
(a) Black Spot Program funding;
(b) the Bridges Renewal Program; and
(c) the Roads of Strategic Importance initiative; and
(3) recognises that strong local government is important for strong and healthy communities.
(Notice given 19 June 2018.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Falinski—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
3. Pursuant to the resolution of the House of 21 May 2018, the committee determined the order of precedence and times to be allotted for consideration of committee and delegation business and private Members' business in the Federation Chamber, on Tuesday, 26 June 2018, as follows:
Items for Federation Chamber (4.30 pm to 6.15 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Orders of the day
1 Live Sheep Long Haul Export Prohibition Bill 2018 (Ms Ley): Second reading—Resumption of debate (from18June2018).
Time allotted—15 minutes.
Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 3 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Notices
1 MR T. R. WILSON: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises the positive effect of the Government's measures to ensure that it lives within its means, in particular by:
(a) legislating tough measures against multinational tax avoidance;
(b) delivering disciplined financial management, including through a tax-to-GDP cap of 23.9 per cent and the lowest rate of spending growth of any government in more than 50 years; and
(c) maintaining the integrity of the welfare system so that support goes to those who need it most; and
(2) notes with deep concern that the Opposition:
(a) opposed our multinational anti-avoidance legislation in Parliament;
(b) refuses to commit to spending restraint or a tax cap so that the economy is not burdened with higher taxes; and
(c) has no plan to support Australians to get off welfare and into work.
(Notice given 29 May 2018.)
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr T. R. Wilson—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day—continued
2 MEN'S VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: Debate to be resumed on the motion of Ms Husar—That this House:
(1) notes that the rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon is the 30th instance of a woman being killed by men's violence against women in 2018;
(2) recognises the importance of providing strong leadership in changing men's behaviour towards women to prevent such behaviour by men;
(3) understands that:
(a) at least one women a week in Australia is killed at the hands of a man, usually a current or former partner;
(b) one in three Australian women has experienced physical violence since the age of 15; and
(c) one in five women has experienced sexual violence;
(4) acknowledges the social and economic impact that violence against women has on our communities; and
(5) encourages all Australians to not wait until International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (White Ribbon Day) in November to be active, engage on this issue and take action.
(Notice given 18 June 2018.
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
Notices—continued
2 MR VAN MANEN: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises:
(a) the positive effect of the Government's measures to assist more hard working Australians to earn more through the tax system, in particular by introducing to Parliament legislation to provide tax relief that encourages and rewards working Australians; and
(b) the Government's measures to deliver a stronger economy through tax relief for businesses so that they have the opportunity to invest more, hire more people and pay higher wages; and
(2) notes with deep concern that the Opposition:
(a) sought to reverse $70 billion in tax relief for working Australians;
(b) refuses to rule out reversing the tax relief already legislated for small and medium businesses with up to $50 million turnover; and
(c) plans to tax Australians and the economy with more than $290 billion of higher taxes.
(Notice given 29 May 2018.)
Time allotted—30 minutes.
Speech time limits—
Mr van Manen—5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Unexplained Wealth Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
Serious and organised crime syndicates are operating in an increasingly fluid manner across jurisdictional borders. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission estimates that the cost is at least $36 billion per annum.
Depriving criminals of their wealth is a key measure in combatting these insidious individuals. Unexplained wealth laws provide a valuable tool for law enforcement to confiscate the assets of these criminals where they cannot demonstrate that this wealth has been lawfully obtained.
However the scale and complexity of this criminal threat has necessitated an enhanced focus on cooperative, cross-jurisdictional responses by Australian governments.
The Unexplained Wealth Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 will provide a national approach to target unexplained wealth. It will enable all participating jurisdictions to work together to effectively deprive these criminals of their wealth, irrespective of the jurisdictions in which they operate.
Through a referral of powers from participating states, the scheme will allow Commonwealth unexplained orders to be used where a person or property can be linked to a broader range of state and territory offences.
This will allow the AFP to use a single unexplained wealth order to target criminal syndicates instead of the patchwork of orders that would otherwise be sought by Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement agencies.
The scheme will also enhance the capability of state and territory agencies to contribute to national efforts by providing access to enhanced information gathering powers and the ability to use lawfully intercepted telecommunications information in unexplained wealth matters.
The bill also incentivises greater cooperation between jurisdictions through the establishment of new equitable sharing arrangements. These arrangements will give participating jurisdictions preferential treatment in the distribution of seized assets.
The scheme will not replace existing unexplained wealth schemes around the country, but rather create a more effective and cooperative network of law enforcement working towards a common goal.
I thank the states and territories that have worked with the Commonwealth to design the national cooperative scheme on unexplained wealth. In particular I acknowledge the efforts taken in New South Wales, with the introduction of the necessary referring legislation in their parliament earlier this month. I will continue to negotiate with the remaining states to secure their support to ensure the benefits of the scheme are maximised.
I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this critical legislation. Together we can demonstrate we are committed to working collaboratively to strengthen unexplained wealth laws and strike at the heart of organised crime. I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Migration (Validation of Port Appointment) Bill 2018 confirms the validity of the appointment of a proclaimed port in the territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands contained in the Commonwealth of Australia gazette No. GN 3, 23 January 2002 (the Appointment).
The Appointment was gazetted in 2002 by the then Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Philip Ruddock MP.
The validity of the Appointment is now being challenged in the Federal Circuit Court and the Federal Court. The Appointment was designed to ensure that illegal maritime arrivals who entered certain waters of the territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands, an 'excised offshore place' for the purposes of the Migration Act 1958, would thereby become 'offshore entry persons', now 'unauthorised maritime arrivals', under the act. The Appointment was critical to determining the status of persons as unauthorised maritime arrivals under the act who entered Australia via this proclaimed port between 23 January 2002 and 1 June 2013. In addition, illegal maritime arrivals who became unauthorised maritime arrivals by reason of having entered the proclaimed port at Ashmore and Cartier Islands between 13 August 2012 and 1 June 2013 also became 'fast-track applicants' under the act.
A successful challenge to the Appointment could mean that affected persons did not enter Australia at an excised offshore place and are therefore not unauthorised maritime arrivals under the act. It could also mean that some affected persons are not fast-track applicants under the act.
The bill addresses these risks by confirming the validity of the Appointment to:
The effect of the bill will simply maintain the status quo for unauthorised maritime arrivals and, where relevant, fast-track applicants, under the act who entered Australia via this proclaimed port between 23 January 2002 and 1 June 2013.
The bill reiterates the government's original intention that the Appointment is, and has always been, valid. However, due to ongoing proceedings which are currently challenging the validity of the Appointment, the bill will not apply to cases where judgement has been delivered by a court before these provisions commence, if:
The government will not hesitate to legislate to protect the integrity of Australia's migration framework and maintain public confidence in our border protection arrangements. The bill does deserve the support of all members in the House and I commend it to the chamber on that basis.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Farm Household Support Amendment Bill 2018 is to amend the Farm Household Support Act 2014.
The bill proposes to extend the cumulative period of farm household allowance from three years to four years for each recipient.
Farm household allowance is more than a social security payment; it is a package of assistance comprising income support, an independent financial assessment of the farm business, individualised case management and an activity supplement that pays for advice and training. The safety net provided by this program ensures the government can appropriately support farmers in hardship while they take steps to improve their situation.
The government has worked to achieve its vision for a profitable, competitive, resilient and sustainable agriculture sector. It's an industry that all Australians should be proud of—it's a pillar of the Australian economy, and it's the lifeblood of many rural and regional communities.
While the agriculture sector continues to be a strong performer, it's not immune to fluctuations, and variability is part and parcel of running a farm business.
The government is committed to supporting our farming communities to generate wealth and build strength and prosperity. Like every other Australian, we want farmers to put money aside for a comfortable retirement. We want them to take time away from their farm for learning and development and to take advantage of our substantial investment in research and innovation. We want them to be able to support their kids so they can dream big and achieve those dreams. Sometimes this means supporting farmers in financial hardship to help them build resilience for the future.
But this support has to be equitable with other types of support. The government's general position is that farm household allowance should be aligned with mainstream social security, unless there are good reasons for departure. The most significant departure is the two-tier asset test, which has a significantly higher threshold for farm assets than other payments. This setting recognises that a farmer's biggest asset is their land, but in times of hardship that land is not capable of generating a return that sustains the family.
The book value excludes the farmer from other income support payments, yet the farmer cannot realise those assets for self-support without taking away some, or all, of the longer-term income producing capacity of the farm enterprise.
A key element of the program includes an independent financial assessment of the business to sustain the family into the future. This assessment is backed up by one-on-one case management and an activity supplement of $3,000 per person from day 1 to put towards advice or training to improve their situation. Under the agriculture white paper we added a further $1,000 per recipient in the final year of payment. That's $8,000 over and above the fortnightly payment for a couple on payment. This extension of the payment will also give people longer to choose activities that will help them into the future.
This supplement is not limited to agricultural extension activities—it pays for things that are going to increase the total household income. It can pay for truck and bus licenses, forklift tickets, welding qualifications, drone training, teacher training, website design—whatever our farmers and their partners can reasonably think of to generate income.
And we don't stop there. Since 2013, this government has committed more than $90 million to the Rural Financial Counselling Service program. This is not a bricks and mortar service. Staff are highly mobile and visit people on-farm or in town. Rural financial counsellors complement and support the work of the farm household case officers by working closely with recipients so they can make sustainable changes. Although the overwhelming majority of people remain on-farm, some do make that tough decision to sell up and try something new. Farm household allowance provides the breathing space for these big decisions. The support of the case officer and the rural financial counsellor can make a huge difference. People can plan their next move and take some time to make that happen. They can come on and off payment as many times as suits their circumstances, truly using it as a safety net.
We know the farm household allowance is well received. The government has outlaid more than $230 million that has helped over 7,900 farmers and their partners. Recipients of the support have been surveyed and almost 90 per cent of respondents reported that the program had improved their current financial circumstances, and more than 50 per cent expect to stay on-farm with greater farm income and/or less debt.
The extension of support for a further year will help farmers who have not had the opportunity to implement their plans for financial self-sufficiency. The government has listened to many farmers suffering due to the ongoing unfavourable climatic conditions across parts of the eastern seaboard. The additional income to small towns and rural centres will also assist regions as a whole by broadening the economic base.
When the farm household allowance program was introduced in 2014, the cumulative period of farm household allowance available to an eligible farmer or their partner was set at three years, or 1,095 days.
However, this government has seen firsthand and listened to the experiences of Australian farmers. We know that some farmers and their families have been, and continue to be, subject to pressures that extend beyond a cumulative three year period and need more time to recover from hardship and get back on their feet.
The bill therefore proposes extending the cumulative period of farm household allowance to four years, or 1,460 days. This extension will apply to current and future recipients as well as those who have already concluded their initial three year cumulative period of entitlement.
In short, extending the farm household allowance will give recipients greater opportunities to improve their circumstances or consider an alternative future.
In seeking to extend the cumulative period of farm household allowance from three years to four years, this bill further demonstrates this government's responsiveness to the needs of the farming community and the conditions faced in rural and regional Australia. The government will continue to look for opportunities to improve the farm household allowance program, including streamlining applications where it is necessary. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I have received advice from the Chief Government Whip nominating members to be members of certain committees.
by leave—I move:
That:
(1) Mr Falinksi be appointed a member of the Standing Committee on Economics;
(2) Mr T R Wilson be appointed a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, I present the following reports: Review of the re-declaration of Mosul district, Ninewa province, Iraq; Review of the re-listing of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e Jhangvi as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code; Review of the re-listing of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation as a terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code; and Review of the re-listing of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation as a terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code.
Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—The 'declared area' provisions of the Criminal Code make it an offence for a person to enter, or remain in, an area of a foreign country declared by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
The first report I have presented today concerns the minister's recent renewal of the declaration of Mosul district, Iraq. Under the legislation, the committee is able to review a declaration and report its findings to the parliament within the 15-day disallowance period.
Due to the timing of the redeclaration of Mosul, the recommendations contained in the committee's recent review of the declared area provisions were not able to be factored into the Minister for Foreign Affairs' declaration. However, the recommendations were considered during both the private hearings and in committee deliberations.
2 The committee concluded that appropriate processes have been followed and, after the private hearings, accepted that a listed terrorist organisation, Islamic State, continues to engage in hostile activity in Mosul district, Ninewa province, Iraq.
While Islamic State no longer exercises territorial control over Mosul district, territorial control is not currently one of the key non-legislative factors outlined in the protocol for declaring an area.
The committee has supported a suggestion from ASIO that the existing protocol be expanded to include the extent to which a listed terrorist organisation exercises territorial control over an area, and any other key factors relevant to the declaration of an area.
The committee supports the redeclaration of Mosul district and finds no reason to disallow the legislative instrument.
The second and third reports I have presented today concern the relisting of terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code.
Under the Criminal Code, it is an offence to direct the activities of, be a member of, associate with or conduct a range of activities in support of a listed terrorist organisation. The Criminal Codeenables the committee to review all listings of terrorist organisations and report its findings to the parliament within the 15-day disallowance period.
The organisations known as Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e Jhangvi continue to engage in, and advocate, terrorism.
3 Although there are no known direct links between any of the organisations and Australia, and none have made statements specifically threatening Australia or Australian interests, all would consider Westerners—including Australians—to be legitimate targets for attack. Additionally, the sometimes indiscriminate nature of their attacks and their disregard for loss of life mean that Australians could be caught up in such attacks.
All three are listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. They are also listed in the United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee's consolidated list. None are engaged in any peace or mediation process.
The committee is satisfied that appropriate processes have been followed and concludes that these three organisations continue to meet the definition of a terrorist organisation. The committee finds no reason to disallow the legislative instruments.
Hezbollah's External Security Organisation, the ESO, is a discrete branch or entity within Hezbollah's military wing. The ESO is positioned alongside, but distinct from, Hezbollah's formal militia and military activity.
The ESO has an ongoing program of contingency planning for terrorist activities around the world, provides training, operational support and material to Palestinian extremist groups and is not engaged in any peace or mediation processes.
At a private hearing, the committee sought clarification as to why the Criminal Code listing is limited to the ESO.
The Department of Home Affairs advised that any broadening of the listing, for example, from Hezbollah's ESO to Hezbollah's military 4wing, would have implications, including for Australia's bilateral relationship with Lebanon.
The committee was satisfied that appropriate processes have been followed and that the ESO meets the definition of terrorist organisation under the Criminal Code. Consequently, and on this occasion, the committee supports the relisting of the ESO as a terrorist organisation and finds no reason to disallow the legislative instrument.
However, the committee did not consider that adequate evidence was provided regarding the decision to not include the military wing of Hezbollah in the listing.
The committee also noted that proscription of the ESO is now somewhat inconsistent with the approach taken by some of Australia's closest partners: Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Accordingly, the committee recommends that the government further consider extending the listing to include Hezbollah's military wing.
I commend these reports to the House.
by leave—I have pleasure in rising to speak and support my friend and colleague the Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in discussing the relisting of the terrorist organisations and the redeclaration of Mosul. In speaking about this I want to re-emphasise to those listening and to those who report on these issues, first off—in terms of the redeclaration of Mosul and the relisting of these terrorist organisations, particularly of Hezbollah's ESO—that the threat to our country as to terrorism events remains unchanged.
When we discuss these relistings, we seem to discuss them in some form of ether to some extent. But, whilst we discuss it in this comfortable place, the men and women of our security organisations and our police force continue to protect our community, and I think we should be thanking them for the work that they have done and continue to do.
For those who are listening who think that this is a tick-and-flick process or a process that the committee doesn't take very seriously, I'd reassure them that we actually do. Why we do—as I re-emphasise to this House and to those listening, even those up in the gallery—is that the threat of terrorism remains unchanged in this country. When we have discussions about terrorism events and about the potential harm to the community, I can say that, if our agencies and our police forces—the AFP and our local police forces—were not doing the work that they are doing, we would be experiencing terrorism events in this country. So I'd like to take this opportunity to say that, when we talk about the redeclaration of Mosul, as an example of that, we do so because that remains an epicentre of threat—not just to the global community, in terms of the re-emergence of a denuded ISIL, but also to this country.
So I would like to just put some emphasis on the speech that the chair gave. I would also make this point, as to Hezbollah—and this was a subject of great discussion amongst the committee and those in the various diasporas who live in Melbourne and Sydney who made representations to us privately and to our committee. Rest assured that, if you look at the recommendation closely, we are keenly following the issue of Hezbollah and its relationship with Iran and any sort of influence that might be brought to bear on diaspora populations in this country, and we will do our job as a committee in keeping our eye on that.
I finish by saying that when one looks at the operational tempo of our oversight committee, it is quite unique in terms of the pressures that our committee has been subjected to. I think we're almost unique among these committees in the Western world—those being the ISC in the United Kingdom and the House of Representatives Permanent Select Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee in the US congress—given that the tempo of work we're doing with legislation that's been brought before us and examined by this committee is at fairly unprecedented levels. I would also like to say, having been chair of this committee and now deputy chair, that it's essential, particularly when we look at the laws that are coming before us in forms of counter-espionage—the espionage and foreign influence and transparency scheme—that bipartisanship remains. I can assure those who have been following this debate from the press and elsewhere in the community that that bipartisanship still remains, particularly in the vehicle that is looking at this legislation, which is the PJCIS, and within this parliament.
Let me say this: if we do not have bipartisanship on this particular issue and on the bills that will come before this parliament, then that would not be in this nation's interest. Mark my words: with respect to the legislation that will come, providing the committee has the opportunity to properly consider the second tranche of legislation—it has reported on the first—this legislation will, with appropriate amendments, offer the protections that this country needs to keep us safe from those who wish us harm.
I would also note that there are those who represent other countries that make comments about our country bringing laws into our nation's parliament to protect the Australian people. I say to those people: it's a very foolish thing to put Australians' backs up against the wall when we introduce legislation that seeks to protect our democratic process. Do not push back. Australians are famous in war, and in floods, fire and famine, for being a strong and resilient people. We have a right to introduce laws into our parliament that protect our democracy. I would urge those who are advocating against laws that protect our democracy to be very, very careful. You are not acting in this country's interests.
I have received a message from the Senate transmitting the following resolution agreed to by the Senate:
That the time for the presentation of the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services on its inquiry into the Franchising Code of Conduct and the Oil Code of Conduct be extended to 6 December 2018.
Thanks very much, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018.
This bill, at its core, is about unpaid super. Unpaid superannuation is wage theft. Businesses not paying their workers the superannuation that they are entitled to by law is an enormous problem in this country. We have had billions of dollars of super not being paid to millions of Australian workers over the last quarter of a century or so, and that's a really big problem. The super guarantee is called the super guarantee for a reason: it's not optional, it's compulsory superannuation. We need to make sure we're doing all we can to ensure super is paid, that people aren't dodging their obligations to their workers, and that workers can save for their retirement and retire with dignity.
What this bill does—or, at least, one part of this bill—is reaffirm what we have come to know about this government. This government is notorious for creating one set of rules for the top end of town and another set of rules for everybody else. What this bill does with its so-called amnesty provision is it protects dodgy bosses who fail to pay superannuation to their employees. It does this by proposing to give a 12-month amnesty to employers who haven't paid compulsory super payments to their staff since 1992. That's more than 25 years of bad behaviour by employers, and those opposite want to sweep that under the rug. They want to pretend it never happened. They want to forgive the wage theft that has gone on in this country when it comes to superannuation. That's more than 25 years, more than a quarter of a century, of bad behaviour that the government proposes to just wipe away.
What makes it especially hard to cop, what makes this proposed legislation even worse, is that under this bill the superannuation guarantee charge will also be tax deductible for employers who've done the wrong thing. In a nutshell, dodgy bosses will get a tax break for doing the wrong thing. Doesn't that say it all about those opposite and their approach in trying to ensure that there's one set of rules for big business and another set of rules for everybody else? If an employee stole from an employer for 25 years, they'd go to jail. Under this Prime Minister, employers who steal entitlements from their workers get a tax deduction. It's quite extraordinary when you think about it along those lines. It's outrageous. It's infuriating. It's shocking in some ways, but, in others, sadly, it's not surprising.
When you take a look at the track record of those opposite, they always side with the top end of town at the expense of those who work and struggle. We're seeing that, as we speak, in the other place, on another bill about tax cuts. They will always side with the top end of town against people who work and struggle. That's why they want to give that $80 billion tax cut to multinationals and the big banks. That's why they want to chop penalty rates in our community. That's why there have been big rises in private health insurance on their watch and rises in the cost of energy and cost of living. They will always prioritise the people with the most over the people with the least.
Australians know that, every step of the way, those opposite have tried to undermine and water down superannuation in this country. They say they support superannuation, but time and time and time again they do what they can to undermine super. On an almost weekly or monthly basis there's some new harebrained idea from the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services and others on that side of the House that seeks to undermine and diminish superannuation, which is one of the greatest public policy achievements in the history of this nation. Other countries look at our superannuation system with envy and seek to replicate what we have achieved here since the early 1990s, while, at the same time, those opposite come up with all sorts of harebrained ideas—dangerous ideas like the amnesty in this legislation—which seek to undermine what we've achieved for Australian workers when it comes to superannuation.
The bill contains four main elements. I want to focus largely on the fourth, as the first three are largely uncontentious. They have some merit in them. They are: allowing employees who have multiple employers to apply to the tax commissioner for an exemption certificate from the SG from one or more of their employers so as to avoid breaching the concessional contributions cap; ensuring that the non-arm's-length income rules for super entities apply in situations where a super entity incurs non-arm's-length expenses in gaining or producing income; and amending the total superannuation balance rules to prevent SMSF members being able to use limited recourse borrowing arrangements to circumvent the $1.6 million transfer balance cap and the unused concessional carry-forward rules. Those three parts of the bill are not, in our view, without merit. They have some merit. Our issue is not with those parts of the bill. Our issue is with the amnesty arrangements—the one-off 12-month amnesty for employers who have done the wrong thing—and that's why the member for McMahon moved the amendment to remove that part of the bill so that the rest of it may pass.
One of the reasons we know that this is a sneaky, dodgy attack is because it was done without warning, without consultation. This amnesty just popped up one day. It was a complete surprise to the industry, to the rest of the parliament. It wasn't recommended by the Senate committee's inquiry into superannuation guarantee non-payment. They looked at this in some detail. A lot of good senators, who held up our SG system to the light and looked at unpaid super, did not recommend this measure. It wasn't recommended by the government's own Super Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group. It wasn't in the budget. Presumably it was a decision taken but not yet announced. There have been no recent parliamentary reports that have recommended this course of action.
When you think about unpaid super, there has been some welcome attention on that in the last little while. When I was in that portfolio in the last parliament, we were always looking for ways to shine a light on unpaid super. It's been pleasing that in this parliament—whether it be with the work of industry super, the work of the tax office, the work of parliamentary committees—this has become an issue that people have become more aware of, and that's a terrific thing. But in all of that work, all of those parliamentary inquiries and the ATO's work and the sector's work, this recommendation has never bobbed up. Nobody has ever said to the revenue minister, 'Hey, why don't you do a 12-month amnesty for employers who haven't been paying super to their workers since 1992?' And the reason it hasn't been recommended is because it's crazy. It is crazy. It's a double standard: it wouldn't be applied to workers in this country, so it shouldn't be applied to employers in this country either. We shouldn't be giving this free pass to dodgy employers who've done the wrong thing.
Usually, when employers don't meet their super guarantee obligations, they can be liable for penalties and charges. This includes the super guarantee charge, which is not tax deductible, and also can include additional penalties of up to 200 per cent of the amount of the SG charge. What this proposed amnesty says is that the SG charge will also be tax deductible for employers, so you get a tax break for doing the wrong thing. It really is quite remarkable, and that's why we're seeking to amend the bill to remove this amnesty from it.
I mentioned that unpaid super is a big and growing problem in this country. Industry super estimates that 2.4 million workers are losing $5.6 billion in payments each year—$5.6 billion robbed from the retirement balances of 2.4 million workers. That is an enormous challenge. No self-respecting parliament can allow that situation to continue, and we certainly shouldn't be giving tax breaks and pats on the back and encouragement to employers who do the wrong thing. A recent ATO audit found that, between 2009 and 2015, employers ripped off workers by almost $17 billion by short-changing them on super—many of them are low-paid workers and many of them are women—and that then turbocharges some of the other inequities in the superannuation system. We already have an adequacy challenge for low-paid workers and for women. Women, who have interrupted work patterns for obvious reasons, already retire with around half as much in their superannuation balances than men. That's ridiculous, and we can't have that continue. And we certainly can't turbocharge that problem by giving a free pass to bosses who don't pay super. It disproportionately impacts on women and it disproportionately impacts on low-paid workers, and we can't encourage that further, which is what the government is proposing to do with this superannuation amnesty. Every Australian worker deserves and is entitled to the superannuation guarantee to be consistent with the laws.
As I said before, an Australian worker hoping for a fair go from this government will be waiting a long time, will be waiting in vain. If the workers of Australia want a fair go, they're going to need a Labor government. They'll have the opportunity for that at the next election, whether it's in two months or 10 months or whenever. Australian workers can hold up our plans for them against the government's plan for them. We will be reminding the Australian people that this is the government that wants to give a tax cut to employers who've done the wrong thing in the superannuation system—and that's before we even get to the $80 billion tax cut for multinationals and the big banks, which will spray around offshore and have no noticeable benefit here in Australia. The Australian people know that this government fought tooth and nail for two years against a banking royal commission. They know that they took their penalty rates away, up to $77 a week. They know that there are all kinds of different ways that this government has been antiworker in this country.
Superannuation is a really proud public policy achievement of this country. It's something we're proud of on this side of the House, having been the architects of superannuation, but, more importantly and more broadly, it's something the whole country should be proud of. To have compulsory superannuation is a public policy triumph for Australia. It has its imperfections, and I mentioned some of them a moment ago. Adequacy for low-paid workers and the gender imbalance are serious challenges that we need to address.
Those opposite say they support superannuation. But their hearts are not in it. We know that their hearts are not in it, because they opposed universal compulsory super in the first place. They consistently voted against increasing the super guarantee above three per cent—they froze it multiple times in their budgets, delaying that super guarantee increase to 12 per cent. They tried to abolish the low-income super contribution scheme. People forget this, but they also tried to weaken the penalties paid by employers who don't pay the right amount of super. We beat them back in the parliament, especially in the other place, and we're proud that we did so. That really shows what they're on about when it comes to superannuation. That's before we even get to the attacks on industry super and all of these other sorts of things that the government have proposed and the other things that have been whispered to journalists around this building that they wanted to make happen, like taking the compulsory out of compulsory super; they wanted to make it voluntary—opt in, opt out. All of these sorts of things give us a sense that they don't believe in super; they never really did and they never really will.
On this side of the House, we're proud to defend and advance the superannuation system. We've been doing it now for a quarter of a century and we'll continue to do it—because we're proud to have put in place a super system which makes it more likely that Australian working people can retire with dignity, that they can save for their own retirement and that that money can be wisely invested so that, after a lifetime of work, they can have the dignity, living standards and security that Australians need and deserve.
As part of our commitment to super, we cannot support giving employers who've ripped off their workers a penalty holiday and a tax deduction, like those opposite are proposing to do in this bill. The member for McMahon moved his amendments because we want to see this amnesty taken out of the bill. The other three bits are not, in our view, offensive; there's some merit to them and we would support those. But we can never support something which turbocharges a problem that we already have in this country, which is the wage theft associated with unpaid superannuation. We cannot continue to have billions of dollars not paid to millions of Australian workers, when that is the superannuation that they need and deserve to save for a dignified retirement.
This is becoming more and more of a pattern of this government: make the bill wide enough and slot things into it which will be unconscionable in the full knowledge that it becomes unacceptable. There are many decent things in this bill, things that should be supported by both sides of the House, but then this government puts into the bill a superannuation guarantee amnesty, a holiday for people who break the law in relation to compulsory superannuation. They want to slide this through and thought that everyone here would simply say, 'Well, the overall benefits—yeah, we'll just go along with that.'
I was part of the trade union movement that fought long to get compulsory superannuation in this country. As Bill Kelty used to say, it was probably the single biggest thing that the trade union movement has been able to establish in the last 50-odd years or perhaps even longer. Having proper funds established for people's retirement so they can retire with dignity is something that is right, and it is just, and it was certainly worthwhile for us to fight for as a principle all those years ago.
I will just remind the House that when the first notion of compulsory superannuation came in, it was only supported by one side of this House. It was supported by the Labor government. Each of those on the other side voted against compulsory superannuation. They voted against it on the basis that people had superannuation in those days. People who were professionals and could construct their own superannuation and retirement funds, such as doctors and lawyers and others, were already covered by their own superannuation requirements; and it was indeed fortunate for many Commonwealth and state public servants that they also had super. But for those of us who grew up in working-class backgrounds, superannuation was something we didn't know about. When you got to retirement age, you went onto the age pension. That was a suitable retirement that those opposite thought was there for the masses—you could go onto the pension. We thought: life has to be better than that. People putting in year after year, working and making a contribution, not just in their workplace but effectively to this country, deserve better than simply being told they can all just go onto the age pension and that's their lot in life post employment.
Superannuation is a touchstone issue for us, something that we believe so passionately in. Paul Keating was right: this needs to be at a level that will give people a decent lifestyle in retirement. Yes, it is a form of saving. But when the first round of superannuation came in at three per cent, can I remind everybody here, that was a direct trade-off from wages. It was called a 'productivity increase', which the then Industrial Relations Commission determined. That was traded off, for all Australian workers, for the benefit of superannuation. That's where the three per cent came from. That's how it all started. Those who don't think workers are entitled to it says more about them than it does about Australian workers.
Today we are here to talk to a piece of legislation in which the government want to insert a provision that allows people to hide from their obligations to pay employees their compulsory superannuation. Imagine if they gave the same notion of being able to hide from paying employees their proper wages. We would call that wage theft. Given that superannuation is an integral part of an employment package these days, whether it be wages, superannuation or other conditions, this piece of legislation that those opposite are bringing into the parliament today is basically saying: 'We'll give you a holiday. If you haven't made the appropriate contribution to your workers over the past 25 years, we'll just wipe the slate clean, provided you make the difference up, provided you pay it. But we'll also give you a tax deduction for paying it—not a penalty, not a charge, not a jail term, which you probably would encounter if you didn't pay your employees properly for 25 years, but a tax deduction.' So for all those in the gallery, if this piece of legislation gets through, you will have the honour of paying a tax deduction for employers who have broken their obligation to pay workers their appropriate contribution for superannuation going back 25 years. It just beggars belief that the government would want to put this amnesty, or this holiday from payments, into a piece of legislation that incorporates elements of reasonable merit—merit to the extent that it would be supported on both sides of this House.
We want people to obey laws. We have penalties. Sure, people in ordinary life know that the police will detain you when you're breaking the law, because there is a penalty. There are obligations on people. We set strong obligations on people to do the right thing and strong deterrents to stop people doing the wrong thing. People will incur penalties. If you don't pay your tax on time, the Australian Taxation Office will fine you. Banks have been fining people day in, day out. That's one of the reasons we wanted a royal commission. Banks were willy-nilly fining people for all sorts of things. But the whole idea of getting people to comply with a scheme of arrangements is to do the right thing; therefore, we do have penalties attached to them, if you willingly choose not to do the right thing.
This bill is just a display of this government's readiness to support dodgy employers who willingly and very concertedly have decided to cut people's conditions short by not meeting their obligations in terms of their superannuation contributions. These are dodgy employers. Let's face it, any reputable employer out there is doing the right thing. There are penalties already imposed on employers who do not do the right thing. For instance, they can be required to not only pay their superannuation to the employee but pay at a double rate; that's a penalty imposed by the Australian Taxation Office. But this now undermines all that penalty regime.
We on this side understand the superannuation guarantee system. We understand it thoroughly because we are the party that brought the superannuation guarantee to this nation. Voluntary superannuation contributions and a means-tested, government-funded age pension join together to form an integral part of dignified retirement in this country. As I said, we understand superannuation; we brought it here. They oppose superannuation at the outset.
Dealing with the non-payment of superannuation has got to be a priority for everybody. It has always been a priority for Labor. We want to ensure that our superannuation system is fair, sustainable, robust. Above all, it should serve the main and intended outcome that we want for Australian workers, and that is being able to retire with dignity. That's why penalties were imposed on employers who do the wrong thing. Under current law, an employer who does not meet their superannuation guarantee contributions can be held liable for penalties and charges. These include superannuation charges that are not tax deductible and additional penalties that are up to 200 per cent—double—the unpaid amount. That should be an incentive for an employer to do the right thing. If you don't, you are going to be penalised. The bill before us today seeks to change that by introducing a 12-month amnesty.
If this legislation gets through, employers will have a full 12 months to go to the authorities and declare: 'Look, I have done the wrong thing for the last 25 years. Very, very sorry. I'll pay what I owe my employees. I won't double it or pay them a special commission. I'll just pay what I owe them. When I do, I understand that that's going to be tax deductible.' If they put that argument to the government after this legislation gets through, if it does, those opposite will be nodding their heads and saying, 'Yeah, that's what we meant by it.' That's why I say to the people in the gallery: through this piece of legislation, which effectively rewards dodgy employers who do the wrong thing, you will have the honour of making up that difference.
Just think about it. If an employer didn't make the right payment to its employees over 25 years, how much is that going to cost an employee in their retirement? Imagine: you're turning 65, you think you're about to retire—although they want you to work until you're 70, but we'll leave that aside—and you find out that you don't have sufficient funds in your account. You get your accountant, if you can afford one at that stage—well, they can—to go back and have a look at this and you work out, 'Oh, look, they've short-changed me!' You're not going to get much support out of that mob over there, because they've just rewarded the very person who has short-changed you over that whole period.
And imagine—and I know no-one up here would—if, over the last 25 years, you'd been stealing from your employer. They didn't find out, and it went on for 25 years. Then all of a sudden they had a new accountant brought into the organisation and found out that you had been systematically knocking off money from the company over 25 years. The police would be called. You'd probably be charged immediately and you would be taken to court. And, over an issue like that, it's highly likely you'd be doing jail time.
Have a look at those two different scenarios. The government is going to give special treatment to a dodgy employer who's prepared to take money from an employee, or not make the appropriate contribution, which is basically the same thing as wage theft. But, if you're an employee caught knocking off material or money from an employer, you will be subject to the full weight of the law. If you think that's hypocritical, so do we, and that's why this piece of legislation cannot be supported and why I support the amendments put forward by the member for McMahon.
We need to have a system in this country where everyone understands their obligation, and, to do that, maybe sometimes we've got to make things clearer to people. But we should not be giving a holiday to people who wilfully do the wrong thing, in this case by exploiting their employees. It is such a ridiculous situation that the government would choose to bring this part of the proposal through with a bill that, as I say, has many aspects of merit. This defaces what that would stand for, and it also shows where this government sits in relation to employers and employees in this country. (Time expired)
I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 and on the amendment moved by the member for McMahon. As a member of this House who represents one of the oldest electorates in the country, an electorate with a demographic of many people over the age of 65, I know how important it is, for contributions towards superannuation, to ensure that there is a system put in place to look after Australian workers after they've stopped work and retired.
We on this side of the House, the Labor Party, are very proud to be the party that built Australia's modern superannuation system. We know that back in the eighties, working together with the unions and through the accord, the Hawke and Keating governments set about expanding the superannuation system. They transformed a system that had previously only served public servants and a small group of professionals in Australia. Public sector workers were about the only group of people that had superannuation and investments for their retirement, leaving the vast majority of blue-collar workers—factory workers, cleaners, people in low-paid jobs—without any superannuation or savings for their retirement. The transformed superannuation system ensured that millions of Australian workers could enjoy a comfortable standard of living after their working life in their retirement.
Through that accord with the Hawke and Keating governments back in the eighties, workers gave up wage increases in return for super contributions. What that means is that superannuation is not a gift from the employer or the government; it is part of a wage package. It is money that's put into a savings account for workers' retirement, for the work that they've done. Let's make that clear: superannuation is not a gift. It's not something extra on top of your pay. It's part of your pay that goes into a savings account for your retirement. This is the way that superannuation came to be in Australia. Now there are trillions of dollars in deferred wages and earnings that have built up through our super system that are being used for infrastructure and a whole range of other investments in Australia. So I'm very proud, as all the members on this side are, of Labor's commitment to superannuation, which has seen millions of older Australians retiring with an income far in excess of the value of the aged pension and maintaining a relatively high quality of life.
In government, we not only increased the superannuation; we made it easier for lost super accounts to be reunited with the account holder. Our record on this side of the House is in stark contrast to that of those opposite. We know that Labor created the superannuation guarantee and that, back then, the coalition opposition opposed it. We increased the super guarantee to nine per cent, and the coalition again opposed it. It provided super support to low-income earners, and again they sought to abolish it. We also increased the super guarantee from nine per cent to 12 per cent when we were in government. Again, the coalition opposed it, with the increase to 12 per cent being pushed out to at least 2025, meaning workers in Australia lost thousands of dollars.
Those members opposite, and this government in particular, have always been ideologically opposed to superannuation, particularly industry super, because it was hard fought for by the unions. They oppose it on an ideological basis, not from some sort of logic, which is very wrong. They oppose it because it was hard fought for by the unions and won by the labour movement in this nation. We know that they oppose industry funds, despite reports that have found that a lot of the industry funds, which have people from unions and businesses as well as independents on their boards, dramatically outperform the retail funds. Every year we look at the results of superannuation companies, and we find that industry funds are continually outperforming the retail funds. Even with those records, which provide a stark contrast, this government opposes industry funds.
I, like other members on this side of the House, am also concerned about wage theft. We heard the previous member speak about wage theft. Decent hardworking Australians deserve every dollar of their wages and their super. Let me remind you, as I said earlier, that superannuation is not a gift; it's part of your wages. Therefore, if an employer is not paying the contributions into your super fund, it is wage theft. There can be no doubt that deliberately underpaying the wages and superannuation of hardworking people is nothing less than theft.
We've heard countless examples in recent years of franchises, cafes, restaurants—all sorts of industries—underpaying workers on a grand scale. Usually, it is young people and newly arrived migrants—people who perhaps aren't 100 per cent sure of the system. Basically, a lot of these unscrupulous, dodgy bosses consider it to be their own gift to be paid when they feel like it. This is wrong. It's part of a worker's wages. As I said, young and new Australians in particular have been exploited and targeted, and, at its worst, this is disgraceful behaviour and should have no place in our society.
The minister outlined in her second reading contribution that, according to the Australian tax office, around $2.85 billion in super went unpaid in the year of 2014-15. That's $2.85 billion. We call it super but in fact it's wages. People worked and were not paid; that's what it is. And, as I said, it's not a gift from the employer. It's not a gift from government; it's not something extra on top of your wages; it is part of your wages. That's $2.85 billion that was stolen from the pockets of hardworking Australians.
Over the 25 years since the superannuation charge was introduced under the Keating government, that underpayment of super by dodgy bosses is tens of billions of dollars. And it is tens of billions of dollars of additional pressure that has unnecessarily been put on taxpayers and the pension system by bosses who decide, for whatever reason, to line their pockets or just don't feel like paying it. That's the only reason. What that means is that each and every one of us is paying for it. It is theft from every Australian in this nation, because, if the worker's superannuation is not at a level where they can live comfortably, then they will go on the age pension, and we pay for that through our taxes. So, when they don't pay that superannuation, it's not just theft from that particular worker; it's actually thieving from the pockets of every Australian in this nation.
The minister talks about giving the Australian tax office tools that they need. But we know that this government continues to make it harder for regulators such as the ATO to go after those who rip off hardworking Australians. We know they've cut thousands of jobs from the Public Service and thousands of jobs from the ATO since they came to office in 2013. They've cut $26 million from ASIC at a time when, through the royal commission that's currently being conducted, we've seen rip-offs and rorts. Those opposite had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the calling of that particular royal commission.
They have frozen funding for the Fair Work Ombudsman in the budget that was announced a few weeks ago. The Fair Work Ombudsman is the government body that workers can turn to when they've got nowhere else to seek help, and they've frozen the funding to it. They've cut and outsourced Centrelink support staff and they've overseen cuts to penalty rates. We saw that the commission made a finding to cut penalty rates. We had a bill in this place that they could have supported to overturn that, but they didn't, therefore contributing to penalty rate cuts for some of the most vulnerable and lowest-paid workers in this nation.
When I hear those opposite talking about supporting workers, it reminds me of the time when a former Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, said, 'Working families in Australia have never been better off.' That was at the same time that he was introducing Work Choices, which saw thousands of dollars being ripped out of workers' wages through AWAs. Give us a break when they say these things!
This bill also proposes another nasty. It gives a 12-month amnesty for the nonpayment of super, and it goes back all the way to 1992. It is an amnesty for stealing money out of workers' pockets since 1992. Most people would go to jail if they stole money from someone else—and this is going to go all the way back to the nineties, and it could be worth three to 10 times more if you add interest on the money that's owed to these people. So not only do dodgy bosses get an amnesty from penalties; they get a tax deduction as well on top of it. What a joke! And look at how they treat others. It should be a criminal offence. Here in Australia, we're not asking for much. We're asking for a decent wage for a decent day's work. That's always been the motto in this country, and we're starting to see it go down the gurgler.
Why don't the government give an amnesty to Centrelink recipients who perhaps have put in some wrong documentation or have been given wrong information, as has been the case at Centrelink? Give them an amnesty. These people are experiencing very hard times. You don't go to Centrelink because you've got money coming out of your ears; you go to Centrelink because you are having a hard time. Sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes Centrelink makes mistakes and then Centrelink demands that you pay back a debt. But there is no amnesty for those people. All you have to do is look at the robo-debt debacle last year, where over 20,000 people—mainly pensioners—were sent notices from Centrelink demanding that they pay overdue debts when there was no overdue debt. Investigations through the minister's office found that 20,000 were sent notices and those notices were wrong. They didn't give those people an amnesty—and many did pay, even though they shouldn't have had to. This government set about trying to enforce debts through that Centrelink system when in fact those debts simply did not exist. The government finally admitted that, last year, 20,000 people were wrongly given notices and told they owed money to Centrelink—something we on this side helped to expose.
You can see the stark difference with this government. When it comes to supporting workers or low-income people in this nation, they have absolutely no interest. On the one hand, they come down with the hard hand of the law when it comes to Centrelink recipients and, on the other hand, they give an amnesty of 25 years to people who have stolen money from other Australians.
The minister talks about this being a mechanism for small and medium businesses to come forward and make good—that's the argument put forward for this amnesty—but it doesn't appear that this amnesty is limited to small and medium businesses. This will also cover many multinational companies that have done the wrong thing and it will cover many big businesses and big companies that pay no tax in Australia—companies that have set up their shelf companies overseas, pay no tax and also rip money off workers. The government are going to give them an amnesty as well. When the minister says that this is a mechanism for small and medium businesses, she doesn't tell us that the big businesses that have all the accountants in place, and most probably know that they are doing the wrong thing, will get an amnesty.
Only weeks ago we saw that ISS Facility Services Australia—part of the multinational ISS Group—was issued with a penalty of $132,217 by the Federal Court for underpayment of wages. ISS employ 13,000 staff across Australia. It's not exactly a small business or medium business. A penalty of $132,000 for a company like that is peanuts. Research by Industry Super Australia found that around 2.76 million, or almost one-third of Australian workers, eligible for super are missing out on some or all of their entitlements. That is a massive amount. This is theft on a large scale, not bits and pieces happening occasionally here and there; this is 2.76 million Australians who are owed money or have not had money put into their super funds.
It sickens me and all of us on this side of the House that some dodgy bosses out there have been getting a competitive advantage over good bosses—the majority who do the right thing—and now they are going to get an amnesty. This affects law-abiding businesses that are doing the right thing, as the ones who are underpaying are the ones who are going to benefit out of this. I believe that we are better than this, and that's why I'll be supporting the amendment moved by Labor.
I'm pleased to follow my colleague, the member for Hindmarsh, in speaking today on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 and also the amendment moved by the member for McMahon. As you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, and as all of us on this side of the House realise, superannuation is very important. It is very important to us as the Labor Party and it is very important to the labour movement across this nation.
Labor created Australia's superannuation system and we will always work to defend it and the workers who benefit from having their employers pay into the system for their retirement. We believe in it. We really believe in superannuation. Let's remember that the Liberal and National parties opposed compulsory superannuation, just like they oppose every great social reform in this country. Each one of them voted against compulsory superannuation when it was introduced into this parliament. Ultimately, and luckily for this country, they lost that argument and the Keating Labor government legislated for compulsory superannuation to the greater benefit of workers in this country.
The bill includes a number of measures and they have been gone through in much detail by others. The most disappointing, upsetting and destructive measure we see in this bill is the so-called one-off 12-month superannuation guarantee amnesty. The government have put forward a measure that proposes a superannuation guarantee amnesty for employers who have done the wrong thing by their workers. The proposal the government have put forward for this supposed one-off 12-month superannuation amnesty will be given to employers who have not complied with their legal obligations to pay superannuation to employees. The idea, they have said in this place, is that this will encourage those employers who have not paid superannuation to their employees to now get their act together and do so. Employees will be 'encouraged' to meet their obligations and this will lead to employees being paid superannuation. Encouraged? Is this government really serious?
There is something fundamentally wrong with this way of thinking and this proposal. This government thinks proposing an amnesty will encourage employers to pay employees their hard earned superannuation, their actual wages. It feels ridiculous to have to point out in this place that the superannuation guarantee is the law. Employers have to pay it. There is no option. There is no need for encouragement. It is just the law. Employers have to pay their employees their proper wages. The proposal of this government does not address what is a despicable wrong. Superannuation is part of every worker's conditions of employment. It's not an option, just like workplace safety is no longer an option in workplaces around this country. Not paying employees super in the first place is nothing less than wage theft. It is wrong, it is immoral and it needs to be stamped out as the unacceptable practice that it is.
I'm always reluctant to bring matters of religion into this place but it is important to note that Pope Francis, an international leader of millions of people around the globe, has taken to task employers who do not pay employees what is legitimately owed to them. The Holy Father called the practice of wage theft a 'mortal sin'. I'm sure the millions of Australian workers who have been ripped off in this country feel exactly the same way. An employee's superannuation, once earned, does not belong to their employer; once earned, it belongs to the employee. Again, not paying the employee their super is theft pure and simple.
It is perplexing to think that dodgy employers are being given the chance by this government to get away with stealing from their employees. Industry Super Australia previously estimated that at least 2.4 million Australian workers were victims of stolen superannuation in one year alone. More than 2.4 million ordinary working people who went to work, who fulfilled their end of the work bargain, were then taken advantage of and had their money stolen from them by the dodgy employers who have engaged in wage theft.
I'm pretty sure we all know someone who has not had their super paid and has been trying to track it down. I know there are some young people in my family who have been ripped off by employers. They are often young people who work in cafes and the hospitality industry. They do change jobs—that is the nature of being young and moving around in that environment while you are studying. They are the people who have been attacked by greedy employers who literally fail to meet their obligations under the law.
Another way of looking at the problem is that a whopping 30 per cent of employees are missing out on their superannuation earnings. Industry Super Australia reported that about $5. 6 billion per year in unpaid super is missing from workers' retirement savings across this country. This is massive problem and it is equal to those workers losing $2,000 per year, which should be going into their retirement savings. There are long-term consequences for these workers and there are long-term consequences for the country.
Superannuation is one of the three pillars of retirement income in this country, alongside the aged pension and personal savings. By being robbed of their super, people have been robbed of the possibility of a comfortable retirement. Each time a worker has an amount of super stolen from them, they are missing out on the compounding interest returns on that amount. They have been robbed of a chance of self-reliance in retirement. What this means, of course, as my colleague the member for Hindmarsh pointed out earlier, is that this is putting added pressures onto the age pension system. Without the security of a funded superannuation pension, people will have to turn to the age pension to fund a retirement that might not offer the standard of living they could have otherwise reasonably expected. Future governments will have to fund additional age pension amounts because of the bad behaviour of some employers.
But why is it that this government feels the need to excuse this behaviour? Why is it that, instead of protecting the victims of this behaviour, the perpetrators are being given a tax break? Why are those employers and businesses who do the wrong thing not being held to account for their actions? If an employee were stealing from their employer, they would not be afforded an amnesty. No, they would, rightly, have to face the consequences of their crime. But here we have a government who is happily espousing one rule for badly behaving businesses and another rule for everybody else. Instead, this amendment will provide a 12-month amnesty for employers who have stolen superannuation and will give them incentives and tax deductions to encourage them to repay the stolen amounts.
The proposed new measures of this government will allow employers to claim tax deductions for payments of the superannuation guarantee charge or contributions made during the amnesty to offset the superannuation guarantee charge. In plain language, this means that dodgy employers will get a tax break for doing the wrong thing. Is there no end to the favours this rotten government will dish out to employers that break the law? We have not only a $17 billion tax break for the banks, which have regularly flouted the law, including enabling money laundering on an extraordinary scale, but also this super guarantee legislation, which will cancel the penalties and fees that would otherwise have applied for noncompliance.
All employers who have not paid super to their employees for 25 years are going to get a penalty holiday. In effect, those who have done the wrong thing will not get punished for their wrong actions and will be allowed to get off scot-free. The incentive for those employers and businesses who have done the right thing has become completely null and void. In this discussion we should consider the employers that do the right thing—and most employers do the right thing. Like most people in this country, business owners meet the right and proper obligations and responsibilities within the community and under the law. Not only is wage theft by not paying super bad for employees themselves; it is cheating other employers that obey the law. Cheats are getting themselves an unfair advantage over other employers and other businesses, and that is manifestly unfair and wrong.
It is not fair, but we know that fairness is not something that this government is particularly worried about, especially when it comes to the workers of this country. We've seen this in the government's refusal to protect the penalty rates of over 700,000 workers of the country, 10,000 of which live in my electorate of Brand, who, through no fault of their own, had their pay slashed when penalty rates were cut. Instead of sticking up for low-paid workers and instead of protecting their pay and conditions, this mean and tricky government has failed to protect workers and goes above and beyond to protect businesses doing the wrong thing. Let's not forget how long they protected the banks from the royal commission. Prime Minister Turnbull really can't help giving more and more to businesses—massive corporate tax handouts, slashed penalty rates and zero consequences for not paying workers' entitlements. What a shame that workers are not held in the same privileged esteem in which the Prime Minister holds big businesses.
As you've heard, this amnesty was announced without any consultation. It was not recommended by the Senate Economics References Committee's inquiry into superannuation guarantee nonpayment, and I would say that that's because the committee, full of quite intelligent people, did not think that it was a good idea. Nor was it recommended by the government's own Superannuation Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group, and, again, I would say that that's probably because the group did not think that it was a good idea. The measure really has come completely out of left field. It's not mentioned in the budget and there are no recent parliamentary reports into unpaid super guarantee that have recommended this amnesty measure and the attached tax breaks. Only a government as out of touch as Malcolm Turnbull's government would reward dodgy businesses who have been robbing workers for 25 years. Such employers are crooks and they should be treated as such.
While we're on the matter, I reflect on the comments of the member for Hindmarsh, who pointed out the importance of industry super funds in Australia. Again, this government has no hesitation in attacking industry super funds and the superannuation of workers whenever it gets the chance. We should remind ourselves in this place that industry super funds are the best-performing super funds in the country. They produce the best results for workers, who pay their superannuation payments into super funds, and we should respect the management of those super funds and what they do for workers right across this country.
Instead, we are seeing constant attacks through various committees of this parliament; they use reviews of APRA and other entities to set up a position where they can hack into excellent institutions that have for decades provided the best results for working men and women who choose to join these super funds and get the best returns for their savings through superannuation which will provide better for them long into their retirement. It's a shame the government chooses not to work with these industry super funds and chooses instead to fight tooth and nail against sensible, well-managed super funds that deliver for the workers of Australia.
Instead of protecting the superannuation guarantee and following the pretty sensible notion of extending the amount that would go into the superannuation guarantee, this government of course chooses to attack it. It lets bad apples get off scot-free and get a tax incentive for not doing the right thing, for breaking the law. Saying it's a matter of encouragement is just absurd. When do any of us get the option to be encouraged to obey the law? It's not fair on other business that do the right thing. It's certainly not fair on employees—many of whom are women in low-paid non-permanent work—to not get paid their actual work entitlements which are captured by the superannuation guarantee.
I pay tribute to those in this place who have come before us, especially on this side—the Labor representatives who have fought hard to develop this important social policy of superannuation. They introduced it and fought against the Liberal and National parties, which resisted every step of the way superannuation for the benefit of workers' retirements in this country. Now they say they're into it; but then we see legislation like this, which gives law breakers a 25-year penalty holiday and a free pass to continue to break the law. What kind of encouragement is that, other than sending a message to dodgy employers around the country to just forget it? 'What do I care about the employees? I'm going to have an unfair advantage over other businesses. I'm not going to pay my workers their correct entitlement. They might come to work and do their work but I'm not going to hold up my end of the bargain and pay them properly.'
It's a crying shame that this is what this government stands for, but we see it time and time again in this House. I only hope they find their moral compass at some point in the future and start to think about the workers in their electorates that are being continually ripped off by big, small and medium enterprises that think it's a fair thing to be dodgy, to break the law and to not abide by the great social contract that we have in this country now, thanks to Labor, which is the superannuation savings which will serve workers well into their retirements. I thank the House.
Up until the mid-1980s less than 40 per cent of the working population had superannuation. That figure was even less for blue-collar workers and women; for them it was only around 25 per cent. This all changed in 1991 when Labor under Paul Keating, our great former Prime Minister and Treasurer, introduced the superannuation guarantee, a compulsory system of superannuation for Australian employees.
The superannuation guarantee is exactly what it says it is. It's a guarantee that superannuation will be paid to workers. It's not optional. It is a guarantee. It is not an optional extra. When it was introduced, it boosted coverage to 80 per cent of employees and, over the following decade, the coverage increased to 91 per cent of Australian workers.
Under current arrangements, employers are required to pay superannuation to employees earning $450 per month before tax and working more than 30 hours per week in a full-time, part-time or casual capacity. This requirement stands, regardless of whether an employee is under the age of 18.
It is also important to note employers' obligations as to workers over the age of 70. This is especially important, given this government's intent to change the retirement age. If employees aged over 70 pass a work test and work more than 40 hours in a 30-day period, their employers can still pay contributions.
It's pretty clear what your requirements are as an employer, which is why the figures provided by Industry Super Australia about the number of employers who are failing to pay their staff's superannuation are breathtaking. They're breathtaking and they're appalling. I reiterate: the word is 'guarantee', not 'optional extra'. The sheer amount that unscrupulous employers are ripping off Australian workers is absolutely unbelievable, and the Senate Economics References Committee agreed. According to the committee report:
… analysis by Industry Super Australia … indicates that employers failed to pay an aggregate amount of $5.6 billion in SG—
superannuation 'guarantee'—
contributions in 2013-14.
This amount represents 2.76 million people affected across Australia, with an average amount of over $2,000 lost per person in a single year. But the ATO disputed the amount put forward by Industry Super Australia, without actually being able to put forward its own figures.
There is a superannuation guarantee gap—and again I underscore that word 'guarantee'. The fact that employers are ripping off their workers is not in dispute. In fact, the issue has been raised in numerous reviews, dating back to 2001. In April 2001, the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services tabled their report Enforcement of the superannuation guarantee charge. This is the charge applied to employers who don't comply with their obligations to pay workers' super on time or pay the right amount. Even this report, 16 years earlier than the most recent Senate committee report into the superannuation guarantee, noted the same concerns as were raised in last year's inquiry: the ATO's 'apparent lack of activity in pursuing defaulting employers and addressing individual complaints'; the complexity of the superannuation guarantee system; and low levels of education among employers and employees about their superannuation rights and responsibilities—and I will come to that later.
A report released by the Inspector-General of Taxation in 2010 noted the same ongoing complaints about unpaid superannuation entitlements and frustrations of employees recovering unpaid amounts. In 2015, an ANAO report of an audit of the ATO's work in promoting compliance with the superannuation guarantee obligations showed that there was still work to be done—that the ATO could benefit from better targeting of compliance activities and could gain a greater understanding of the level of noncompliance with obligations across industry sectors and types of employers.
In 2016, there was another review—how many reviews are we up to now?—by the Inspector-General of Taxation into the ATO's compliance activities on the superannuation guarantee. But this report has not been released by the minister—and I am sure we can all guess why. Fast forward to the Senate Economics References Committee report from 2017, and not a lot has changed.
These warning bells have been ringing for years. We are going back to 2001, if not before. These warning bells have been ringing for years about the lack of compliance on the superannuation guarantee, and we are hearing them again from this Senate economics report. But enough is enough. There are already deterrents in place in the legislation. So, yes, these warning bells have been ringing about lack of compliance, but there are already systems in place to ensure that this is a superannuation guarantee and not an optional extra for employees. There are already deterrents in place in the legislation. The superannuation guarantee charge means that defaulting employers incur significant penalties and administration fees. And yet there is still a gap in the superannuation of a significant number of Australian workers, and some of our most vulnerable workers are not being paid. A problem that still hasn't been addressed, 26 years on from the introduction of universal compulsory superannuation, is knowing which industries and which workers are most at risk of unpaid super. There is a significant data gap here and, to ensure this legislation that we're discussing today is effective, we need to know where the gaps are and who is falling through those gaps.
Dealing with underpayment of the superannuation guarantee wage theft—that's what it is; it is wage theft. It's not an, 'Oops, I forgot.' It's a guarantee; it's not an optional extra. Dealing with underpayment of the superannuation guarantee wage theft is a priority for Labor, which is why the 12-month amnesty this bill proposes is problematic. The bill provides a one-off 12-month amnesty to allow employers to claim tax deductions for payments of the superannuation guarantee charge or contribution made during the amnesty period to offset the charge, and to have the penalties and fees that may otherwise apply in relation to historical superannuation non-compliance reduced to nil. It's an amnesty for forgetting. It's an amnesty for not taking their responsibility to their employees seriously, for treating the guarantee as an optional extra.
The amnesty would cover non-compliance for the period from 1 July 1992 to 31 March 2018. That's a lot of, 'Oops'. It's a lot of, 'Oops, I forgot to pay superannuation for my workers.' That's a lot of wage theft. The minister considers this amnesty period to be a 'carrot' to address historical non-compliance. Let's take a look at the timeframe—1 July 1992 to 31 March 2018—a little more closely. That is giving a free pass to employers who have ripped off their staff since the superannuation guarantee was introduced. Can you believe it? That's a lot of, 'I forgot to pay super.' That's a lot of, 'I forgot to actually treat this seriously.' That's a lot of, 'I forgot to treat this as a guarantee.' That's a lot of, 'Oops, my dog ate my homework.' Under this bill, employers who have ripped off staff—and that's what they have done, they have ripped off staff; this is wage theft—across the past 26 years will get a free pass. What part of that is okay? Twenty-six years of ripping off workers, of thieving their wages, and the employers are going to get a free pass. It's just breathtaking that people tend to think that that's okay.
In the same breath, the minister also talks about the 12-month amnesty having a 'stick'. Right. It will be interesting to see how effective that stick is given the fact that for more than 26 years people haven't taken the superannuation guarantee seriously. So we've got this stick approach after the carrot. The 'stick' is: if employers who could come forward during the amnesty period choose not to and are subsequently caught by the ATO, they could be subject to a 50 per cent penalty on top of the other penalties and charges associated with late payment of the superannuation guarantee. This particular measure needs further consultation. There are views from COSBOA, who support the amnesty, and there are views from the ACTU, who are against it, saying penalties should be increased and employers shouldn't be getting off scot-free. But what this bill fails to consider is the impact that underpayment of the superannuation guarantee has on some of our most vulnerable workers. Non-payment of superannuation impacts on total disability payments and income protection insurance payments that are attached to superannuation. Those most at risk are those on lower to middle incomes—the very people who are most reliant on compulsory superannuation contributions, and less able to make voluntary contributions to supplement their retirement savings.
According to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, the average Australian woman retires with around half the super balance of the average man. Women live longer than men. Women earn less than men. These are all stories we know; these are all facts we know. Women take more time out of the workforce and, ultimately, retire with less superannuation. Women still bear the majority of unpaid caring and household responsibilities, and significant and increasing numbers of Australian women are ending their working lives facing financial hardship, facing poverty and, in some cases, even facing homelessness—and that is increasing. The Equality Rights Alliance did a study a number of years ago about the fact that we are facing what they called a tsunami of homelessness of older women in the next decade. They are women who have worked all their lives, are on moderate wages and can't afford to buy a home, so they are in the private rental market. They're usually divorced, they usually have brought up kids on their own and they have very little super. We're talking about $40,000 or $50,000 of superannuation. Their retirements look very bleak. I know because I speak to these women whenever I make a speech on financial literacy and superannuation.
Whenever I make a speech on those two issues, at the end of the session women who are invariably in their mid-50s to mid-60s come up to me in tears—always in tears—saying, 'You've just told my story. I am absolutely terrified about my retirement. I am absolutely terrified about ageing. I am absolutely terrified about my future. I have very little super. I will need to go onto the age pension. I'm in the private rental market.' They're earning too much to get social housing, they have next to zero in savings and their future looks incredibly bleak. Imagine staring down that reality at the end of your working life when you've brought up kids on your own, you've done it tough financially, you've tried as hard as possible to get that superannuation together and make those contributions to superannuation and you're struggling to pay rent in the private market. Imagine what a future looks like for a woman who has gone through all that. She has worked all her life and brought up her kids on her own, but here she is, staring down a future of being on the age pension, having very little in her super account and being in the private rental market. It doesn't look that rosy. It is very bleak, which is why these women are invariably in tears and frightened out of their wits. They are absolutely frightened about their futures. Addressing those women and the bleak futures that they have is another issue. The situation, like so much related to homelessness, is quite complex.
The message I also convey when I'm speaking to these women is that a man is not a financial plan. Women, sisters—I encourage you to grip your finances and to get an understanding about what's going on in your bank account and in your superannuation account. Yes, it's complex. Superannuation is mind-bogglingly complex. When I set up my small business, I moved off the Public Service super and had to look for my own super supplier. I ended up in an industry fund because Money magazine showcased the fact that industry funds were the best-performing funds in Australia, so that's where my money went. Through that process, I gained a greater understanding of superannuation and how it worked and took charge of the investment mix. I encourage women of Australia: a man is not a financial plan. Please, get an understanding of your bank account; get an understanding of your superannuation account. A lot of women say to me, 'It's all too hard.' Retirement with no money in the bank while paying for private rental on the age pension is very hard. That's the future that you could potentially face if you don't deal with this issue and get literate and remember that a man is not a financial plan.
I will back up the previous speaker on that. When I first started working as a parliamentarian, we were receiving nine per cent super—not on the old super scheme but on the fairly regular super scheme—and a couple of years later I noticed there was quite a bit missing. They'd been paying another Julie Owens somewhere else. It's amazing how, even when you know your super is being paid, you have to pay attention to it.
That's pretty bad.
I know—go figure. It was pretty bad. I'm glad the other Julie Owens didn't retire and take it all before I managed to get it back. I did get it back because I have an employer who tries to do the right thing, but it turns out that there are many, many employers who don't. Industry Super Australia released some figures recently that showed that 2.4 million workers are being underpaid $5.6 billion in payments a year. That's about $2,000 a year for each of those workers. That's an incredible amount of money to lose from your retirement savings, particularly if you're a low-income worker. For many, that would be their entire super for the year.
The ATO disputed those figures, but it released some of its own. It estimated in 2015 that up to 20 per cent of businesses were noncompliant with their superannuation obligations, saying that the issue of noncompliance was 'endemic, especially in small businesses'. Since then they've released some figures for the 2017-18 financial year showing that the number of business owners who failed to pay their employees super had increased by 60 per cent in that year alone—more than the 20 per cent that they believed weren't paying in 2015—and that the number of employees who had lodged complaints against employers had skyrocketed by over 56 per cent from 8,200 in 2016-17 to 12,903 in 2017-18. One would assume that the number of employees who actually complained would be small relative to the number of employees who weren't aware that their super had not been paid appropriately.
As the previous speaker said, it is a guarantee. It's a super guarantee. I was in the workforce just before it was introduced. When I was 30, there was no super. I'd just finished paying off my university degree. I had no savings at all. I went along to an investment adviser who specifically advised women, and we began to set up some superannuation savings. It was a few years later that the superannuation guarantee was first introduced. I remember those years. I remember the deal then. Workers gave up pay rises. We actually agreed as a workforce that we would give up pay rises while the super scheme was introduced. It was actually part of our pay. It was negotiated. It was agreed on. It became part of our pay. Our long-term savings for our retirement became part of our pay package. It was understood then that super was part of our wage; and, as it's gone up over the decades to the 12 per cent or so that it is now, it is still part of our wage.
I understand sometimes why small business doesn't think it is part of a wage, because you pay it later. I was a small business. Back when I was a small business, super was really hard to pay. You could pay wages by electronic transfer, but you had to fill out paper forms for the super companies every three months. It was unbelievably painful. I totally understand why sometimes a business will think, 'This is different. It comes later. You pay it in a lump sum.' But it's not. The fact that you pay it in a lump sum later, rather than fortnightly or monthly with wages, doesn't mean it's not still part of the wage. It is. We know that as businesses because we cost the super into our decisions to employ a person. When we employ a person we work out how much it's going to cost to do that. We work that out. If we're any good at all in business, we know that that's part of the cost of employing an employee. One wonders why so many businesses—up to 20 per cent—don't pay their super guarantees as they should and why the number of businesses that paid the penalty went up by 60 per cent between 2016-17 and 2017-18. There is clearly something really wrong going on out there.
Of course, it isn't just about super. We have a much bigger issue of wage theft in our community at the moment. Again, just as we've seen the government essentially sit on its hands for five years on the non-payment of super, we've also seen it sit on its hands in relation to other kinds of wage theft. In 2015 we saw some extraordinary examples: Myer subcontractors employing cleaners on sham contracts, resulting in them being denied penalty rates and superannuation and working without OH&S protections; the systemic exploitation of 7-Eleven store workers involving the doctoring of pay records; Pizza Hut delivery drivers being paid as little as $6 an hour in rampant sham contracting arrangements; widespread exploitation of workers in Baiada food processing factories—and it goes on. We're hearing, over and over again, stories of businesses that are not paying workers properly, whether it's wages, conditions or super guarantee. These high-profile examples are just the tip of the iceberg. In 2014-15, the Fair Work Ombudsman recovered $22.3 million in back pay for over 11,000 workers. But that pales into insignificance against the $5.6 billion in super payments each year. This is something that must be fixed.
One would have to question whether what we're talking about today is something that will fix this problem at all. What we're talking about today is the government proposing to give an amnesty to employers who have not complied with their superannuation guarantee obligations. If you haven't paid your superannuation obligations, you'll have a year to pay without penalty. But superannuation theft is just as bad as wages theft, and I find it hard to understand why a government would look at $5.6 billion in underpayment of workers every year and think that we could just waive that with an amnesty. You've broken the law; you've stolen from your workers, sometimes for years. No problem. Pay it back. No problem; slate cleaned; no worries—except for the workers, of course, who've been badly dudded, sometimes for years.
Why should employers who've ripped off their workers be given a tax break as well? The government is actually doing that as well. It's allowing a tax deduction on the charges, so these employers will have no penalty and a tax deduction. This government just can't help giving more and more backdoor ways for businesses to dud their workers.
The amnesty was a complete surprise, and it was announced without any consultation. It wasn't recommended by the Senate Economics Committee inquiry into superannuation guarantee nonpayment, neither was it recommended by the government's own Superannuation Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group. The Turnbull government's proposed changes mean an employer could have not paid an employee's superannuation entitlements from right back to 1 July 1992, right back to the beginning of the superannuation guarantee. That is 26 years. You haven't paid your super for 26 years? No problem. Waive the penalties. Walk away. No foul. No problem. That is 26 years of underpaying. After 26 years of stealing from your workers you'll get an amnesty—not an amnesty for the last six months, not an amnesty for a year, but an amnesty for 26 years of nonpayment.
And the government wants to give them a free pass. Usually, when employers do not meet their superannuation guarantee obligations, they can be liable for penalties and charges: a super guarantee charge composed of the shortfall, nominal interest and a $20 per employee per quarter administration component; penalties which can be up to 200 per cent of the amount of the super guarantee charge; a general interest charge where the super charge or penalties are not paid by the due date. But, under the government's proposed amnesty, the administration component of superannuation guarantee charge and the penalties would be waived. But, even worse, the superannuation guarantee charge and contributions offset against the charge would become tax deductible for employers. So the dodgy employers who have been stealing from their staff, stealing from their workers—in many cases for years—get a tax break and an amnesty.
The Prime Minister had absolutely no idea of these moves when asked about them by the Leader of the Opposition in question time. He simply didn't know. Only someone as out of touch as Malcolm Turnbull would reward dodgy businesses who have been robbing workers for 25 years with a free pass. Businesses who do the wrong thing and steal from workers should pay the price for their misconduct, not get another tax break from Turnbull. The amnesty for dodgy employers comes completely out of left field. It wasn't mentioned in the budget. It presumably was a decision that had been taken but not yet announced. But there are no recent parliamentary reports into unpaid super guarantee that actually recommend such a measure. Let's remember again that what we're talking about here is theft—theft of $5.6 billion every year from 2.4 million workers. That's around $2,000 a year.
We know that the government doesn't like superannuation very much. We know that Liberal governments in the past haven't liked it and we know they don't like it now. At every step over the years, conservative governments have stood in the way of our compulsory superannuation system. They fought tooth and nail against it when it was first created back in the early nineties. They hated it. They voted against increasing the super guarantee above three per cent. They opposed it initially. They voted against the increase to three per cent. They tried to abolish the low-income superannuation contribution scheme which boosted the superannuation of low-paid workers. They delayed the super guarantee increase to 12 per cent, quite recently, in the term of the Abbott-Turnbull government. They tried to weaken penalties for employers who didn't pay the right amount of super, before we beat them back. Now there is no penalty. There is no penalty now. They've gone one step further: 'Instead of weakening the penalties, let's wipe them out altogether!' Remember too that those opposite recently wanted to undermine the entire super scheme by allowing people to access their super accounts for a house deposit. They just don't like the superannuation scheme that we have, and now we see them attacking the industry super funds, which are the best performing super funds that we have.
But there is another issue to this too when it comes to fairness. It's not just about fairness to workers, which of course is incredibly important—super is wages, and 2.4 million workers are being underpaid every year under the watch of this government—it's also about fair competition with other businesses. These businesses have cheated. They've competed with the business next door and the one down the road by underpaying their staff. If they could operate their business for a lower price than the business down the road, that's probably one of the reasons—because they were stealing from their staff, they were not competing on a level playing field. It's no different from a business that doesn't pay award wages. It's no different from a business which doesn't pay tax. They are competing by cheating. They are competing with legitimate businesses down the road, undercutting the capacity of legitimate businesses to compete and essentially starting that race to the bottom. It is not right that we have up to 20 per cent of businesses cheating by stealing from workers and competing in an unfair way with legitimate businesses that do the right thing.
This amnesty stuff just wouldn't cut it in any other area. We have many businesses deliberately, wilfully, stealing. Some, apparently right back until 1992, are about to get a free pass. They have been stealing from staff that made their businesses work, they have been undercutting legitimate businesses down the road and, in doing that, they have been stealing from us all. Our super scheme is for all of us. It supports our community in retirement and, over time, it reduces the need for taxpayer funded pensions. It leaves many, many people in a more secure financial position in their retirement than they otherwise would be, and that's actually good for all of us. When 20 per cent of businesses rip off $5.6 billion a year from our super scheme, they are actually stealing from us all. This is a really serious matter, and I can't believe we have a government whose approach to it is simply to say, 'Oh, no foul. Never mind. We tried to weaken the penalties but we couldn't get away with that, so we'll just wipe them out altogether.' Will you do it again in three years? Will you do it again in five years? Really? Is that it? Is that the entire response to the theft of $5.6 billion from workers every year. Really? That's it?
If you don't pay your tax and you don't pay your tax for a while, you don't have the tax office coming to you saying, 'We'll give you a bit of an amnesty. It's alright. You probably made a bit of a mistake.' You get letters demanding that you pay. You often get told, 'You've got to pay this amount with interest.' And if the rules change around you, as many people will know, you can sometimes get a letter from the tax office saying, 'You didn't pay enough tax in previous years, so pay a bit more'—and you have to pay it. If a business doesn't pay its suppliers and doesn't do so for quite a few years, they don't get an amnesty and get told, 'No, that's alright. We didn't need you to pay us for a few years.' No, you very often get taken to court if you don't pay your bills and you don't pay your legal obligations when you're contracted with someone to pay something. But it seems, according to this Liberal government, to be something completely different when it comes to wages and when it comes to wages forgone in the form of superannuation. What this government is saying with this bill is that it is okay if employers have chosen not to pay money that will go towards people's retirement: 'We'll treat you completely differently from every other area of law; you don't even get a slap over the wrist. You get a free pass.'
We know increasingly, because of the work that's being done by unions and investigative reporters, that wage theft is becoming a massive problem in this country. There are various ways that employers do it. Sometimes it's dodgy bookkeeping where there are effectively two sets of accounts—and we saw this in the context of 7-Eleven, for example—where one set of books makes it looks like everyone is being paid properly, but the workers are being told separately, 'You've got to pay back some of that money; otherwise you'll lose your job.' In other places, we've seen many, many reports in the press of some big names withholding people's wages and other forms of income, like tips, that are meant to be going to people who are earning a very small amount of money. We know increasingly that wage theft is a problem. We know that there are many employers that try to get around even having to pay the legal minimum wage by calling their employees 'contractors' or through some other form of arrangement.
We know that's a big problem, but it's especially acute when it comes to superannuation because the payment doesn't get made directly to the employee; it gets made to a third party, to a superannuation fund. That means that an employee will often not know whether a payment has been made or not for quite some time. In my role before I came to this place, I spent quite a bit of time working on behalf of workers and unions when companies had gone under. Through no fault of the workers, a business gets placed into administration, and you're left scrambling around, trying to make sure that everyone gets their minimum entitlements. What we found, time and time again, was that, yes, a lot of people didn't get their wages, especially during those final couple of weeks of the business, but, when you delved into the superannuation, it was not uncommon at all to find that superannuation had gone unpaid for a very, very long period of time. People don't know about it, because not everyone spends their life checking their superannuation balance. If you've got young workers and people who don't speak English as their first language, as was the case for many of the people I was dealing with, they would find out for the first time when the company went under that superannuation hadn't been paid on their behalf.
We know that, not just for those insolvent companies but around the country more broadly, there's about $5.6 billion a year that is being be taken from workers in the form of unpaid superannuation. That's the scale of the theft, nationally, when it comes to superannuation—$5.6 billion. You would think that, faced with all of that, the government's response would be to say: 'How can we make the laws around paying wages and foregone wages in the form of superannuation as tough as the laws that apply to tax and as tough as the laws that apply to businesses who choose not to pay their suppliers? How about we start treating employment law as seriously as tax law and superannuation law as seriously as every other form of law where you get a penalty if you don't pay?' One way of doing that might be to start to address the cycles over which superannuation is required to be paid. Because it is being paid to a third party rather than directly to the employee, the employee is at a disadvantage when it comes to checking, so there should be an even greater obligation put on the employer to pay regularly.
There should be an examination of paying superannuation in alignment with pay cycles stipulated in workplace agreements, because if an employer were required to pay superannuation as regularly as they're required to pay wages then there would be a greater opportunity to have that checked, to have it checked on a regular basis and to minimise the amount of unpaid superannuation that is currently accruing. That just makes sense—it makes perfect sense. At the moment, where you can go for a long period of time before having to make your superannuation contributions on behalf of your employees, the size of the debt can balloon and the size of the theft can balloon, and that's what we've seen. That could have been something that the government looked at. But no. Instead, the answer is to give them a free pass.
We cannot allow the situation to continue where we treat underpayment of superannuation and underpayment of wages less importantly than breaches of other laws. It is time to beef up the enforcement of not underpaying, in all its forms, in this country. If we put as much attention into making sure that wage theft was stopped and that superannuation theft was stopped as the government puts into attacking unions, then we might have a lot of people who are better paid in this country. It seems there are hundreds of millions of dollars for a royal commission into unions that finds very little, but there are not hundreds of millions of dollars for a new enforcement unit to make sure that employers are paying the minimum amount of wages or the minimum amount of superannuation.
It seems that when it comes to wrongdoing in this country, if you've got a blue collar the government will throw the book at you, but if you have a white collar the government turns a blind eye. They had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to having a royal commission into the banks. The Greens were the first ones out of the blocks calling for that and, eventually, everyone else came on board. I'm pleased about that. But it seems much harder to get this government to take the question of wage theft and superannuation theft seriously. I think that everyone in this country would be much better off if, instead of having witch-hunts that cost hundreds of millions of dollars into unions, we put that money into making sure that employers just comply with existing law. Just comply with existing law—making sure everyone gets paid properly.
At the moment, if you are a worker who has not been paid superannuation or you are worried about it or you've not been paid your wages properly, it can be very difficult to go and have that enforced—and I speak from personal experience here. If you find that you've been underpaid, you've got, largely, no option other than expensive court proceedings. And it's even more difficult if you find that you haven't been paid your superannuation, because you're at a disadvantage when it comes to the information and then you have to go and take your employer to court to get them to pay money to a third party. Most people—most workers—do not have the capacity to do that. There's an imbalance.
It should be very, very quick, cheap and easy to enforce legal minimum standards in this country. But it's not. It's not, and that's why we're seeing billions of dollars a year in superannuation theft and in wage theft. The government should be bringing policies and legislation to this parliament that make it easier to enforce existing labour and superannuation laws and that give organisations the resources to do that. But, instead, we have proposals for amnesties. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone in this country suddenly got an amnesty for any unpaid tax that they've got? I don't imagine that's going to happen. But it seems that if you don't pay your workers their superannuation you will be able to get off, even if it's been going on for many, many years.
Let's have some consistency. Let's have policies in this place that start to align the requirement to pay superannuation more closely, time-wise, with the requirement to pay wages. And let's have some decent enforcement of existing laws. I'm not even arguing or asking for existing laws in this situation to be improved—although we should lift the minimum wage and we should make sure our workplace relations system works much more for everyday people in Australia. Let's put that to one side. Let's just ask for the bare minimum. Let's ask for existing entitlements to be enforced. Let's have a situation where everyone who does work in this country feels confident that the government's got their back in making sure they'll get paid their legal minimum entitlements and superannuation.
At the moment, people do not feel like the government's got their back. They feel like the government's got the back of big corporations and that they'll give big corporations handout after handout after handout, and amnesty after amnesty. But when it comes to people having the basic guarantee that if you've worked you are going to get the payment for the work that you've done, you're going to get the wages in your bank account and you're going to get the superannuation in your superannuation account, people do not have that confidence at the moment and nothing the government is doing is going to give them that confidence; it's going to go the other way.
So before the government starts bringing laws here to say, 'Let's give people some get-out-of-jail-free cards,' let's have laws that make sure existing entitlements are guaranteed and everyone who goes to work can know that, at the end of that day, their wages are as good as in their bank account and their superannuation is put aside for them. Let's toughen the laws to make that happen rather than do what the government's proposing.
I'm afraid to say this, but the member for Melbourne clearly hasn't actually read the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2018 and has displayed for the world to see his profound ignorance of the government's changes when it comes to the superannuation guarantee. There is not only this legislation that we are debating today but also a superannuation guarantee integrity bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 4) Bill 2018, that goes to the very heart of the issues he's talking about—introduced, by the way, by a Liberal government—and, I'm very happy to say, very much supports workers being paid their entitlements. We actually do understand that superannuation is the workers' money. It's not the government's money, it's not the union's money, it's not the employer's money. It actually belongs to workers. We have put in place very tough measures in order to make sure people get the money they are owed under the superannuation guarantee.
I would like to thank those members who have contributed to this debate—in particular, those who, unlike the member for Melbourne, have actually read the legislation. The government is acting to improve the integrity of the superannuation guarantee, with the introduction of near-real-time reporting on superannuation guarantee obligations and payments. The Australian Taxation Office will be able to detect and act on non-payment of workers' entitlements much more effectively and with much greater severity going forward, including, in some instances, up to 12 months jail for employers who continue to do the wrong thing by their workers. To address historical noncompliance, this bill offers a limited, once-off 12-month opportunity for employers to come forward and pay their workers what they're owed. I think that's important to note. This is the last chance employers will get to come forward and receive concessional penalty treatment.
After the amnesty concludes, the Australian Taxation Office will take a dim view of those employers that could have come forward but failed to do so. It will not mean, though, that the worker receives one dollar less of the superannuation that they are entitled to. In fact, they get their superannuation plus the interest for the superannuation that hasn't been paid over that time period. So, the worker gets every single dollar that they're entitled to. The only people who miss out on a penalty payment are the government, and we are doing that because we recognise that, if we have an amnesty period, around 50,000 employees will receive around $230 million worth of their superannuation entitlements, which are vital retirement savings that they would otherwise potentially miss out on.
The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, as well as various organisations representing small business, commerce, accounting and the superannuation industry, are united in their support of the amnesty. That is because they know workers will get the payments that they are entitled to. The bill also streamlines compliance with superannuation guarantee, allowing employees to opt out of the regime where they would inadvertently breach their concessional contributions cap. This bill safeguards the integrity of the government's comprehensive 2016-17 superannuation taxation reforms. The bill does so by ensuring that limited recourse borrowing arrangements and related party transactions cannot be used to circumvent the contributions cap, and will prevent flow-on effects to people who are not engaged in gaming behaviour. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for McMahon has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the member for McMahon be agreed to.
by leave—I move amendments (1) and (2) as circulated in my name together:
(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table items 2 and 3), omit the table items.
(2) Schedule 1, page 3 (line 1) to page 8 (line 29), omit the Schedule.
These amendments remove from the bill the outrageous schedule which provides an amnesty for nonpayment of superannuation guarantee, an outrageous schedule which should be removed and should not be the law of the land. What is the law of the land is that employers should pay superannuation to their employees. It's part of their conditions, it is part of their wages and it should be paid. To provide an amnesty for the nonpayment of superannuation guarantee covering a period of not less than 25 years is nothing short of an outrage. There was no consultation from the government before they implemented this policy. It was not announced in the budget. There was no consultation with the sector, no consultation with the employees; in fact, on the contrary, the Senate inquiry looking at the very significant issue of under payment and nonpayment of superannuation guarantee did not recommend this. The government's own joint working party did not recommend this. We don't know who recommended it to the government. What we do know is that the government has adopted it with no consultation at all.
The minister at the table said in her summing-up that the government will take a very dim view of nonpayment of superannuation guarantee after the amnesty. I tell you what, the government should take a very dim view of nonpayment of superannuation guarantee at every point. No amnesty should apply to the law of the land. It is the law of the land, passed by this parliament that the superannuation guarantee should be paid. I know the Liberals and National Party oppose that—they didn't want universal compulsory superannuation—but it did pass this parliament. It has been the law of the land for 25 years.
We on this side happen to think that nonpayment of superannuation guarantee is a serious breach of the law, should be dealt with accordingly, and providing an amnesty to the nonpayment of superannuation guarantee is exactly the wrong move. I don't think this government's going to provide an amnesty for over-claims of payments of welfare. I don't think the government is going to provide an amnesty for things that they don't like but they are going provide an amnesty for things they don't mind about so much, and they don't mind the nonpayment of the superannuation guarantee. They don't think that's a big problem. What they think is that there should be an amnesty to let them off, to not only provide a holiday of penalties but also provide a tax deduction for the superannuation guarantee charge—a double amnesty for the nonpayment of superannuation guarantee! Employers should pay their superannuation guarantee. It is a fundamental right of employees of Australia, and this government should be ashamed of itself for providing this amnesty. We seek to remove it from the bill.
I'm very happy to respond to the member for McMahon on this. I think it should be very clear to everyone who is listening to this debate what frauds the Labor Party are on superannuation, what absolute frauds. This was the party under the Leader of the Opposition, when he was the minister responsible for superannuation, who uncapped fees and charges for people with low-balance accounts, taking their accounts to zero. He defaulted people—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Order! The minister has the call.
into insurance within their superannuation accounts with these very high insurance premiums—again, taking their accounts to zero. You are frauds when it comes to superannuation. Let me remind the House the government is taking a comprehensive approach to superannuation guarantee compliance. In the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 4) Bill 2018, the government is cracking down on employers who fail to pay their workers their full superannuation guarantee entitlements with a comprehensive integrity package.
Under the superannuation guarantee integrity package, the ATO will have the enforcement tools it needs to detect noncompliance early and punish it going forward by appropriately including, in the most egregious circumstances, jail time of up to 12 months for employers. The ATO has also received dedicated funding of $20.9 million in the 2017-18 MYEFO to establish a superannuation guarantee task force to crack down on employer noncompliance, plus a further $133.7 million in the 2018-19 budget to continue to target those taxpayers gaining an unfair financial advantage over those who pay their fair share. This bill complements the superannuation guarantee integrity package. It provides employers with a one-off chance to come clean and to pay their workers every single dollar they owe them in their superannuation guarantee entitlements.
The Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and various organisations representing small business, commerce, accounting and the superannuation industry are united in support of this amnesty. The amnesty will, in effect, provide $230 million of superannuation, and interest, to around 50,000 employees who would otherwise miss out.
It is Labor and the unions who are standing in the way of these employees getting their rightful entitlements. And I do not understand why they would do so.
Elements of the amnesty, such as deductibility of late payments and the remission of penalties and charges, have previously been proposed, as a way to encourage self-correction of unpaid superannuation guarantee, by a number of stakeholders, including the Board of Taxation in 2014, the Inspector-General of Taxation in 2016 and the Superannuation Guarantee Cross-Agency Working Group in 2017. Let me be clear: the amnesty does not let employers off the hook, and it does not leave employees worse off. Employers will only get the benefit of the amnesty if they pay their employees their superannuation guarantee entitlements in full, with interest, and they voluntarily disclose their noncompliance—that is, that they are not already under investigation by the Australian Taxation Office. The only moneys that are given up to entice employers to come forward as part of the amnesty are the additional penalties and fees that normally flow to the government. Employers are not allowed to benefit from tax deductibility of the payments made during the amnesty.
It is important to note that we actually care about people being reunited with their superannuation. We care about this, which is why we have proposed this bill. It is why we've proposed our protecting superannuation entitlements legislation, as announced in the budget, where the Australian Taxation Office will now proactively reunite people with their superannuation funds that have been sitting in accounts that have been inactive, where they have been steadily eroded by high fees and charges and high insurance premiums—which, as I remind the House, was a measure that was actually introduced by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the responsible minister. The people on this side of the House actually care about people's superannuation. We care about superannuation, which is why we have engaged in a whole series of reforms to make sure it can be paid to them. We know it's their money.
The question is that the amendments moved by the member for McMahon be agreed to.
by leave—In relation to the debate, just to be very clear for the benefit of Hansard: employers are allowed to benefit from tax deductibility of payments made during the amnesty. I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I want to say at the outset that Labor will be supporting the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018. However, we do have a number of concerns that I will raise through my speech in relation to quality standards for aged care in this country. I thank the minister for arranging a briefing on this bill. The minister talks a lot about trying to have bipartisanship on aged care. This was the first time that I'd actually had a briefing on this issue. I do appreciate it.
This bill amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 to make provision for a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The bill also varies the function of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the aged-care quality standards. Currently, there are standards that cover off on three different areas of care. They include four standards for residential aged care, two standards for home care and two standards for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review. The eight standards across all areas of care will be effective from 1 July 2019. I understand that the government wanted a start date of 1 July 2018 but has ceded to concerns raised by the sector that they need time to get ready for the new quality standards and time to do the necessary preparatory work.
The new standards will focus on quality outcomes for consumers rather than provider processes and have been driven by the sector and other stakeholders. These quality standards have been on the drawing board and have been worked on since 2015, so it's great to see the legislation finally come into the parliament. I do want to put on record Labor's support for the people who work in the aged-care sector. When you're talking about quality and standards in aged care, this is of course delivered by aged-care workers and people working in the sector. The quality of care that they provide to residents of residential facilities and the people at home receiving home care is of enormous importance to older Australians, their families and loved ones. The personal care workers—the nurses, the physiotherapist, the occupational therapists, the GPs; all of those people—working in aged care in Australia today are highly valued by this side of the House and by the community.
That is in stark contrast to what we heard from the Prime Minister in question time yesterday, where the Prime Minister said that people working in aged care, an aged-care worker, should aspire to get a better job. Aspire to get a better job! I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that yesterday. Talking to aged-care workers today in an aged-care facility here in Canberra, the aged-care workers themselves couldn't believe that they have a Prime Minister who would say this about aged-care workers. They actually provide a hugely valuable service to our community. Their jobs are hard. They are rewarding, but they are not easy jobs—and they're certainly not well-paid jobs for the hard work that these workers are required to do.
As I said, the government has taken quite a lot of time to get these standards into the parliament. The explanatory memorandum to this bill talks about changes to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to ensure that documents containing protected information acquired by the agency in the course of its functions are exempt from disclosure. I need to put on the record that, whilst we understand that the agency's investigations might need some protection, I am concerned about the extension of these FOI exemptions in this act. I'm worried that consumers might not be able to get access to the information that they need as part of any quality agency's investigations and I don't want to see important information being kept from consumers. So I'm putting the government on notice that we'll be looking at and closely monitoring this change to make sure there are no incidences of people not getting access to the information that they should because of this exemption.
As I said at the beginning of this speech, we talk about bipartisanship in aged care and the Living Longer Living Better reforms, but we haven't actually had much cooperation from the government as a whole when it comes to aged care. The government seems to want to make aged care a budget issue and an election issue—from what we saw in the budget and what we've seen since from this government—trying to talk up the funding for aged care in this budget when there is not one new single cent over the forward estimates for aged-care services in Australia in the budget. I have never seen a government promise so much to older Australians and deliver so little. It's quite appalling. We've seen billions of dollars ripped out of aged care under this government over the five years. When Labor implemented the Living Longer Living Better reforms, we put in real, new money. We had a 10-year plan for aged care in this country. It'd been worked on, we consulted and we had bipartisanship on it because we worked hard to achieve that and we actually worked with the other side. It's a shame we haven't seen that from this government.
There are a number of reports that the government has sitting on its desk in relation to aged care and the quality and standards that are affected by it. In particular, I want to talk about the University of Wollongong and Applied Aged Care Solutions reports, which the government isn't yet acting on. At last count, there were over a dozen reports sitting on the minister's desk, as I said, from the Living Longer Living Better reforms, and there's some expert advice in the Wollongong report about how to fix the Aged Care Funding Instrument.
I've been visiting aged-care facilities around the country in the last few months and weeks, as shadow minister, and I'm hearing from aged-care providers that the government's cuts, in the 2015 MYEFO and the 2016 budget, of the Aged Care Funding Instrument are having a real impact on quality of service and resourcing in residential facilities right across the country. The Wollongong report, which considers changes to the ACFI, was made public by the government a year or so ago. I've been very clear, from Labor's side, that we think the ACFI is broken and the government needs to act. To date, the government doesn't seem to have made any formal response to the ACFI, and a separate review by Applied Aged Care Solutions about the ACFI seems to have been shelved. It would be good if the government would clarify where it is in terms of changing the ACFI, because the ACFI relates to funding for residential aged care, and funding is related to quality and standards. You can't deal with one in isolation from the other. On 19 April 2017, the minister said:
These two separate but important pieces of work will help inform the Government's deliberations over the future direction for funding reform.
But, as I said, we have seen very little action, and providers are reporting that these cuts are impacting on them.
The other significant review that the government is sitting on at the moment is the Carnell-Paterson review, which of course talks about quality and standards and was initiated by the government after the Oakden situation that occurred in South Australia. We've seen numerous media reports since that time of other incidents around Australia in other residential aged-care facilities. We welcomed the review and we welcome the government adopting the recommendation to establish a joint agency to merge the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency and the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner into one. We're curious, though, about where this is at. We haven't seen or heard anything from the government about legislating to merge these two agencies. I'm hoping that the government will update us and provide some briefing on what is happening with this merger.
I am particularly concerned about the new agency and what it's going to do in relation to not just residential care but home care. I'm receiving increased reports about older Australians who are not getting the home care that they need and deserve. I'm not talking here about the massive waiting list for home care, which I'm happy to talk about a bit further on; I'm talking about people in their home who have a home care package, one that has been allocated to them. I am hearing reports of older Australians who may be on the end of elder abuse at home from some of the workers, so I want to make sure that the government has the standards right and that we are protecting older Australians in their homes as well as older Australians in residential care. There are a lot of regulations and standards around residential care; there are fewer around home care. I want to make sure the government is doing what it needs to do in relation to older Australians who are receiving home care. Particularly as we're expanding home care and wanting to give Australians more options to stay at home, it is very important that the standards and the quality that people receive at home are no less than the quality and standards people receive in residential care. I want to make sure that these announcements and changes that the government is talking about are focused not just on residential care but also on the growing sector of home care. I'm looking forward to hearing about how the new commission will deal with this.
The other review that is very significant is the Tune review—that is, the legislated five-year review of the Living Longer Living Better reforms. The Legislated review of aged care 2017 was tabled last September, and the government said that it would respond to Tune in the budget. We've seen some response to some of the recommendations, but, again, we don't know what the government is doing on at least 20 of those recommendations. The government did immediately reject two of the 38 recommendations. The government is now claiming that it has responded in full or in part to another 18, which leaves 20 recommendations—or 18, I suppose, by the time you take off the other two recommendations—not yet dealt with, so I'm curious as to when the government is actually going to respond to the other recommendations in Tune, because these also impact on quality and standards of care.
It is interesting that the government, in the budget, tried to claim that it was doing something about aged care when what we actually saw was the government take money from residential care and provide it to home care and an additional 14,000 home care places. Of course, we are happy there are more home care places. What we're not happy about is the government not telling Australians the truth about what it's done. It should be honest about what it has done. It should be honest about the previous cuts from MYEFO 2015 and budget 2016 and the impacts that these are having on quality and standards of care, the impact these are having on the resources available to provide care to older Australians in residential care. It's not good enough that we continue to hear excuses from the minister. We continue to have the minister say that our side of politics is not telling the truth. Well, the truth about the cuts that they have made is in their own budget papers and in their own MYEFO papers. They have made cuts to aged care worth billions of dollars over the last five years. That is the truth, they are the facts, and the government needs to stop pretending that that's not the case.
When it comes to home care packages, we have the government's own website saying that as at December last year more than 100,000 older Australians were waiting for home care. More than 100,000 older people are currently waiting for home care. We don't know how many are waiting today, because that figure is as at December. The March quarter figures were due to be released, but we haven't seen them yet. I don't know what the government's sitting on or why the minister won't tell us how many Australians today are waiting for a homecare package. Perhaps he's hiding something, or perhaps he's sitting in his office trying to cobble together something for those hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting for home care today.
What those opposite should do is be honest with Australians about the issues, be honest with Australians about how long we're going to have to wait for home care. People who are waiting for level 3 and 4 packages are still having to wait for more than 12 months for care. They were waiting 12 months prior to the budget, according to the government's website, and post the budget they're still waiting for more than 12 months. Indeed, as I said yesterday, we are actually getting reports about this from people all over the country. In particular, children of older Australians are saying: 'I can't get my mum and dad a package. How long do we have to wait?' That is what they are saying. They are crying out for assistance for their parents, for their loved ones, to get home care because this government promised something in the budget and people thought things were going to change. But they aren't. I think it's pretty cruel to try to pretend to older Australians, their families and their loved ones that you've done something rather than be honest and tell the truth about what is actually going on in aged care in this country today.
Given the numerous reports, given the fact that the government is still sitting on well over a dozen of them and not acting on recommendations, and given that progress in aged-care reform in this country has been very slow in the last five years, I'm pleased to finally see some legislation in this place to do something positive. But, as I've said, I do have some concerns. I do have some concerns about whether or not these standards are going to be achieved; whether or not this government is going to be able to implement it; whether or not the government will be able to implement the things that it has already agreed to do, let alone actually deal with the other recommendations from all the other aged-care reports still sitting on its desk.
We've had the Minister for Aged Care admit what we already know about the aged-care packages in the budget—that is, it's not enough. We know that he knows and that everybody in this place knows that what the government has done in the budget won't even come close to solving Australia's aged-care crisis. There's a crisis in aged care, there's a crisis in residential care, there's a crisis in the aged-care workforce, there's a crisis in home care—and this government has created it. It has been in government for five years, and to try and blame Labor for the last five years of inaction and cuts is an outrageous thing to do.
We had the Prime Minister come in here yesterday and tell us what he thinks about aged-care workers. As I've said, the aged-care workers that I met today were insulted by what they heard from the Prime Minister yesterday. For the Prime Minister to say to those workers, 'You should aspire to get a better job,' when we need to triple the aged-care workforce over the coming decades is outrageous. We've even had the sector put out media releases after what the Prime Minister said yesterday saying that this will discourage people from taking up a job in the aged-care sector. The government should be respecting and encouraging people to work in the aged-care sector. It is a valuable thing to do. It is a necessary thing. We are going to need more workers in aged care, not fewer, and we need a government that respects them, a government that's willing to invest in them and a government that's willing to understand the issues in aged care and be honest with the Australian public about the situation that we're going to have in aged care with the changing demographic.
We need to be up-front and honest with Australians about what this will mean going forward. We need to know in 10 years time how many home-care packages we're going to need. The government hasn't done any modelling on it. I asked, 'What will the wait list be at the end of the forward estimates after the funding in the new packages?' The government won't tell me or can't tell me. I think it's a bit of both: (a) it doesn't know and (b) it doesn't want to know. It does not want to know, and it does not want to plan for the changing demographic—that is the truth of it—because they don't want to be up-front and honest with Australians about what is happening in the sector. They should be ashamed that they are perpetuating untruths and mistruths and pulling a cruel hoax on older Australians when it comes to what they have or haven't done in this budget and previous budgets in the last five years. We can clearly see that the government's poor implementation of any reforms—the slowness of it and the funding cuts—is now hurting older Australians. That is clearly evident from what this government has done. I am really concerned that older Australians, their loved ones, their carers and their families are not able to get the care that they need and deserve. I'm also very concerned that this government doesn't seem to want to act fast enough to deal with it.
We really only have to look at how the government has been acting over the last five years to get an indication of where it will go. I am prepared to talk to older Australians. I am prepared to work with the government on how we deal with this situation going forward. I have been up-front with the government about sitting down and talking about the issues in aged care—talking about the issues with regard to a future workforce that we need to plan for and talking about the future funding issues in relation to providing enough services for those who need it. Instead, what we got from this government was a promise to consult, a promise to brief, and nothing before the budget. We now know why, because there was nothing in it, despite what the government's pretending.
This cannot go on. If the government is serious about improving quality and standards in aged care and if it's serious about providing services for older Australians, we need to work together on it. We need a bipartisan position when it comes to dealing with aged care. This should not be a three-year election cycle. This should not be political point scoring from the government, trying to pretend it's done things when it hasn't. This should be about older Australians, and, sadly, it has not been. To say that I'm disappointed in this government and this minister is an understatement. I think older Australians are disappointed in this government. The workers are disappointed in this government, and the workers are certainly disappointed in this Prime Minister after what we heard yesterday.
We heard from the senior minister, the Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, prior to the budget—I am trying to remember his seat, Deputy Speaker Vasta, but I can't, so I will say the Minister for Health.
Flinders.
The member for Flinders. He said that it was going to be a very good budget this year for health, and for aged care in particular, and he said that on 6 May. But what we saw on budget night, as I said, was not one new single dollar for aged care over the forward estimates—not one. That is not good enough and it's not sustainable when you talk about the growing demographic and when you talk about the ageing population in this country. We should see the ageing population in this country as a positive. Yes, there are challenges with it, but, as I said, we should be open and honest with the Australian people about what those challenges are. We should have a grown-up discussion from both sides of parliament about how we're going to fix this and how we're going to deal with it in the future. We cannot afford, and older Australians cannot afford, for this government to play silly games or for this government to come in and try to pretend it's done something and try to score political points. We need to be serious. This is a big deal for older Australians, their families and their loved ones, and this cannot be allowed to go on.
The sector has talked to us about the government's budget cuts and its disappointment with the budget. The sector also came out after the Prime Minister's comments yesterday. To say that this sector is concerned about the way this government is managing aged care would be an understatement. This is a sector that doesn't usually say very much, because it knows it has to work with governments of both persuasions and it knows that government is a major funder of aged care in this country. Indeed, there is $100 billion over the forwards for aged care. This area does cost a lot of money, because the primary service deliverers of aged care are people. These are hardworking people. They deserve our respect and they should be valued by this country.
We really need to make sure that this government actually takes seriously these issues. I cannot believe that we've got to a position where the aged-care sector is concerned about the government and has been brave enough to come out on some occasions to tell the government that what it's doing is not good enough. This government should be ashamed of where it's got to with aged-care reform.
Having said that, we are supporting this bill. We are supporting the change to the standards. But this government is going to have to be put on notice about delivering on these standards and ensuring that the aged-care sector has the resources it needs and the respect it needs to actually be able to deliver on these standards. I am concerned about some of the FOI changes and I am concerned about making sure that people at home get the same protections and the same quality of care that people in residential care should be entitled to. In the most part they are getting that, but we also know that, in some cases, they aren't. These standards need to protect them both at home and in residential care.
In rising to speak to the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018, I want to acknowledge the amount of work done by the Minister for Aged Care, Ken Wyatt. He's very committed to the aged-care sector, and we see that every time Ken speaks. Ken wants to see quality in services. That's what this bill is about. That's what the government is about.
When I have talked to the minister and when he has been in my electorate talking to seniors, what does he say he wants to see? He says he wants to see happy, healthy and active people. He wants to see people as active and as engaged as possible, irrespective of their age. That's what the government is working on. That's what the minister is so passionately committed to, and that is where he spends his time. The Minister for Aged Care knows that how we treat our elderly people is a great reflection on us as a society. He is committed to aged care.
Planning and providing for our ageing population is increasingly important, and this is an opportunity that we've taken through this bill. The measures that we're taking will make it easier for people to make educated decisions about their aged care. The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill is part of the government's decision to work with the sector to develop a new, unified quality framework. This framework includes a single set of consumer focused quality standards that will apply across all aged-care programs. This will make it simpler and easier for people and help them to make really good decisions about their aged care. This will apply to the Commonwealth, which, of course, will have consumers at its centre. This is what the Minister for Aged Care has always been working on—having people at its centre and at its core.
The Minister for Aged Care is absolutely committed to people who need aged care and is giving them the tools to choose the best type of care for them and also the best type of care where they live. It's a significant shift away from the top-down institutional level of information. This bill is part of the reforms being progressively implemented in aged care to very much create a person-centred, competitive system where consumers will actually drive quality and where red tape—that evil red tape—is reduced for providers of aged care.
Providing a single set of standards that apply across all aged-care programs will lead to a range of achievements. These changes are intended to drive the improvements we all want to see in the quality of care delivered to older Australians. Secondly, they'll decrease that regulatory burden on aged-care providers. Thirdly, they'll actively encourage innovation, excellence and continuous improvement.
Currently the system of quality standards is complex. It's very difficult for ordinary people to understand and manage. There are four different sorts of standards: accreditation standards, home care standards, transition care standards and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program. All of these are different standards. It's a part of the framework. With the amendments in this bill, provision will be made for the same set of quality standards to apply across all types of aged-care services for the first time.
I congratulate Minister Ken Wyatt for his work in this area. The minister has listened to consumers of aged-care services and providers of aged care. The new standards will reflect the contemporary evidence and community expectations of the quality of care and services. It's the first time accreditation standards have been updated for 20 years. That's a great achievement for this government. This will increase consistency across the services, making it easier for consumers—and for their families, their carers and their representatives—to make good choices about care and services as their needs change.
We'll focus on quality and safety for consumers but also encourage providers to offer care and services to promote quality of life and wellbeing. We'll place a greater emphasis on consumer choice, identity and the idea of partnering with consumers in the care that they choose. This is putting consumers fairly and squarely at the centre of the aged-care process. The minister is very determined to make what can be a difficult time in people's lives that much easier. This is very much part of what the minister is dedicated to.
I want to take this opportunity to talk about some of the aged-care facilities in my electorate that do provide very good care for people needing that level of care. I want to talk about Hocart Lodge in my home town of Harvey. What's happened repeatedly in regional and rural areas is that the community has got together to provide aged-care services and a facility for people to live in. A residential care service often has been provided by the community itself where there was a need. Hocart Lodge started as a small weatherboard home of a local family, the Hocart family, in Harvey. They donated that to the community because there was a need for residential care for our aged citizens. There were some local government representatives who were very committed to providing aged care in Harvey, where there wasn't any.
I remember that the land was donated to the community by the Hocart family but a lot of earthworks were needed. It was my own father who provided that. He lived in Brunswick but he knew that we needed a central location in Harvey and desperately needed a residential aged-care facility. Because this was a community-led, community-driven and community-funded effort to provide this type of aged-care service, the community drew on those who could provide all sorts of in-kind help and support. My dad was an earthmover in the transport and logistics space with a lot of tractors and trucks at his disposal, and he donated all of that to develop that site. It was a significant commitment. I think he spent three months working on the site and getting it up to the standard it needed to be to be built on. That was the beginning. I see this repeatedly in my electorate, where the community makes this happen. Years later, when Hocart Lodge needed to be expanded, I'm very proud to say that it was my dad and my brother, again, that donated the gravel, the sand and the earthworks. Actually, I think my brother spent six weeks carting sand out of what was then the rubbish dump area to provide the sand for this project.
As a government, we understand that the community actually gets involved in—and often drives—what needs to be done in rural and regional areas. But it is the community who are the people that we are here to serve, and that's what we're doing through this bill—to better serve people and their needs, no matter whether they are in a city or a small community like Harvey.
One of the things that I'm particular proud of as well—perhaps in continuing a family tradition—is that through the ACAR round, when Hocart Lodge needed to increase its capacity to 60 beds, it received funding from the federal government: $11.23 million in capital grants to help them rebuild and expand. Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, you can imagine just what it meant for me to be there for the opening of that new part of Hocart Lodge. I could look back at what my father, my brother and the whole community had done, and then see the federal government able to support the next stage of providing wonderful residential care in a small community. That's what this government does particularly well.
There were people who had been involved from day 1. I just wanted to mention a gentleman by the name of Gary van Burgel, the chair of the voluntary committee that helps to run Hocart Lodge. The other one is Ron Newby, particularly on the building side—he is a builder by trade. The skills and the passion that these two gentleman brought to this project to make it happen took 10 years or more of work. It took that long to get the momentum and for the project to get to the point that it did. I can only commend them on the extraordinary amount of care and effort they put in.
Hocart Lodge offers dementia care and various forms of health care. It's a 60-bed facility now, and it was developed in a couple of stages by Perkins Builders from Bunbury. When you see that this work is being done locally, that's what really matters. The facility is provided to local families, and to have a reasonably local builder from Bunbury able to build this was even better.
I look around at so many facilities. I look at Tuia lodge in Donnybrook—again, another fabulous community effort. This was driven by the community. There wasn't a provider that was in the space at the time, so the community got together and said, 'We need aged-care facilities in Donnybrook.' Of course, it's named after the Tuia family who did so much in this space. It's still offering wonderful care.
I look right throughout the area, and when you walk into these particular aged-care facilities they are like homes. They're a home for our people; they're a home for us when we get to that age. I just think that it's so important that the government is supporting these types of facilities in rural and regional areas so that people can actually live in the communities and they can actually find residential care in the community they've spent their life in. People who have known them all their lives can come and visit. They can continue to be so much a part of the community.
Capecare Ray Village in Busselton is another one. It has such a strong community board and group that have fundraised to make Ray Village what it is. Capecare, with its permanent residential section, is just wonderful. I went there recently and they now have their own coffee shop as part of the residential aged-care area. Your family can come on in, and you can actually sit down with your family member who's in Capecare. You can sit there and have a coffee as though you were out in the community. There is a section outside and there are umbrellas. It's a wonderful environment, and it's a home away from home. That's the lovely part about what's provided by these wonderful residential providers in so much of Australia.
I see this in my electorate repeatedly. There's one after another of these residential aged-care providers that are doing a fantastic job and the people who work there are very committed to the residents. I want to thank them for everything they do for the residents. They become very attached. When my own mother died of the complications of Alzheimer's in a residential aged-care facility, the people from the residential facility who looked after her most came to her funeral. They cared so much for her that they came to her funeral. I will respect that forever and I respect the wonderful care they offered my mother. There were nights when I'd leave her and I'd think, 'I'm so pleased that the people who are working tonight are there,' because they looked after her so beautifully. And I think of Wattle Hill Lodge in Bunbury. It is another place offering very personalised care for people.
As we ourselves get older, we have to think very carefully about where we would want to be and what we would want to do. I've done a number of advanced care planning processes with people. It's one of the toughest discussions you will have with your family, talking about where you want to be and who you want around you and what options you have. But it's a very serious discussion that people need to have. Please, everybody, do your aged-care and advanced care planning now with your families so that everybody knows where you want to be and what's right for you—what care you would like, where you would want to be, the things you do and don't want, the treatments you do and don't want. Make sure the arrangements are all in place so that you are actually making decisions. If you're a young person, please make those plans as well. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow, so let's decide and put plans in place. It takes so much of the angst and pressure off families if, when we do get to a critical situation, our own plans are there to guide our families so that they make the decisions we need and want them to make. They can do that in all confidence, knowing that they're reflecting our needs, what we as individuals want, when we get to that point. I want to thank all of those who are providing that level of care in my community.
I'm pleased to have the opportunity of contributing to the debate on the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018. In 2002, as the shadow minister for ageing and seniors, I spoke here in this parliament about the need for the government to provide a real vision for an ageing population. I said at that time:
What we actually need, if we are about building a cohesive society, is hope, a positive vision and positive action to ensure that we are indeed in a position to meet the economic and social challenges of the future.
Today, more than 16 years later, these factors remain just as important if we are to address the needs of our ageing population. I think some of the debate about the ageing of the population sees the demographic changes which will occur over coming decades as a problem. It is actually an opportunity. It is a challenge, but it's an opportunity, if we get it right, to value the contribution of those who have helped to make Australia the great nation that it is today by providing respect to, but also learning from, those people who have real life experience. The fact is that inclusive and cohesive societies don't discriminate against people on the basis of their age, nor on the basis of their gender, their sexuality, their race or their religion. A positive vision recognises the contribution that older Australians have made to our nation. It appreciates that the federal government must take positive action that directly improves the lives of these Australians who need care, either at home or in an aged-care facility. Most importantly, it inspires hope that all Australians will be afforded respect in their later years and can live with the dignity they deserve.
The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill amends both the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013. In effect, these amendments will apply to aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act and make provision for a single set of Aged Care Quality Standards. This includes changing the function of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. Labor supports these changes, which will occur on 1 July 2019.
Importantly, the new standards focus on quality outcomes for older Australians living in aged-care facilities, and they reflect years of advocacy from the sector and other stakeholders. The truth is that Australia has seen shocking examples of elder abuse. Instances such as Oakden nursing home or Mitcham Residential Care Facility revealed appalling abuse of vulnerable aged-care residents. We must learn from examples such as these and always push for change so that abuse becomes a thing of the past.
During the time I was the shadow minister I had the opportunity to visit aged-care facilities right around the country, in regional areas like Rockhampton and in our cities, including all of the capital cities. What I saw was a workforce, particularly the dedicated aged-care nurses and aged-care assistants, who work with a commitment that one has to admire. They're really helping people who need that support. But the truth is that, not just in aged-care facilities but unfortunately often even within families, elder abuse—essentially using the power imbalance that exists where an older Australian has health issues and is not able to physically or even intellectually defend themselves—is a tragedy that happens all too often.
This is about respect for our older Australians. It should be the case that quality outcomes for older Australians are part of the federal government's policy agenda. We must invest in measures that ensure that older Australians can live with dignity in communities all around the nation, whether that be in our cities, our regional areas, or our rural communities. We simply can't afford not to do so. The advancements in health and science mean that we now live longer. In 2012 people aged over 65 made up 14 per cent of our population, but by 2061 this figure will increase to 22 per cent. From 14 per cent in 2012 to 22 per cent just 50 years later is an extraordinary increase in the make-up of the population. Moreover, the proportion of Australians aged over 85 will also rise from just two per cent of the population in 2012 to five per cent in 2061.
Just this month I went to visit my mum's grave at Rookwood Cemetery. She died in 2002 aged 65. She was spent, essentially, at the age of 65. She had spent an enormous amount of her last 35 years on the planet in hospital—particularly with rheumatoid arthritis, but the drugs to assist with that problem had created a range of other health issues for her. When she passed away, at age 65, that was in many ways a decision that she probably made—that she was done on this earth.
With today's care, the generation of which I'm a part, let alone those younger generations, will not be in those circumstances in most cases. People have better access to health care. People do get that assistance. But with that comes the enormous responsibility that we have as a parliament to provide that leadership, to make sure that the investment is there and to make sure that the long-term planning is there to cater for what will be a vastly different make-up of the population than exists today, let alone existed 10, 20 or 30 years ago, when people were regarded as very senior when they got to 60 years of age. That requires a comprehensive plan, and it's one of the reasons why I was very attracted to the portfolio of ageing and seniors, to deal with, importantly, not just aged care, which is what the portfolio was called for a long period of time. It requires planning in terms of not just health but also housing—it requires a whole-of-government approach. Adaptable housing is one of the things that we need to consider in terms of the changing make-up of the population if we're going to allow for people to stay in their homes for longer, which, by and large, overwhelmingly, is what people want to do. We need to consider the nature of the way that communities are built, to make sure that people are in facilities where they're not isolated and left alone. Those awful cases that happen from time to time, where someone has passed away and is not found for weeks, or, in some cases, even longer, are an indictment of our society. That should not happen.
We need a public policy response to these issues. These issues are not partisan. These are issues in which the parliament needs to engage and needs to engage constructively, in a way that commits us to the long-term thinking that long-term demographic change requires. The nature of our transport infrastructure needs to take into account the changing nature of the population. We have seen enormous advances in the way that infrastructure has developed—the fact that buses can lower themselves to make it easier for people to get on and off—but we still have huge issues of accessibility. Why are we still building train stations that don't have lifts, that require stairs? Why is that occurring? We need to incorporate this thinking into the whole-of-government response and indeed whole of government, because it requires cooperation from federal, state and local government.
I think the problem that the government has at the moment in this area is that it's taking retrograde action rather than proactive action. It waits for issues to be evident and then has a response. It has failed to provide the positive vision for older Australians that's required. Indeed, billions of dollars have been cut from aged-care funding since the election of the coalition government in 2013, and it was very disappointing that the rhetoric of the government in the lead-up to this year's budget was not matched by actual investment—very disappointing indeed. It claimed a $100 billion funding boost for the aged-care budget in the pre-budget leaks, but the truth is that there wasn't new money in this budget—not a single dollar. It was more spin than substance. The government failed to match its rhetoric with reality.
At the same time, we know that the waiting list for home-care packages is now 105,000 people. Of these, 20,000 joined the list in the second half of 2017 alone. It is ridiculous, frankly, given the size of that waiting list, for the government to suggest that announcing funding for 14,000 new in-home aged-care packages over four years is a solution to this problem. We need to do much better than that.
A number of aged-care providers across the country are already doing everything they can to support older people, and I want to acknowledge the many aged-care workers who dedicate themselves to this. In my electorate of Grayndler, a number of aged-care providers have implemented policies that enable older Australians to live with the quality care that they need and to feel respected. I want to mention just a couple. The Marion, located in Leichhardt, has invested in safety through the Footloose Falls Prevention Expo, providing residents and staff with information and strategies to prevent dangerous falls, resulting in a 57 per cent decrease in fall-related injuries. The Montrose Aged Care Plus Centre, located in Balmain, is a specialist care home for men living with mental health challenges. The dedicated team at the centre won an award last year for its pioneering approach, which focuses on residents' abilities rather than their limitations. That is a tremendous achievement and a great example of how we can ensure that older Australians are awarded the dignity and respect that they deserve.
I'd like to commend the member for Grayndler for his comments. It's probably salient to say that I am 65, and this was brought home to me the other day when I was shopping with my wife and, while we were waiting to have the bill paid, the shop assistant asked me for my Seniors Card. But this demonstrates that our population is ageing and that our aged-care needs are increasing, and many people, as they get older, do suffer from chronic illness and require quite significant treatment, even in aged-care facilities.
Parliament, however, as you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, can do some very strange things to people, and we see evidence in this place every day. It does certainly seem strange to me that, after 40 years practising as a paediatrician, I have finally graduated to aged care. In my role as the member for Macarthur, I have visited a number of retirement living and aged-care facilities in my electorate, and I must say I've been very impressed and very pleasantly surprised.
I rise today to talk on this bill, but first I would like to commend the many aged-care workers who live and indeed work in my electorate and some of the aged-care facilities in my electorate, of both for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, for their ongoing care of the older Australians in my electorate. In particular, I'd like to commend Estia Health, the Mount Gilead retirement living complex, the IRT aged-care facilities and the Frank Whiddon homes for providing excellent care to older Australians in my electorate.
So I rise today to speak about Australia's aged-care arrangements and, more specifically, about the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018.
This bill was tabled in this House on Thursday, 24 May 2018 and has been brought on for debate today before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Senate Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills or the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health have discharged their respective inquiries on how the bill may affect individual rights and liberties and standards of care. This is both unfortunate and not a practice that I would generally think should be encouraged in debating bills in this House. I'm not here to disparage this bill or unduly delay its passage, but I do have concerns about at least one of the measures proposed and the timing of today's debate.
This is a short bill, but one which has taken the best part of three years to prepare. Streamlined accreditation and quality control arrangements applying to the provision of aged care were first announced on budget night in May 2015, a long time ago. The bill deals with incredibly important and increasingly pressing issues, as we've seen with some of the press reports of elder abuse et cetera in aged care. It's a bit of an overreach, however, by the minister to suggest this bill lays the foundation for the introduction of a single set of aged-care standards. If it has taken three years to lay the foundation, one wonders how long it might take to raise the superstructure, because this is less a case of laying the foundations and more like just locking the front door before the adequate measures have been developed.
The bill neither sets out new quality standards nor puts them into effect. Those are the hard bits and they are apparently still under consideration—or else they ought to have been sent to us in time for this debate, which they haven't been. I'm also concerned and unclear as to the scope of and the precise effect of the provisions in the bill limiting access under the Freedom of Information Act to protected information, including information provided by aged-care providers under the quality agency act to government officials. It is very unclear. I am keen to know what sort of information this Freedom of Information Act exclusion contemplates. Does the bill, for instance, target inhibited access to the accreditation records of aged-care providers? We don't know. I would be grateful to the minister if he could address that question on the proposed scope of the freedom of information exclusion later in this debate.
Having said all that, let me explain why I think it is worth giving this bill a second reading, notwithstanding the criticisms I've just got off my chest. First, by the time this bill finds its way to the Senate, some of the defects in process that I've identified may well have been addressed—for example, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills will have reported and, hopefully, will have given the bill a clean bill of health and a tick. If not, then the Senate will no doubt take the appropriate steps—we hope. With luck, any lingering concerns about freedom of information access issues will have been addressed by then as well.
Next, to be fair to the minister, and the department as well, I recognise that they are striving to have the new quality assurance arrangements fully phased in by 1 July 2019. I must say, the minister is trying his best with limited resources to do the right thing. From what I can gather, the arrangements and the new single set of aged-care quality standards have been subject to extensive and multiple rounds of consultation and testing, but we really don't have all the information. The draft proposed standards released for comment in early 2018 attracted support from both providers and some user bodies; although some user bodies were very critical of the arrangements. I note also that the government has allocated $50 million in the 2018-19 budget to residential care services to help to transition to the new standards; although how it's going to be used is still again unclear.
The new quality standards will be enacted through amendments to the quality care principles developed initially in 2014, and will therefore be subject to direct parliamentary scrutiny and possible disallowance. More government can be good.
My second reason for supporting a further reading of the bill is that I really do think this is an area where government needs to take the lead and really get cracking on the substantive issues. This is a role for government. We have seen already how laissez-faire approaches to aged care have led to damage and even to the deaths of older Australians. At the present time, there does not appear to be a great deal of transparency to some of the aged-care quality standards involved.
If we're lucky, we'll all make it to an age where, as individuals, we cannot care for ourselves and will have to call on relatives, family and friends to provide care for us. This may well be one role where government needs to take overall responsibility for scrutiny. Government or independent third-party involvement later in life is necessary sometimes. However, life expectancy and quality of life in retirement are determined by the opportunities we've had when we were young. Access to education and access to good early health care can often prevent or delay access to residential aged care. However, for many of us, it still will be required, and we must trust in our government to provide adequate standards of care for us.
When we're young, we seldom seem to think about a plan for a time when we can't care for ourselves, and most of us operate on the maxim that God and fate often laugh at those who make plans too long into the future. Nevertheless, many of us will require residential aged care, and sometimes we reach an age where we can't make those decisions for ourselves and we rely on government to provide supervision of our residential or in-home aged care. It's one reason we've now got compulsory superannuation. That is a role for government, as is aged care.
Government has a role in redressing the imbalances in the lives of many of us as we end up in residential aged care, so it is very important that aged care is fair and equitable. Predominantly, our retirement choices are made in much the same way that we make our choice of doctor. It is rarely an exercise of informed choice and often not entirely of our own free will. We rely on hearsay at the present time and we rely on the help of our relatives. As economists often say, health information is often very asymmetrical in that there are power differences. It's very important in residential aged care that we have a more transparent ability to choose the facilities that would best suit our needs and provide the best standards of care. That is why this bill is so important.
In the medical field, the recent Four Corners program on out-of-pocket charges in health fees and hidden doctors' fees demonstrates that there is a role for government in the regulation and oversight of these important health decisions. The same is true in aged care. We know that there are huge levels of community concern about the quality of residential health care, and I think that will always be the case. But this bill can help allay some of those concerns by having a transparent way of assessing quality and making it available to not only the providers of aged care but also the consumers of residential aged care and in-home aged care and their relatives.
Regarding community concerns, there are also areas of little comfort when we see the types of things that have been happening with elder abuse that have been presented in the press before our regulatory agencies have had the opportunity to present this information to the public. These are sometimes matters of life and death. When it comes to these matters, the community rightly won't be placing its faith in what some people would say is a light-touch form of regulation. If we do have oversight of residential aged care, it is very important that the information that is presented to the public is freely available, transparent and of the highest quality. These are indeed matters of life and death, and many of us will face a time when, as we age, we will need to be cared for in aged care, and it is very important that we have the information freely available to us and our relatives.
Aged care is heavily regulated because it is heavily funded by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer wants, deserves and has a right to know that they're getting value for money. The Commonwealth government provides close to 95 per cent of public aged-care funding for all Australians aged over 65 and for Indigenous Australians aged over 50 who can no longer live without support or care in their own home. Overall spending on aged-care services currently stands at $18 billion for the 2018-19 budget and is set to rise steeply over the next four years to over $22 billion in 2021-2022, largely reflecting demographic factors, including increasingly large numbers of baby boomers, like myself, entering some form of residential or in-home aged care.
The government is in the field because people need to know that adequate regulation is in place, and they want it to be there. The government is there to make sure that the myriad rational decisions that work for the majority of individuals don't oppress the minority, or aggregate the poor or the disadvantaged into a collective decision that is against their best interests.
I'm also keen to have this bill go forward as soon as practicable because we are running out of time to get changes made as our population ages. If you want a parallel in other policies, just think about climate change. This government won't be helping if it turns aged-care policy into an ideological battleground. That would be a real pity, because over the last decade we have fallen significantly behind in our provisions for aged care—and we only have to look at the waiting lists to see this. Politics has the potential to derail good aged-care policy, and both the major parties need to work together to get the best results for our older Australians.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport, of which I am a member, has been inquiring into aged care and the effectiveness of quality arrangements. We've taken many, many submissions and we are still to make our final findings known. This was prompted by reports of poor care in residential aged care in particular, and it means that this bill is urgently needed. We need to get a formal policy and appropriate guidelines as soon as possible to provide for the care of some of our most vulnerable Australians.
So I do commend this bill, with the reservations that I've stated, and I thank the members for their statements. (Time expired)
Demand for aged-care services is accelerating across the country, with an ageing population, longer life expectancies and the increasing prevalence of conditions such as dementia. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Shortland, with more than 20 per cent of my electorate being over the age of 65—more than 30,000 constituents. My office deals with complaints about the My Aged Care system, with concerns about the transition from the NDIS and with people who have been on home care package waiting lists for far too long every single day. Providing an accessible, affordable and high-quality aged care system is one of the greatest challenges facing Australia over the coming decades.
That's why I'm glad to speak in support of the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Bill 2018, which makes clear the high levels of quality expected from aged-care providers and encourages the accountability of such standards. Getting this right is a step towards providing a dignified life for older Australians and allowing them to contribute their valued experience to our communities. If we get it wrong, we let down a generation of people who have built this country, and we put far too much pressure on hospitals and residential care to provide services. As the Western world confronts the rising issue of ageing populations we have seen many worrying instances of elder abuse, neglect and hopelessness become all too common, both here and abroad. We have a chance now to put in place frameworks and policies that will ensure a sustainable and quality future for all Australians, no matter their age.
In 2016, there were 3.7 million Australians aged 65 and over, a significant increase from the 1976 figure of 1.3 million. We have struggled to keep up with this increase, and with projections indicating that this demographic is set to grow by another five million people to nearly nine million people, or 22 per cent of our total population, by 2056, the lack of policy leadership shown by this government is worrying. It is essential that we have sound, consistent frameworks in place to deal with the inevitable increase in demand for home care packages and residential care over the coming years. There are two main priorities in this area. The first is a guarantee of quality which gives older Australians the dignity they deserve. The second is accessibility, which at the moment is sorely lacking.
The difficulty in accessing aged care in this country is unacceptable. Whether it is sitting on endless waiting lists for the packages you need, being left behind by transitions to new funding models, or the continuing failures of the My Aged Care portal, many Australians feel fed-up. Of all the mainland Labor states, my electorate has the highest number of residents over 60, and my office has been hearing about these issues over and over again. While we always try to help those who come to us with issues, the volume of complaints demonstrates that there are systemic issues that require legislation if we are to see consistent improvement in aged care.
One of my many constituents failed by this government was Joyce Simmons. Joyce initially received care of five to six hours according to her approval for a level 2 home care package, with her daughter Beverley taking on the rest of the caring duties herself. As of March 2016, Joyce had been approved for an upgrade to a level 4 home care package, but this approval was never realised and, after waiting a full year, her daughter contacted my office seeking help. Joyce, who had recently turned 99, had fallen and cracked a vertebrae, making the provision of level 4 care all the more essential, yet My Aged Care was unable to provide her with this care and was unable to provide any information regarding her position on the waiting list. With some assistance from my office and great persistence by Beverley herself, Joyce was finally granted the hours of care she was entitled to in April 2016, over a year since her initial approval yet only a matter of weeks after my office became involved.
My office has also spoken with Hilary Wills and her daughter Kathy Smith about their ongoing struggles to be upgraded to a level 4 home care package. After being unable to get any assistance from My Aged Care, Kathy reached out to my office for assistance. A representative from My Aged Care phoned both Kathy and my office to inform us that Hilary should be upgraded to a level 4 package within four weeks. Having heard nothing from them for a number of weeks, Kathy followed this up only to be told that no-one had mentioned the four-week time period and all they could do was place Hilary on a priority waiting list. This directly contradicted advice given to both her family and my office and has left her family and us feeling very frustrated with the system yet again. It has now been a year and Hilary is still waiting for her package to be upgraded. It should not be this hard. When the only way to get sufficient aged care services delivered is by contacting your local MP's office, something is wrong with our system. We have dealt with many complaints and frustrations like Hilary's and Joyce's, and I'm determined, like all of my Labor colleagues, to fight for a system that will make this process easier.
Labor is committed to making sure that people have proper access to high-quality aged care in this country, and I support this bill accordingly. The coalition's recent budget did nothing to address these glaring issues. Not only are the measures it announced entirely insufficient to make any long-term impact, they are funded from within existing aged-care budgeted resources. This budget simply takes funding from residential care to pay for its home care packages. That's right; not one new dollar is being spent on aged care in Australia by this government. Taking money from other aged care services to fund a mere 14,000 new home care packages over four years is a cruel hoax on those who have been already waiting too long. This represents funding for only 3½ thousand new packages per year, when we know that demand grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone. So, despite the song and dance this government has made about new packages in this year's budget, it will not even tackle the current issues faced though seeking quality aged care, let alone provide effective long-term policy for this country. We have over 100,000 people in this country on the wait list for home care packages. This is disgraceful. This is unacceptable. The people in my region, as do people in every part of this country, deserve a better system. They deserve a system that gives them a dignified retirement, that treats them appropriately and that recognises the great contribution they have made to this country.
As I said, I represent the electorate of Shortland, which has the highest number of people over the age of 60 of all mainland Labor seats. My residents, my constituents, deserve better than a government who use smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that they are not taking aged care seriously in this country. This bill goes some way to improving quality in this sector, but much more needs to be done. Unfortunately, I have no expectation this government will take it seriously.
It's now less than two weeks until the government's childcare subsidy changes begin—changes that will leave 279,000 Australian families worse off, changes that will leave 2½ thousand Central Coast families worse off, changes that will penalise families where parents aren't in secure, stable, full-time work or study. Childhood education peak bodies are concerned. Even the New South Wales Liberal government is worried that parents who fail the new activity test will be forced out of early childhood education altogether. The activity test misses the mark. Yes, child care is about providing care and education for children whose parents are working or studying. But it is so much more than that. Early childhood education is about all children, whatever family they grow up in—children with high needs, children in out-of-home care, children at risk.
I know a grandmother in her 70s who looks after her four grandchildren, all with high needs. She relies on child care to keep her family together, yet she is likely to have her subsidy cut. I know of a family with four foster children, all with high needs. They rely on child care to keep their family together, yet they are likely to have their subsidy cut too. This is not fair. All children deserve early childhood education. This government's approach, where some children are more deserving of early childhood education than other children, is just wrong. The single biggest thing we can provide to every child to give them the best start in life is early childhood education. This PM, who likes to present himself as a proud grandparent, is failing this test.
YWAM Medical Ships Australia do an incredible job providing medical services in highly challenging, remote areas of Papua New Guinea. My beautiful wife, Yolonde, is the first Cairns community ambassador for YWAM. Her role is to raise awareness, recruit volunteers and help strengthen sister-city relationships.
Last year Yolonde volunteered on board the MV YWAMPNG and was embedded with the optometry team. She saw firsthand the desperate need for sunglasses and prescription glasses to be distributed to the Papua New Guinean people. Yolonde vowed that her next campaign would be to collect unwanted pairs of glasses, which she will hand over to YWAM when the ship docks in Cairns next month. She is being helped by Cairns youth ambassador for YWAM Morgan Elliston. They've already collected more than 1,000 pairs of glasses towards their target of 5,000. I'd like to give a shout-out to Minister Kelly O'Dwyer, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, whose office has given us about 300 or 400 pairs of glasses so far.
I reckon a disproportionate number of us pollies wear glasses due to too many hours spent reading documents and computer screens—and, I hate to say it, in my case, age. I urge you all to have a look in your cupboards and drawers and dig out any old pairs of glasses you might have. You can drop them off to my office, or post them through to 200 Mulgrave Road, Cairns, by 18 July. It would be a great opportunity to help the Papua New Guinean people see a much brighter future. It really makes a huge difference for this community, and I appeal to my colleagues to see what they can do to help— (Time expired)
I'm proud to be a men's health ambassador. Last week we celebrated Men's Health Week. To mark the occasion, I was proud to sponsor a men's health expo, which was held in Darwin, down at Raintree Park. I want to thank Jason Bonson for pulling the event together, and I want to acknowledge all the stakeholders who made it such a great success. It's getting bigger every year.
One of the organisations that participated in the expo was the Darwin Men's Shed. It is great to have the CEO of the Australian Men's Shed Association, David Helmers, with us today. It was great to have David visit our Darwin and Palmerston men's sheds recently. I was impressed to learn that up there in Darwin we've got one of the only 3D printing set-ups in a men's shed anywhere in the country. It's a great idea for men's sheds to get into that new technology.
I want to acknowledge all the men's sheds around the country and the important work they do, especially for our senior Australian men out there. Members of men's sheds aren't doctors, but they save lives. They're not psychiatrists, but they help the mental health of our men—our uncles, our fathers and even our sons.
To finish up—because it isn't all about the blokes—I'd like to acknowledge a delegation of female electricians that is here today from the ETU. It's great to see strong female leadership in our union movement— (Time expired)
It's important to sometimes pause and reflect on the efforts of those who make our country a better place. I wish to recognise some very worthy Brisbane residents who received awards in the Queen's Birthday Honours. Dr Robert Riddell is now an Officer of the Order of Australia for, quite literally, helping build Brisbane. He designed some of Brisbane's most iconic landmarks, including Brisbane City Hall and Customs House. Wallace Bishop is now a Member of the Order of Australia. Wal was recognised for his contribution to the retail sector, where I was privileged to work with him in the National Retail Association. He founded the Queensland Surf Life Saving Foundation, a Queensland icon.
On the topic of saving lives, Professor Anthony Brown has been awarded for his service as a clinician, author and educator in emergency medicine. Today he works as a senior specialist at the RBWH and he is now a Member of the Order of Australia. Geoffrey Batkin, someone I run into everywhere around Brisbane, is now a Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to our community through social and aged welfare organisations such as Wesley Mission Queensland and UnitingCare. Michael Solomon was recognised with the medal of the Order of Australia for his leadership of the Jewish community, for his work for the Rotary Club of Albion and as a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight.
On behalf of the Brisbane community, we extend our thanks and our recognition to these awardees for helping to make our city the great place it is today.
We have the extraordinary phenomenon of the federal government going into the third election—this will be their third election—in which they have promised water development in North Queensland. They quote the Rookwood Weir. The Rookwood Weir is 60 kilometre south of Rockhampton. I don't think anyone in Queensland considers 60 kilometres south of Rockhampton as North Queensland. It's going to cost $352 million and will make 76,000 megalitres available.
The Hughenden project, which is shovel-ready and can be started tomorrow, is mooted to cost $165 million. For that, we will get 360,000 megalitres, diverted from the river and captured behind an off-stream dam, and 90,000 megalitres of water available for irrigation—creating, at the very least, $24 million of income each year for the cattle industry. If we get a quartering works, which I think would be inevitable, to go with it and a small biodiesel plant, then we're talking about 600 to 1,000 jobs and a doubling, if not a trebling, of the population of Hughenden—thereby rescuing a little town which, at the present moment, it could be argued, is dying. If we give every cattleman 300 hectares of irrigation on their 60,000 hectare properties and we create Hughenden, Cloncurry, Richmond, Normanton and Georgetown we can— (Time expired)
I rise to pay tribute to an outstanding member of the Mackellar community, Brian Friend OAM. In 2013 Brian was awarded the medal of the Order of Australia for services to touch football and the Northern Beaches. This achievement came on the back of decades of dedicated work in a number of local areas which has also seen him made Australia Day Citizen of the Year for Pittwater in 2000 and a recipient of a Centenary Medal in 2001. Brian was a co-founder of the Warringah Touch Football Association. He was granted life membership in 1993. He's also been a coach and referee at Avalon Junior Rugby League Football Club since the 1970s, while serving as president for three years. Brian was also a member of the New South Wales Police Force for 32 years. In 1974 he was recognised for his bravery with a Queen's Commendation for Bravery.
It is clear that Brian's commitment to and efforts in the field of community service, sport and policing have made him deserving of the honours he has received. I'm proud to count him as a constituent of mine in Mackellar, and I encourage all people, wherever they may be, to do as much as they possibly can, to dedicate as much effort and devotion as Brian has, into giving back to the community that Brian so nobly represents.
We've heard a lot about aspiration this week. Well, Vince Cooney has an aspiration. Vince runs a bed and breakfast in the Derwent Valley in my electorate. Vince's aspiration is to run a successful business to provide his guests with a quality experience, but his aspiration is being blocked by this government and its complete and utter failure to deliver quality broadband to regional Tasmania. Vince is connected to the NBN by fixed wireless. For the past 18 months, Vince has been tearing his hair out because of the dreadful NBN at his B&B. He's been told that, while his tower is not technically congested, it experiences heavy use in the busy period, in the evenings. Well, fancy that!
Who would've thought that a tower would be busiest at the time when most people want to use it! It's a bit like a traffic planner being surprised that roads are busiest when people are going to and from work.
Reports of congestion on the fixed wireless network are growing across regional Australia. NBN Co claims that only six per cent of towers are affected. Frankly, I find that hard to believe.
Vince has done everything that has been asked of him. He has contacted Telstra, NBN Co, the ACCC and the telecommunications ombudsman, all to no avail. All he wants—his aspiration—is to run his successful business, and he is being held up by this failure of a Prime Minister and this failure of an NBN.
On Saturday, 2 June, I attended the Seacliff Surf Life Saving Club presentation night, to mark the end of another successful season. There was plenty to celebrate, with the club having grown to over 700 members, making them one of the biggest in South Australia. Seacliff sent more competitors than any other club to the 2018 surf lifesaving nationals held in Perth, and, to top things off, young member Lily Drummond won $2,000 for the club in the DHL 'Flag Your Beach' competition for her video about Seacliff. Lily is studying at Flinders University and has a very bright future. These were just some of the achievements we heard about on the night, and I want to congratulate the organising committee on a great event—particularly the secret garden theme. The room and the outfits looked amazing!
I would particularly like to recognise club treasurer Gareth Gray, who is stepping down. After six years of dedicated service, club president, Andrew Chandler, is also stepping down. I want to thank Andrew and his wife Kate for being so welcoming to me as the new member for Boothby. Andrew was wonderful to work with as I helped to secure funding for solar panels for the club to cut their power bills. I can't wait to open the new surf lifesaving tower with him, which, thanks to a $150,000 Turnbull government grant, will be delivered soon. Congratulations to Andrew and the Seacliff Surf Life Saving Club on a great season. Thank you for all you do for our community.
I rise today to condemn this government and its unfair tax plan for Australia. This is an arrogant and out-of-touch government, led by an arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister.
It is no surprise that the highest percentage of people earning over $180,000 in this country live in Wentworth, North Sydney, Warringah, Curtin, Kooyong, Higgins and Bradfield—all up there, at 10 per cent or more. Conversely, most electorates that have one per cent or less of constituents who earn over 180 kay would be electorates that we, on this side, represent. But I think there are a few over there who need to get hold of some data, because they're in for a shock! The electorates of Farrer, Forde, Casey, McMillan, Maranoa, Wannon, Wright, Hinkler, Lyne, Grey, Mallee, Murray, New England, Cowper, Riverina and Barker all reflect the same percentage as my electorate of Lalor—only one per cent of their constituents and residents earn over $180,000. They need to talk to their Prime Minister and tell him that they're not just being unfair to this side of the House; they're being unfair to most Australians. Most Australians will be better off under the Labor tax plan. Most Australians will be better off under Bill Shorten.
This year, the Blayney United Hospital Auxiliary celebrates its 110th anniversary—a truly remarkable achievement for a community organisation. For over a century, the auxiliary and its volunteers have supported patients and those in need of care in the Blayney area. Examples of their recent contributions include helping to furnish the aged-care unit in Littlewood House, purchasing a blood pathology machine, putting televisions in all wards, and funding numerous mobile adjustable hospital beds.
Last year, the Blayney United Hospital Auxiliary contributed $10,500 towards the palliative care unit, and right now it is striving to reach the $9,000 target to purchase a new bladder scanner. Today I'd like to acknowledge the work of the organisation and all its current members, including the president, Judy Cook; the secretary, Lola Wyatt; and the treasurer, Fay Redhead OAM. I'd also like to acknowledge members Cathy Roach, Shirley Cox, June James, Pam Baker, Katie Matheson, Sharron Lanser, Julie Gordon and Kathie Hillier. I'd also like to mention that Fay Redhead, OAM, has served for over 50 years and Lola Wyatt and Monju Barui have each served the organisation for over 40 years. Throughout it's 110-year history the members of the Blayney hospital auxiliary have made an enormous contribution to the local community, and I would like to thank all members past and present. Without organisations like the Blayney branch of the United Hospital Auxiliaries of NSW, our country communities would grind to a halt. Happy birthday, Blayney hospital auxiliary!
There have been a lot of discussions about by-elections in this place. However, there is one that has so far gone unmentioned in Canberra. The state by-election for Darling Range in WA will take place this Saturday, with many of its residents being my federal constituents as well. This by-election has received an unprecedented level of scrutiny, and deservedly so. Labor's candidate, Tania Lawrence, will be a strong local voice for Darling Range. Meanwhile, the Liberals are flat out trying to think of a policy to support this community at all. Tania has worked most recently as a senior manager at Woodside and has previously worked in the public sector, as well as in small business. She has a thorough understanding of the electorate she seeks to represent and she has a wiliness to achieve results for the people of Darling Range. She was even president of Motorcycling Australia.
Tania has a unique understanding of the community and the lifestyle in this area. Unlike the state Liberals, she understands the importance of the need to replace the Denny Avenue level crossing in Kelmscott and to extend the railway to Byford. Tania understands the challenges that come with the semirural lifestyle of the hills and, as part of the McGowan state Labor government, Tania will get on with job delivery, the new Byford Primary School, better health and community safety initiatives, and protecting this unique environment. Tania will stand up for what really matters. She has my full support for the by-election that will be held this weekend.
I want to thank the hardworking small-business owners and operators that came along to my small-business forum in Tangney to share their feedback not only with me but with the Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation. We discussed a great range of opinions on many topics, including cutting red tape, training and mentoring opportunities for businesses, GST, payroll tax, opportunities for smaller contractors, multinational tax avoidance, local jobs, confidence and superannuation. I'll be sharing this feedback with ministers here in Canberra. I know the opportunity to hear from other small and family businesses and from the minister and to come along and share their views and experiences was very useful. Thank you to those people who took that opportunity.
I also took the minister to a local business called Joyce Kitchens which operates in my electorate. It is run by Tony Douglass, who employs 30 staff. It manufactures and sells kitchens produced with Australian materials. Tony and Joyce Kitchens have an impressive story to tell about small business success, but they have issues that they're confronting, which I'm working on with them.
This government has worked hard to deliver tax cuts for small and family businesses, with the lowest company tax rate in over 50 years. The instant asset write-off for assets up to $20,000 will continue, and we have abolished $5.8 billion worth of red tape, because this government is committed to getting things done for small and family businesses.
There are many things to not like about the Turnbull government's budget, but there's one serious act of destruction that has received little attention so far. That, of course, is the ongoing attacks on overseas development money in Australia. While the Prime Minister had no absolutely problem finding $80 billion to hand out to his mates in big business, multinationals and the banks, he was nonetheless determined to cut the aid budget a further $140 million over the next four years. This is in addition to $11.3 billion that has been cut out of aid by this government since coming to power. It means that Australia's funding that is now going to overseas development assistance is just 22c in every $100 of our national income. That is the lowest ever in our nation's history. Let's just let that sink in; it is the lowest ever. It will get worse over the next decade because it will drop to 0.16 per cent of the gross national income.
But none of this should come as a surprise to the Australian people, because this government treats our vulnerable people in Australia the same way. It treats average-wage earners with utter contempt. Yesterday in question time the PM told workers to just get better jobs—if you're struggling, just get yourself a better job. If you want to aspire to something more, you need an education. But this same government has cut funds to TAFE and the university sector. How do people get ahead when you make it so hard to get an education? (Time expired)
I was going to talk about how the government has delivered another mobile base station in the town of Waroona, but the member for Burt has raised the by-election of Darling Range, which will be held this weekend. I need to put it on the record that this election is about trust. I remind the House that the former member for Darling Range Mr Barry Urban falsified his university degree, his war medals and his war service record. He was expelled from the state parliament, and that is why we are going to a by-election.
An honourable member: And Labor put him up!
Labor put him up. He was endorsed by the state Labor Party, and then Colleen Yates was preselected by the Labor Party to replace Barry Urban. She falsified her CV as well and stepped down. We're now onto the third candidate for Labor. The people of Darling Range have a choice this Saturday. They have a choice between Alyssa Hayden—who spent several years in the upper house in WA, has a proven track record, can be trusted and is the person she says she is—or they can go with another Labor candidate. I call on the people of Darling Range to back Alyssa Hayden this Saturday because they know that they can trust her.
I thought I'd heard it all in this place, but yesterday I was appalled when we heard the Prime Minister telling a 60-year-old aged-care worker from the electorate of Braddon that they should aspire to get a better job. How shameful! How insulting! But it did remind me of the former member for Braddon and Liberal member in this place Brett Whiteley. When this government was planning to have young people live on nothing for six months whilst looking for a job, he said, 'Some people will cry a little longer than others, but it's for their own good in the long run.' But it gets worse. When the member for Gellibrand was talking about it in this place, he commented that what the Liberal government was trying to do to young people was to have them 'earn, learn or starve', and the former member for Braddon is on the Hansard as saying, 'Hear, hear!' to young people who wanted to get a job. He wanted them to starve. That is this Prime Minister and the former member for Braddon Brett Whiteley, the current candidate for Braddon. It appears that there's nobody in the electorate of Braddon that they don't want to insult. They want to insult old workers; they want to insult young people. They should both apologise. They should come into this place, on the record, with the Prime Minister, and apologise to the people of Braddon for what they are saying about the people of Braddon. It's not okay.
I rise to raise serious concerns about the botched demolition by Alcoa of its power station in Anglesea. This is the demolition that I asked Alcoa to delay because of the very poor way it had informed the community. The nearby school received just four days notice and the kindergarten just one day's notice. The community must immediately be told what went wrong, the risks, why the demolition proceeded outside the designated time—and when the wind was blowing towards the town—and whether any airborne asbestos or other toxic gases of material were released. This is a power station that was full of asbestos. While Alcoa says it has undertaken a 12-month asbestos removal program, it has refused to say whether there was any remaining in the building. The state Victorian Labor government, Alcoa, WorkSafe and EPA this week must urgently make public all information about the demolition. It's not good enough for WorkSafe to make vague statements about not detecting any airborne asbestos now. No further demolition should happen until there is full disclosure and transparency. I'm also calling on the state government to overturn Alcoa's FOI exemption. There's no reason why Alcoa should be a protected species when every other company which deals with government must comply with the FOI legislation. If this transparency is not forthcoming, a judicial inquiry on these matters may be required.
Jarrod Bleijie, formerly Queensland's first law officer in the LNP Newman government, has referred advertising executive and political commentator Dee Madigan to the powerful Ethics Committee of Queensland Parliament. The delicate petal, Bleijie, took offence when Madigan tweeted some footage which had aired on ABC News of Bleijie in parliament tearing up a piece of paper and throwing it into the air. Her comment was: 'Your taxes at work—a toddler tantrum from Jarrod Bleijie.'
As a lawyer and former attorney-general, Mr Bleijie should know that there is an implied right to freedom of political communication in Australia. The High Court has held that an implied right of political communication exists as an indispensable part of the system of representative and responsible government created by our Constitution. Bleijie has also tweeted parliamentary footage with his own commentary, and he loves a stunt. In 2016 he even entered parliament with a rat on his shoulder.
A healthy democracy is dependent on the free communication of information and ideas about public and political issues between citizens, candidates and elected representatives—even ones who walk into parliament with a rat! It is also the reason it's important to have a publicly funded and independent media organisation like our ABC. LNP leader Deb Frecklington needs to tell her precious petal to toughen up. As a first law officer, he should understand the importance of political free speech. If he can't stand some mocking, maybe it is time for this man-child to either grow up or get out of politics. (Time expired)
The revolution of women's sport in Australia has taken over our news bulletins due to the undeniable success of our netball, AFL, soccer, rugby league, cricket and most recently the Commonwealth Games teams. Our Aussie women have won gold medals, trophies and medallions. They have smashed world records, becoming leaders in the rise of women's sporting success in Australia. Last weekend I had the privilege to meet the women's Sandgate Hawks, an AFLW team, before their game and to watch their game down at the Sandgate Hawks oval. They won convincingly. The team, in only in their second season, are currently sitting third on the ladder. A shout-out to the girls who are kicking goals. I got to meet Alicia, whose nickname is 'Irish'. She invited me along to the game. Every weekend these women are kicking goals. Tegan Beaven was last weekend's most improved player. Aleena Long, Kara Fabian and coach Troy Beaven, we are looking forward to seeing your strategic plan get the girls to the finals this year.
As a government, we are leading the way to encourage all Australians to get involved with sport. I was pleased to hear of the funding initiatives announced in the budget, including $29.7 million for sporting infrastructure development grants to improve local community sporting facilities. (Time expired)
I would like to ask all members in the chamber to imagine waking up tomorrow morning and finding through the front page of your local newspaper, through your news feed or maybe from a news person ringing you that your place has been contaminated. Imagine you have been warned by the EPA not to drink your water and not to eat your eggs or your fruit and vegies from the garden. Your wife then says, 'What about the health implications?' Or your husband says, 'What will that do the value of our property?' Your parents, who live down the road, phone and say, 'This property is our superannuation and now it is worthless.' Your kids ask you: 'What is contamination?' You need answers.
Finally the Defence apparatchiks have some meetings and give you some information but they really don't do a lot. They tell you about a few things being done on the base—mental health programs—but that is really not a lot. The defence minister comes up and she listens but that is pretty much it. And then it gets shuffled through a few departments—Health has a crack at it, the environment minister weighs in, the other health minister has a bit of a go at it. And then, finally, the Prime Minister says, 'Gee, this is big. I'd better get involved.' He puts it to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and puts an assistant minister on it. He comes up, he listens, but not much gets done.
Prime Minister, you do not have the ear of your cabinet. When are you going to lead and do something about this national disgrace? And when are you going to make way for the side that will? (Time expired)
I, along with the member for Corio, the joint chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Sport, rise today to remember one of Australia's sporting legends. Peter William Thomson passed away this morning after suffering from Parkinson's disease for more than four years, just shy of his 89th birthday. Born on 23 August 1929 in Melbourne, Thomson became one of the world's great golfers. As a young boy, his first strokes were made on the sly by sneaking onto a golf course at a nine-hole club named Royal Park. By the age of 15 he was the club champion. Thomson turned away from a career as an industrial chemist to pursue his passion for golf. It paid off. Between 1954 and 1965, he won the British Open five times. He and Young Tom Morris were among only four men to win it three times consecutively. He won 26 times in Europe, 19 times in Australia and New Zealand and 11 more times in Asia and Japan. He played only a few seasons in America, garnering one victory in the US, the 1956 Texas Open, where he finished off with a round of 63.
Thomson served as the president of the Australian PGA for 32 years, designing and building courses in Australia and around the world, and he played an integral part in establishing the Asian Tour. In 1988 he was formally inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. He was a true gentleman and remains an Aussie legend. My thoughts, along with those of the member for Corio, are with his family at this sad time. Vale, Peter Thomson.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
My question is to the Prime Minister. When 8,000 Telstra workers lost their job today, the Minister for Urban Infrastructure and Cities shrugged his shoulders and said, 'As a former telco executive, I can say these things do happen from time to time.' Yesterday, the Prime Minister told a 60-year-old aged-care worker in Burnie to 'get a better job'. Doesn't this reveal everything the Prime Minister stands for: tax cuts for executives and cheap insults for Australian workers?
That question demonstrates everything you need to know about the Leader of the Opposition. He cannot tell the truth. It's only 24 hours, and he's already misleading the House about what I said. And what about the slimy, patronising insinuation he made about 60-year-old Australians!
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The member for Isaacs!
What about that? Apparently, according to him, if you're 60 years of age you've got to stay in the same job forever and earn the same money forever.
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The member for Moreton is warned.
Let's say you're a 60-year-old registered nurse working in aged care—I'm sure there are many of that age in that industry—you can't aspire to become a manager? You can't aspire to earn more? What if you're a personal care attendant? If you're 60, you can't aspire to train and become an enrolled nurse or a registered nurse? What this shows us again is the smug, slimy insinuations the Labor Party makes about the aspirations of Australians. We believe in their aspirations. We know that every Australian is entitled to do everything they can to realise their dream, to aspire, to work, to train, to earn more money—
Dr Aly interjecting—
The member for Cowan is warned.
to move from one job to another or to move from one department to another. It's their lives. They should be able to manage their lives as they wish. Our job, we believe—the government's role—is to enable Australians to do their best. We've just heard from this slimy, insinuating, patronising Leader of the Opposition that they believe that 60-year-old workers should stay in their place. That's what those opposite believe. They don't believe 60 is the new 40; they believe 60 is frozen in time. It's very significant that he referred to a 60-year-old because the insinuation there was: 'That's it. You can't do anything else. You can't earn anything more.'
Let me tell you, I've been 60 and I know—I'm over 60—60-year-olds have got plenty of energy and plenty of ambition. There's a lot of them, and they're going to come after you at the next election.
Honourable members interjecting—
Members on both sides will cease interjecting.
Ms Owens interjecting—
The member for Parramatta is warned. The members for Moreton and Cowan have already been warned. Not only is the level of interjections far too high—and I'm not going to keep repeating myself; I'll simply take action—a practice has developed on my right where there's constant banging of the desks. Practice is very clear on this matter; Speaker Andrew addressed it back in 1997. Constant banging on the desks is not acceptable conduct in the chamber.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how the government's plan for lower taxes encourages and rewards enterprise and aspiration, including in my electorate of Chisholm? Would the Prime Minister be mystified by an alternative approach?
None of us here are mystified by the aspiration-denying smugness of the Labor Party, none of us. We know the Labor Party has given up on Australian workers. The old Labor leaders of the past—my old mate Neville Wran would have been disgusted to hear the member for Sydney yesterday saying aspiration was a mystery to her.
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a).
The member for Moreton then left the chamber.
I tell you what: it wasn't a mystery to Neville Wran or Bob Hawke or Paul Keating. They understood that their job was to enable workers to get ahead, but now we hear from this smug, insinuating character that they want workers to stay in their place.
This is what we're doing. We have a tax plan in the Senate which we will, if it comes back here with the amendment, send straight back because we want all Australians to get the benefit of a comprehensive tax reform. We want to ensure that 94 per cent of Australians don't have to pay more than 32½ cents for every extra dollar they earn. We want to reward and encourage aspiration.
You would think the Labor Party was a complete dead loss, but there are glimmers of hope. The member for Corio today told Neil Mitchell three things—he could well be expelled for this. He said that all Australians should pay less tax. He also said that people earning $125,000 a year are not millionaires. And he said that bracket creep was a problem that should be looked at.
Mr Morrison interjecting—
The Treasurer is saying, 'We always knew he wasn't such a bad bloke.' There's always the opportunity for him, when the bill comes back from the Senate, to vote like he did the last time and vote for the full package of reform.
Aspiration is what is driving the Australian economy. It is aspiration: the desire of Australians to get ahead, to do better for their families, to ensure that their kids have got greater opportunities than they had, to ensure that their businesses do well. The Labor Party sneer because they are smug in their big taxpayer funded salaries. Let me tell you: in the real world, 90 per cent of Australians work—
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney is warned.
for the private sector and they want to be encouraged. They want to be supported. Aspiration isn't a mystery to them; it's what drives our nation.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, this Prime Minister told a 60-year-old aged-care worker in Burnie to 'get a better job'. Is this sort of snobbery the reason this Prime Minister is giving a millionaire investment banker a tax cut of $7,000 and an aged-care worker a tax cut of just $10 a week?
Mr Tim Wilson interjecting—
Just before I call the Prime Minister, the member for Goldstein's been warned on a number of occasions. He was interjecting right through the question and he'll leave under 94(a).
The member for Goldstein then left the chamber.
The member for Lyons is no more truthful in his recounting of yesterday's question time than his leader, and I'm disappointed that he has shown that he is of the same character as the Leader of the Opposition. Here are the facts: the Labor Party is patronising 60-year-old workers and is patronising people who work in the aged-care sector. It is patronising them. It talks about millionaires getting $7,000 tax cuts. Well, you know what? Under our tax plan, the honourable member will get a $7,000 tax cut.
Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—
He will!
The member for Lyons is warned.
He could always give it back, though. The Minister for Revenue and Financial Services has her receipt book at the ready! The Labor Party has betrayed and abandoned the people. The aspiring workers that Labor was founded to defend, they have abandoned them. This is modern Labor. It is a disgrace. It's an embarrassment. If aspiration is a mystery to the modern Labor Party, I'll tell you what: it's not a mystery to millions of Australians who want to get ahead and know that only a strong economy will enable them to do that.
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer update the House on why it's important to have a comprehensive plan for lower, simpler and fairer taxes and how this will help aspirational Australians, including in my electorate of Mackellar?
I thank the member for Mackellar for his question. He knows that the personal tax plan that we put in this year's budget will ensure that all working Australians get the benefit of tax relief. That's what our tax plan is designed to do for some 70,000 in the member's own electorate, which is replicated in the electorates of members all around this chamber. All working Australians under our tax plan will benefit from tax relief. This tax relief starts, most importantly, with supporting low- to middle-income earners. That's where the first priority is. But, as we know, our tax plan then goes on to deal with genuine and real problems in the tax system over the period of the plan.
There's a key difference when it comes to what we're doing on tax and what the Labor Party are doing. Our tax plan does not rely on taxing other Australians higher. Our tax plan does not seek to pit one group of Australians against another group of Australians. What our tax plan does is benefit all working Australians. It doesn't depend on ramping up taxes on some people and seeking to demonise some people. What it does is recognise that all Australians work hard, all Australians are making a stronger economy in Australia and all Australians deserve to benefit from that tax relief. Having started with low- to middle-income earners, we move on to deal with the issues of bracket creep and lower taxes—and the member for Corio, I'm glad to hear, enjoys that same view. I've found my long-lost twin, perhaps, on the other side, Mr Speaker! He shares these views so much that I welcome him to come and join us on this side. There are no butter knives over here for you to have to worry about!
What's important is that our plan delivers for all Australians; it's not about creating winners and losers. The Leader of the Opposition's entire approach is designed to try and set Australians against each other by creating winners and losers when it comes to tax. He wants to tax some more; he wants to rip into their pockets. Let's think about whose pockets he's ripping into. Is he ripping into big multinationals? No; they voted against multinational tax reform. Is he ripping into big corporates? No. He's ripping into the pockets of retirees and pensioners, and he's saying, 'I'm going to tax you $5 billion more every year.'
Mr Khalil interjecting—
The member for Wills is warned.
He's going to say that that is what he needs to do in order to do things in relation to tax in this country. We don't need to do that. Our tax plans are designed to lower taxes for everyone who works in this country. The Labor Party is the enemy of aspiration.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that this government has previously told Australians to get ahead, to get rich parents or to get out of town? Just yesterday, he told a 60-year-old aged-care worker to get a better job. Is this sort of snobbery why the Prime Minister's giving an investment banker a tax cut of $7,000 a year and an aged-care worker a tax cut of $10 a week? Just how arrogant and out of touch can this Prime Minister get?
Again, nothing better sums up the character of the modern Labor Party than the dishonest question just asked by the honourable member.
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left! The member for Wills has already been warned.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to articles on the front page of The Australian newspaper last Thursday, and again on Saturday, centring on secret American Korean War army files concerning Flying Officer Bruce Gillan and 42 other missing Australians. Did the Australian government receive from its ally the United States a secret communique issued in September 1953 that named nine Australian personnel as being alive and in prison in Korea? And did our government at the same time continue to aver that they had been killed in action?
I thank the member for Kennedy for his question. The Australian government—and I'm sure I speak on behalf of everyone in this House—shares the grief and the frustration of the families of the 43 Australian servicemen missing in action after the Korean War of 1950-1953.
An official list of all missing in action was released in 1953. It was in fact published in the media of the day. I have a copy of an article from The Sydney Morning Herald in mid-1953 which lists those missing in action under various categories, both Air Force and Army. It lists them as either 'confirmed POWs, confirmed killed, confirmed wounded' or 'believed POWs, believed killed, believed wounded'. In fact, Flying Officer Gillan is listed on this as 'missing, believed POW'.
Successive Australian governments have sought to ascertain the status of all 43 missing in action but, at the time, the North Korean regime did not confirm their status. I know that successive Australian governments have continued to make inquiries. In fact, I instigated exhaustive inquiries, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, with the US and South Korean governments. I responded to the relative of Flying Officer Gillan, courtesy of your office, in writing in October 2016 to confirm that no further information had been made available.
The tragic truth is that the only authority which would have more information, or could have more information, is the North Korean regime. We have very limited diplomatic engagement with North Korea, and that's been the case for some time. Nevertheless, our embassy in Seoul has continued to make representations to the North Korean government about our missing in action as recently as March this year.
The summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, and the declaration that was signed that specifically refers to the repatriation of the remains of POWs and missing in action, does give us some hope that there will be a final resolution of the status of the Australian Defence servicemen. Our Defence personnel remain in constant contact with our counterparts in the United States, and I personally raised this issue with the acting ambassador of the United States during the course of this week.
Mr Speaker, can I have a follow-up question?
No, there are no supplementary questions under the standing orders.
My question is to the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services. Will the minister update the House on the importance of pursuing tax policies that support aspirational Australians, including in my electorate of Boothby? Is the minister aware of any threats posed by different approaches?
I thank the member for Boothby for her question. She backs hardworking, aspirational Australians and she does that because she supports a tax system that will see them rewarded for their hard work and effort and will see them able to keep even more of their hard-earned income. Under our government's tax plan, 94 per cent of those people who are out there earning money will pay no more than 32½c in the dollar when our plan is fully implemented.
I have noticed that there are those opposite who love to talk a lot about equity. I know it's not convenient for those opposite, but under the government's plan those who are in the top tax bracket will pay a higher share of taxes than they do now. Yet, when Labor thinks about equity and when they think about retirees, what do they do? They decide instead to implement a mega retiree tax, and it is aimed at precisely those people who can least afford it.
Under their cash grab—and let me just give an example—Joan, a self-funded retiree who earns a very modest $20,000 a year, including $9,800 in cash dividends and $4,200 worth of franking credits from her shares, will see, under their mega retiree tax, every single one of her credits ripped off her. It is courtesy of you-know-who—the Leader of the Opposition. Let's contrast that with William. William is a very high income earner; perhaps he's a union boss. He earns around $250,000 a year. He has exactly the same dividends from holding exactly the same set of shares in the exact same company as Joan does. He gets the exact same franking credits. But is William going to be able to keep those franking credits? Of course he is. He's able to utilise that. This mega retiree tax is not aimed at the top end of town. He does not lose a single thing; whereas Joan loses every single cent.
Mr Keogh interjecting—
The member for Burt is warned.
The Leader of the Opposition likes to talk a big game when he talks about equity and the taxation system. He likes to claim that he protects those who are vulnerable and weak, yet he is the one who has his hands in the pockets of all the grandfathers of Australia and he's the one who's got his hand in the handbags of all of the grandmothers in Australia, because he is the one who would hit them with a very high tax. He is the one who would threaten their retirement and their security. He is so shifty. He cannot be trusted and the Australian people know better.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can this arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister confirm that under his tax scheme a telco executive from Sydney's upper North Shore earning a million dollars a year gets a tax cut of over $7,000 but a shop assistant from Western Sydney selling phone plans gets a tax cut of just $10 a week? Is this why the Prime Minister is telling working Australians who are doing it tough to just 'get a better job'?
The tax relief depends on a person's income and, indeed, it would apply to a lawyer working for a large telco as well. They're well paid as well. What the honourable member is trying to argue is that the tax in personal income tax reform is lacking in equity. Yet, under our plan, by 2024-25, not only will 94 per cent of Australians pay no more than 32½c on every dollar—any dollar they earn—over $41,000 until they get to $200,000 when the 45c tax rate comes in, but taxpayers earning over $200,000, paying 45c tax, plus of course the Medicare levy, will constitute a larger share of the overall number of taxpayers and a substantially larger share of the total personal income tax receipts.
All of those people—all of those police sergeants and police inspectors, all of those headmistresses and headmasters of schools around the country, that are earning incomes around that level, as they will be by 2024-25—earning above $125,000, some of them over $200,000, will be contributing more of the tax take than they are today. On any test, our reform is fair. It results in a flatter income tax system that encourages aspiration and incentive and enterprise, and that's the big difference. We are inspired by the aspiration of Australians; the Labor Party is mystified by it.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister update the House on the current economic and political situation in Venezuela? Is the minister aware of any alternative views on this situation?
I thank the member for Cowper for his question. The Australian government is deeply concerned about the deteriorating political and economic situation in Venezuela, which was one of the richest countries in Latin America until it turned to socialism in 1999. The government then embraced anti-private-sector policies, spent recklessly and racked up huge amounts of debt. Today, the IMF has noted that the GDP of Venezuela has halved over recent years. It is predicted to fall a further 15 per cent. Unemployment is currently at 30 per cent and hyperinflation is running at 13,000 per cent. The currency has been devalued by 99.9 per cent. There is massive starvation across Venezuela. The hospitals are overcrowded. Sickness is rife. Malaria has emerged after being eradicated years ago. The homicide rate is one of the highest in the world. There is violence and intimidation against critics of the government, and the human rights abuses are widespread.
Mr Hill interjecting—
The member for Bruce is warned.
Imagine my surprise when I received a letter from the CFMEU urging me to publicly applaud the recent corrupt election of this brutal regime in Venezuela. The CFMEU holds up as an exemplar of governance the corrupt regime of Venezuela.
Mr Feeney interjecting—
The member for Batman is warned.
This is the same CFMEU that is the principal supporter of the Leader of the Opposition. This is the same CFMEU that is the major benefactor of the Leader of the Opposition, the same CFMEU that is part of the close advisory circle of the Leader of the Opposition, and Venezuela is their idea of a democracy to be applauded by the Australian government. I tell you: the Turnbull government will continue to produce policies that build a stronger economy, that build more jobs and that ensure we have a safer environment so that the Australian people are kept safe and secure. We will do all we can to ensure that the CFMEU and its political arm, the Australian Labor Party, never wreak a Venezuelan nightmare on this country. I table the letter. By the way, the letter is copied to the queen of aspiration, the member for Sydney.
Mr Watts interjecting—
Ms Burney interjecting—
Dr Aly interjecting—
The member for Gellibrand and the member for Barton will cease interjecting. I remind the member for Cowan that she's already been warned. I also remind members that interjecting while I'm addressing the chamber is highly disorderly and leads to an immediate suspension.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that he's dealing with One Nation so that an investment banker in a harbour-side mansion earning a million dollars will get a tax cut of $7,000, but a nurse in Caboolture will get a tax cut of only $10 a week? Is this why this arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister is telling working Australians who are doing it tough to 'just get a better job'?
I was very pleased to meet today a leadership group from Ballarat. They were here; they come here every year. They're inspiring people. They're in the gallery. Good on you! Great to see you! These young men and women came here, as part of their leadership program, to learn about the importance of leadership and values. I can't say how disappointed they would be to hear their federal member misrepresent what was said in this House, because they know very well that what leaders do is to tell the truth, and what the honourable member did was to not tell the truth, and she knows that.
The only party in this place that believes it knows better than workers, whatever their occupation and whatever their pay scale, is the Labor Party. We know that our job is to enable Australians to do their best—to dream their dreams and do all they can to realise them; to aspire as they wish and work hard to meet and reach those aspirations. The only people for whom aspiration is a mystery, the only people who want to keep 60-year-olds in their place and think that they're too old to earn more money or get a promotion or do anything else, are these smart young men and women on the Labor side. Let me tell you: I reckon the young leaders from Ballarat have got more integrity and more character than has been shown by their federal member today.
My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Jobs and Innovation. Will the minister update the House on how sound management of the economy and the budget creates jobs and growth in the economy, allowing the government to deliver the essential services expected by the Australian people? Are there different approaches that would achieve the same outcome?
I thank the member for Murray for his question, and I can tell the member for Murray that, because of the government's economic and budgetary management, we've been able to create a million new jobs in Australia since we were elected in 2013. Because of our good economic management and our budgetary management, we've picked the economy up off the mat and we've got it moving again; we've got it growing again. Because of our economic management and our good budgetary management, we're able to invest more in health, in education, in life-saving medicines and in national security. Only because of what this government has been able to achieve in good economic management can we afford a $200 billion build-up of our military capability in the next 10 years—the largest in our peacetime history.
But the other thing that we can afford because of the budgetary management of the Treasurer, because revenues are growing and because the economy is growing, is this: we're able to give hardworking Australian families $140 billion of tax cuts. We're able to give them back their own money. And that's what it is: it's their own money.
On the other hand, Labor wants to give them either $70 billion or nothing—$70 billion or nothing, versus $140 billion from this government. It is not enough that they're belting retirees and pensioners who've worked hard all their lives to prepare for their retirement, or, if they're pensioners, have put a little bit aside to be able to ensure they can afford a few of the nicer things in life. The Labor Party are belting retirees and pensioners. But now they want to stop hardworking Australian families on incomes like $90,000 from getting tax cuts, because they describe those people as 'rich'. Apparently if you earn $90,000 you are a rich Australian. That is so frankly ludicrous that nobody would believe it. But that's what Labor wants people to believe. Those on the other side of the House are so pleased with themselves, they are so narcissistic, that they think they know better than the Australian public about how to spend their money. I mean, nothing could be starker in terms of the differences at the next election.
At the next election, people will have a choice between whether they vote for a party that understands it's their money and wants to give their money back to them in tax cuts versus a party that thinks they know better how to spend the Australian public's money, that thinks they know better about taking money away from Australians and making their decisions for them. One of the reasons we're Liberals and Nationals is that we believe that individuals should make their own decisions about how they spend their money. Tax cuts are giving back to the people the power to make their own decisions about their lives and the lives of their children, and that's why we'll win the next election and the Leader of the Opposition will lose it.
My question is to the Prime Minister. What policy commitments or undertakings has the government given to One Nation in return for their two votes in the Senate today?
I thank the honourable member for his question and understand his interest in ensuring that the bill that he voted for when it was last in the House of Representatives should pass the Senate. I can just say to him that it will come back from the Senate amended and we'll be voting to send it straight back. So there's the opportunity for him to show a consistency, a steadfast commitment, and to push aside the mystification of the member for Sydney and vote for that bill and ensure that Australians get a fairer tax system.
Has the Prime Minister concluded his answer? The Prime Minister has concluded his answer. I will take a point of order. The Manager of Opposition Business?
Mr Speaker, you had previously requested that, for the first minute, we don't take points of order, on the basis that there is time for a preamble. Given that the Prime Minister is not even using that time to say anything relevant to the question at all, at what point does the Prime Minister become relevant?
The Manager of Opposition Business can resume his seat. He asked a question about the tax bill that's before the Senate, and the Prime Minister certainly, in the preamble, addressed that. As I've said before, the three minutes is a maximum amount. It's a limit. It's not mandated that the Prime Minister use all of that time, and it's certainly not mandated that the Prime Minister answer the question in the way the Manager of Opposition Business desires. He was relevant to the question and he wrapped up within 50 seconds. And you and I have now spent more time talking about it than he did answering it, so we'll move to the next question.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the government is investing in the infrastructure needed to increase productivity and create local jobs, including in the great electorate of Mallee? Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of any roadblocks to this success?
When the regions are strong, so too is our nation. I thank the member for Mallee for his question and for his advocacy for his great electorate. Certainly he knows that the Liberals and Nationals have an ongoing commitment to deliver for regional Australia, especially in regional Victoria. I'm proud to be part of this government, which is driven to deliver for our nation's regions—the home of our farmers, our resources, those food and fibre producers, some of the hardest-working people in Australia. And that's why we on this side turn up every day to fight for the regions so that they can get their fair share, their share of the pie, to fight for hardworking Australians so they can keep more of their money in their pockets, and to fight for the essential services that Australians need, want, demand and expect. When you've got a strong economy, you can build the road, rail and other infrastructure that our country needs.
We also know that not all the best ideas come from Canberra, and that's why, every chance that we get, we're out on the road talking to people and, more importantly, listening to people. I was so pleased to be with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources on our drought tour just the other day, listening to people, making sure that we heard their issues, their concerns. We heard from farmers who are doing it tough in the electorate of the member for Parkes and in the electorate of the member for Maranoa. It's not only the farmers; it's the flow-on effect to the small businesses that do it tough—the machinery and equipment dealers, and the small cafe feeling the pressure, feeling the pinch, as disposable income dries up due to the prolonged dry spell.
We're building the infrastructure that our local communities need. We're building for the future, with projects such as $20 million for the Calder and Western highway upgrades, $10 million for upgrading the regional airport at Mildura in the member for Mallee's electorate and $3 million for modernisation of water infrastructure in Victoria's Sunraysia region, near Mildura. These are important projects. But it's also about delivering the sort of local infrastructure that we need in Braddon. There is $400 million for upgrading roads throughout Tasmania, including in the electorate of Braddon, and almost $8 million set aside to upgrade highways. We've invested more than $871,000 in bridge replacements in Braddon. We've invested more than $18 million in Braddon through programs including the Regional Jobs and Investment Package and the Building Better Regions Fund.
Compare and contrast this to Labor. Labor is a roadblock to growth. It is a roadblock to building the infrastructure that families, farmers and businesses need in Braddon, in Longman and elsewhere. It's a roadblock to jobs—not just today's jobs but jobs for our children and our children's children. I urge all Australians, especially in Braddon, to consider the risks—
An opposition member interjecting—
Yes, those too, Shadow Minister—of sending another roadblock to Canberra in Justine Keay. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what is the median personal income in Australia?
I'll take that question on notice, but it is certainly well below the average full-time weekly earnings, because many Australians are working part time and are therefore on lower earnings. But, rather than make an attempt to pick a number, I will take that on notice and I'll come back to the honourable member on it.
My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the importance of a strong and united approach to combating the scourge of people smuggling? Is the minister aware of any other approaches which pose threats to Australia's border security?
I thank the honourable member very much for his question and recognise the work that he does, particularly in Western Australia. It's very important to Western Australia because Western Australians, like all Australians, recognise that we have a vulnerability with people coming from Indonesia at the hands of people smugglers. The reality is there are 14,000 people in Indonesia right now waiting to get onto boats. We know that the people smugglers are looking very carefully at this election. If I were a people smuggler in Indonesia, I'd be getting down to Sportsbet in Jakarta and putting as much money as I could on the Labor Party getting into government. I suspect that's what they're counting on, because, if Labor gets back into power, the boats restart. That is the bottom line. You're seeing images out of the United States at the moment, with kids in detention. You're seeing the tragedy of people drowning in the Mediterranean, with hundreds of thousands of people trying to move into Europe. Don't forget those are exactly the scenes that we saw on our television screens only a few years ago, and yet, for over 1,400 days, because of the policies of this government, we have not had a child drown at sea. Twelve hundred people drowned at sea under Labor, and the Labor Party wants to undo the policies that have resulted in the stopping of the boats.
Dr Mike Kelly interjecting—
Mr Falinski interjecting —
We've heard from every Labor member about how they want to dismantle—
The member will just pause for a second. The member for Eden-Monaro and the member for Mackellar will continue their conversation outside the chamber. They will both leave under 94(a).
The member for Eden-Monaro and the member for Mackellar then left the chamber.
We have heard from every Labor member about their plan to undo the policies that we have if they get back into government. I noticed some comments from the Labor member for Braddon, Justine Keay, on turnbacks. It's interesting when you look at some of the comments that they've made. She is a very good supporter, she says, and she agrees with the position of Albo, the member for Grayndler.
The minister will refer to members by their correct titles.
That was a direct quote, Mr Speaker; my apologies.
That doesn't excuse it.
On turnbacks, Ms Keay says, 'I do not support it,' and she says—and this is a direct quote, Mr Speaker—'I'm with Albo on this.' Every person you look at on the front bench has been weak on border protection in opposition and in government. Those people that would sit around the National Security Committee, if you have a look at them one by one, they are as weak as water. It's 700 days. We've not even had a question from the shadow minister on boats. It's interesting. They sedate him when he comes in here. On the quarter hour, his head turns from 10 to two and turns back again on the next quarter hour. The fact is they don't want to talk about boats because they are completely disastrous when it comes to boat policy, and the Australian public should never, ever forget it. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can this arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister confirm he's dealing with One Nation so that a banker from Clayfield earning $1 million gets a tax cut of over $7,000 a year and their bank gets a company tax cut, with $17 billion going to the big banks, but a bartender from Cairns gets a tax cut of only $10 a week?
The personal tax plan we announced in the budget benefits all Australians who are working and paying tax. And there's some data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics which sets out who pays tax in this country and how that supports all Australians around the country. Twenty per cent of households with the lowest private income in this country received 57 per cent of the cash benefits—
Ms Butler interjecting—
The member for Griffith is warned.
and 28 per cent of the benefits in kind, while paying five per cent of the taxes. The top 20 per cent of private income households received three per cent of cash benefits and 14 per cent of the benefits in kind and paid half—that is, 50 per cent—of total taxes in this country. We have a progressive tax system in this country, which ensures that those who have done better in life pay higher average rates of taxes and, indeed, higher marginal rates of taxes and they bear the majority burden of the tax burden in this country. The question for the Labor Party is: how much more do you want people to pay in tax? When is too much tax ever enough for the Labor Party? It's never enough because there's never too much spending for the Labor Party, and that's why they cannot be trusted to manage a budget or oversee an economy or ensure a stronger economy that guarantees the essential services that the very people that the member was asking about rely on.
Those people that the member was asking about depend on a stronger economy to ensure they can get the services that they rely on, and that stronger economy is driven by people who earn, who start businesses, who have success. And the Labor Party wants to set them up as the problem. They have set aspiration as the problem with Australia and success as the reason why Australia is failing on their terms.
But this is what we've had from the Labor Party just in the last 24 hours: the shadow Treasurer's policy of his own personal tax plan yesterday didn't last 24 hours. Since the budget, they've had four positions on the personal tax plan. First, they agreed with stage 1 only. Then they came in here and voted for the whole package. Yesterday, he stood up there proudly with the Leader of the Opposition and said, 'We are only supporting stage 1 again,' and then up in the Senate, the Labor Party has said they're going to remove only stage 3. This bloke cannot keep a position from one day to the next. We know the same thing when it comes to corporate tax. He wrote about how it's so important for companies to have business taxes that are competitive, and when he's asked to vote for it, he's not up to the task. This is a shadow Treasurer that does not have the ticker to run a stronger economy or manage a budget or hold a position on tax from one day to the next, and there's a simple reason: his new mentor on economic policy is the member for Sydney.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Energy. Will the minister update the House on how the government's action to reduce power prices will benefit families and local businesses in my electorate of Bonner and across South-East Queensland? Is the minister aware of any different proposals?
I thank the member for Bonner for his question. Under the coalition, reducing power prices isn't merely an aspiration; it's actually a reality. It's actually a reality, because the big three in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia recently reduced their prices.
That is in stark contrast to what happened when the Labor Party were last in office, when power prices doubled and they went up each and every year. This reduction in power prices is good news: good news for the 12,000 small businesses in Longman, good news for the 15,000 small businesses in the seat of Bonner and good news for the 19,000 small businesses in Mayo. If you are a small business in Brisbane, you can see a saving of up to $470 a year. Over one million households across South-East Queensland will actually get a saving now on their power bill as a result of these announcements.
This is a positive set of numbers, and we know that Labor aren't too good at their numbers. They aren't too good at the numbers!
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler doesn't quite have them! The member for Port Adelaide didn't quite get them. And the member for Lilley, after six budget blowouts, finally got the numbers. He finally got the numbers!
Mr Speaker, I'll tell you about another set of numbers. When Labor was last in office, power prices went up by 101 per cent. Now Labor is promising a 50 per cent reckless Renewable Energy Target and a 45 per cent Emissions Reduction Target, which will only do one thing to your power bills: send them up. Under the coalition you'll always pay less for your power than under the Labor Party. If you're a manufacturer, working in a manufacturing business, the Labor Party don't care about your job. If you're a family, they don't care about your power bill. We have a plan; we have a plan to lower your power bills and to create a more reliable system. This is in stark contrast to the reckless Labor Renewable Energy Target, which will only send power bills up.
My question is to the Prime Minister: Why is this snobbish Prime Minister telling workers, Australians, to get a better job instead of supporting Labor's plan to give 39,000 people in Braddon who earn less than $125,000—including aged-care workers—a tax cut of up to $928 a year, almost double the tax cut they'll get from this government?
I'm not going to call the Prime Minister immediately. I'm going to address an issue with this question—indeed, with a number of questions that have been grating with me for several days now—and that is the use of these abusive tag lines that are in them. It leads to a—
Honourable members interjecting—
I will address the chamber without that. The member for Hotham was reflecting on me, in which case she can come to the dispatch box and withdraw.
I withdraw, Mr Speaker. My apologies.
I will just make clear that I'm going to address the House without interjection. This, of course, leads to a situation best summed up by the member for Jagajaga's question in the last sitting week, where the Prime Minister was given a huge character assessment that wasn't a question, and that has followed in questions since. This then led to the Prime Minister, naturally, responding to what was part of the 30-second statement and question, with the member for Jagajaga then complaining about the response. As I pointed out, there was no way I was going to allow that question to be asked and then curtail the answer.
My personal view is that this demeans the House because it leads to very aggressive questions that have statements in them that simply aren't questions. That particular question has taken it, I think, to a new low. Now, I am just flagging with the House that I'm not happy with how this goes. I've never wanted to curtail debate, but the 30-second time limit is for questions. I have allowed preambles, but if they are going to end up leading down this path then I'm flagging now that I will be taking a different approach.
May I raise a point of order?
Yes, I'm happy to hear you on a point of order.
I want to clarify for the purposes of question time preparation whether the ruling you have just gone to goes only to questions or also to the words that are used in answers.
The point I am making is twofold. The 30 seconds is for questions. I've allowed preambles, but, if the preambles are becoming abusive and that then leads to a response in the answer, that is the point I am making.
I don't want to detain the House—
Well, I tell you what—don't; just sit down for a second.
Government members interjecting—
Members on my right will cease interjecting. I've just indicated to the House that I am uncomfortable with how this is going. I'm not making a ruling; I've just indicated that I am uncomfortable with how it is going. If it keeps proceeding down this path, the parliament will be demeaned and the public, rightly, will be quite dissatisfied. That question has a particular word in it that was used in an interjection yesterday. If we're going to go down that path, I am just saying that I will end up taking action. Having made the statement I've just made, I would hope that it is not beyond members to take some corrective action themselves. I am monitoring the situation. On this occasion I will call the Prime Minister.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'll take the opportunity from the question to refer to some important benefits that will flow to the residents and constituents in Braddon from the government's economic plan. There are 39,300 taxpayers in Braddon who will benefit from 1 July this year from our Personal Income Tax Plan, with around 14,600 who will receive the full $530.
But that is not all: were Labor to be able to impose its retiree tax, grabbing back the franking credits that retirees are able to enjoy under a law that is fair and has had bipartisan support from the time—
Mr Watts interjecting—
The member for Gellibrand will cease interjecting. If the member for Gellibrand wants to say anything, he will have to get himself a question, frankly. The Prime Minister has the call.
This is the modern Labor Party. They are not even capable of running an effective class war. What do they want to do on the retiree tax? If you are a wealthy investor and you have lots of investments and you get some franking credits from your listed stocks, you can use those franking credits to offset your other tax liabilities. You can do that.
Mr Shorten interjecting—
The honourable member opposite is very happy with that. But he's a very confused class warrior because if, on the other hand, you are a retiree of modest means and you are not paying tax—you have a superannuation fund; it is a retirement account and it's not paying tax because of those superannuation rules—and you get some dividends with those franking credits, you don't have other tax liabilities to offset them against. So, from around the year 2000, with bipartisan support—it was Labor policy as well as coalition policy—people in that situation have been able to get the tax credit refunded. That has been fair; it has been obvious. But what the member for Gellibrand, his leader and their whole team want to do is cut retirees' incomes by 20 per cent, 28 per cent—as one lady in her 80s told me—and right up to 30 per cent. How many people are there in Braddon who will be hit by that? The answer is 3,534. In terms of company tax, Tasmania is experiencing a strong economy. There are over 8,000 businesses in Braddon— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the health minister please update the House on how a stronger economy enables the government to deliver life-changing support services for drug addiction to those living in Redcliffe and Caboolture? Is the minister aware of any alternative attitudes to the funding of health services in Queensland?
I want to thank the member for Petrie for his question. He comes to this place as somebody who ran a successful small business, and one of the things he knows is that, in order to run a successful economy as well as a successful small business, you need a plan.
Dr Freelander interjecting—
The member for Macarthur!
And that's a plan which is about ensuring that we have lower costs and the capacity to invest. That plan, which this government has, allowed us to help the country deliver an extra million jobs, and those million jobs have allowed us to ensure that we are able to guarantee the essential services that matter to all Australians, with record funding for Medicare, for hospitals, for mental health and for aged care. But one of his particular passions is ensuring that we have adequate support, real and powerful support, for drug and alcohol dependency. In his own electorate, he's been a powerful and unstinting advocate for the Redcliffe PCYC, helping to secure a $450,000 upgrade to their services, and, only recently, a new local drug and alcohol team.
But he also asks about Caboolture. Only recently I visited Caboolture and I was there with our candidate for the seat of Longman, Trevor Ruthenberg.
A government member: Big Trev.
Absolutely—Big Trev has the heart of a lion. And one of his passions is also to ensure that there is drug and alcohol treatment for the people of Caboolture who need that additional support, according to the needs assessment of the Primary Health Network. Whilst we were there, we outlined additional funding of $11 million for Lives Lived Well. That funding goes to residential care and bed but also to detox and to recovery and day services. And the reason we did that is the very testimonial that I received today from one of the clients of Lives Lived Well, Debbie, who has had a drug and alcohol problem. Her quote is: 'After seeing Lives Lived Well for the past two months, I have a better understanding of why I was using ice and I've got control back over my life. Now I can focus again. I've been able to get a job and get back into my hobbies.' That's what we're supporting. That's what matters on the ground. That's what Big Trev is supporting. That's what the coalition is fighting for in Longman.
What that compares with is what Queensland Labor has done. Whilst we've been adding to the Brisbane Metro North Hospital and Health Service—$120 million in the last full year to that area for hospital funding—Queensland Labor has cut $20 million from the Brisbane Metro North. Why? Because they can't manage the economy, and if you can't manage the economy— (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is the Prime Minister on the one hand telling working Australians to get a better job but on the other hand blocking Labor's plan to give the 63,000 people in Longman who earn less than $125,000—and that includes aged-care workers—a tax cut of up to $928 a year? Why is the Prime Minister blocking an income tax plan which will be double the tax cut that the government is currently offering people?
The Labor Party may be mystified by aspiration, but nobody is mystified by the way in which the Leader of the Opposition again and again misleads the House. I said no such thing. You know that very well—
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left!
And just because you repeat a falsehood does not make it true. Australians, whether they work in aged care, manufacturing or agriculture, are entitled to aspire to do whatever they want to do. They're entitled to aspire to better-paid jobs, to different jobs and to promotions. They're entitled to aspire, to dream. Our job as the government and, I would say, the parliament is to do everything we can to enable them to realise those aspirations.
But the Labor Party stands in the way of those aspirations. They particularly want those workers who are getting on a bit in years—yes, those 60-year-olds—to stay put. They've got to stay put, don't they? They can't aspire to anything! The patronising smugness, the slimy insinuation, about older Australians is sickening. It embarrasses the men and women who were the leaders of the Labor Party in years gone by. We don't have to doubt what Paul Keating said about Labor failing because of not being able to connect with aspirational Australians. The reason is those smug big-government salaries. The Labor Party is mystified by the way millions of Australians want to get ahead. They want to keep them in their place.
My question is for the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister update the House on the importance of the government's tax relief plan to reward aspiration to work, save and invest. Is the minister mystified by other approaches to tax relief?
I thank the member for his question. The coalition's budget plan for immediate and sustained tax relief is consistent with the global push for lower, flatter taxes for individuals and pro-investment tax policies for business. The simple fact is that you cannot hit the Australian economy with a $200 billion tax slug, as Labor wants to do, and expect businesses and households to remain indifferent to that extra tax slug.
In fact, to encourage and reward hardworking Australians, we're making income tax lower, fairer and simpler. To encourage and reward business investment, we want to make sure that we make our tax system internationally competitive. Under our plan, Australians who aspire to work hard, take extra shifts or earn pay rises or promotions will be encouraged and rewarded. As investment minister, I welcome lower company tax and lower, flatter personal taxes for our most productive and talented workers and entrepreneurs. We'll let them keep more of the money they make, because on this side of the House we absolutely respect and reward those who want to do their best and have aspiration.
The member asked if I was mystified by alternative approaches. Absolutely, I am mystified, because we continue to see the Australian Labor Party attack the aspiration of people. The question is: why is it that Labor is so mystified by aspiration? Why is it that Labor has a war on ambition? I think it comes down to the Leader of the Opposition, because he doesn't embody aspiration and he doesn't embody ambition. In fact, the vast bulk of them don't embody those traits. But there is one among them who does embody aspiration. There is one among them who does embody a bit of ambition.
A government member: Who is it?
The question is: who could it be? Who has those traits? Who has that ambition? Who has aspiration? That's the question. Who could it be?
The minister knows the rules on props.
'Who, me?' The member for Grayndler can mouth the words: 'Who, me?' This was a fascinating article to read, right from the very first sentence through to the very last sentence. The first sentence is:
Anthony Albanese has misplaced his wallet.
If there's a political party to misplace their wallet, it's the Australian Labor Party. It goes all the way to the end, where, in the final sentence, the journalist says:
I pay our bill, and Albo heads off down Marrickville Road.
Isn't that just a summation of the Australian Labor Party. It's going to be every other Australian that pays that $200 billion bill that the Australian Labor Party will levy on the lot of us.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister proud that he is the first Prime Minister in Australian history to unite the government, Catholic and independent school sectors against his policies? Why is this Prime Minister so devoid of judgement that he ignored the people who teach our kids when they told him that his schools funding regime was profoundly flawed?
I thank the member for Sydney for her question. I'm pleased to inform her that under the Turnbull government's education reforms the schools in her electorate will on average be $2½ million better off. The Bourke Street Public School in her electorate will see a 51.4 per cent increase over the decade. That is a result of the Turnbull government's reforms. The member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, has 54 schools in his electorate and 30,000 students, and every school will get more money under the Turnbull government's reforms—an average of over $7.2 million extra for schools in Maribyrnong. The Leader of the Opposition and the member for Sydney should know that when it comes to education we have ended the 27 special deals. We've ended the 27 special deals and we've put in place a fully funded improvement to education funding for Australian students—more than $20 billion extra.
When it comes to the seat of Longman, the Queensland Catholic Education Commission will see its funding increase from just over $9,000 to just over $12,000 per student over the decade—a 36½ per cent increase. When it comes to the seat of Braddon, the Tasmanian Catholic Education Office will see their funding go from over $10,000 per student to over $15,000 per student over the decade—an increase of 44 per cent. In the electorate of Mayo, Catholic Education South Australia will see its funding go from over $9,000 per student today to well over $12,000 per student within the decade—a nearly 40 per cent increase. Mr Speaker, don't look at what Labor says; look at what Labor does. They had 27 special deals. The Turnbull government is increasing funding for school students across the country and across all sectors.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the minister update the House on measures the government is taking to support farmers in financial hardship during drought, including in the electorate of Calare, and are there any alternative proposals that the minister is aware of?
I thank the member for Calare for his question, because he knows better than anyone the impacts that this drought is having on his farming constituency. In fact, I was with him last month with a group of farmers in a paddock of wheat that had just been planted and was doing it pretty tough; it needed some rain. I'm also proud that only a couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister, myself, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Regional Development, Territories and Local Government went out to farms across New South Wales and Queensland. In Narromine and Trangie; up into my electorate, where we've had drought for seven years, in places like Blackall and Charleville; and then up into Kennedy, to a place called Boulia, we sat at farmers' kitchen tables and we listened to them. And yesterday we acted.
Yesterday we acted as a government, because the common theme that we heard wherever we went was that farm household assistance was important to those farmers. It was putting bread and butter on farmers' kitchen tables and putting fuel in the car to be able to send their kids to sport on the weekend. It went further than that, because what it also does is give them the ability to go and get a skill, to diversify, to get a job in town, to be able to drive a forklift and to be able to diversify their income to get an income stream in town. This is an important issue for those farmers.
Above and beyond that, we've gone deeper than that. We've invested another $20 million into the Rural Financial Counselling Service. What we're doing is putting counsellors in front of these farmers, giving them caseworkers to get underneath the bonnet of their business, to be able to help and to understand whether they need to change their business. In fact, sometimes they'll have to have a hard conversation, and sometimes people won't come out the other end. This is about giving them the time to make those decisions with dignity and pride. That's what we're about. It's about making sure we understand what we are trying to do. It's about making sure that we build a resilient agriculture sector, because the good times are still to come. When the rain comes, the regional communities that support agriculture will thrive, but we need to make sure that we set the environment around our farmers to be able to do that.
Above all that, above all the financial assistance we're going to give to our farmers, one of the biggest investments that we announced while we were out there was a further $2 million for online psychological services. I can tell you: those people that I represent, who have been in drought for seven years, are mentally fatigued. They're buggered. They've had a gutful and they don't know how they're going to get on. It's important that they have resilience and that we invest in them and their resilience. Above all, we need to remove the stigma that, if you do have a mental illness, it's okay to reach out for help. It's okay to ask for help. It's beholden on each and every one of us, if we're okay, to reach out to one another and ask, 'Are you okay?' That's what this government is about. It's not just financial; it's making sure that those regional communities that are doing it tough understand that, when the good times come, we'll be there to help them take advantage of it.
I ask further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, I will add to an answer. The median of all wages is $53,000 a year whereas, as I foreshadowed, the average weekly ordinary time earnings, as currently stated by the ABS, is $81,640. I thank the honourable member for McMahon for his inquiry.
Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Sydney proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
This Government's failure to respect the contribution of Australian workers.
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—
We've heard a lot in this place in recent days about aspiration, and what's become blindingly obvious is that aspiration means very different things to different people. This morning I had a visit from Raj, Ernestina and Namgay, cleaners from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. They were telling me how insecure contracts, split shifts and low pay are making it difficult for them to make ends meet. They've been working in the same jobs for years without pay increases, hoping their contracts will be renewed but fearing they won't be. They've got aspirations: they aspire to decent pay and secure contracts.
Yesterday I met Alanna, an apprentice and TAFE student from Queensland. She's an absolutely inspirational young woman taking an apprenticeship in heavy diesel engine maintenance. She's got an aspiration: she wants to be an assets and facilities manager, and good on her. Yesterday I also met with electrical trades apprentices. All of them, all of these people, are worried about the funding of TAFE and whether their jobs are going to be secure and decently paid when they finished their apprenticeships. And today I met Carly, another apprentice, from Tomago. She's got aspirations as well. She aspires for a decently funded TAFE system and a good job when she finishes.
What about the aspiration of the 8,000 Telstra workers who have lost their jobs today—an aspiration to keep their job, to keep a roof over their head and a pay packet coming in. And what can the minister say about that? He says, 'As a former telco executive, these things happen.' 'These things happen', as though these people have no right to aspire to secure employment and a job to go to.
These workers, and the others that I talk to from right around Australia, have aspirations: for good pay and conditions, yes; for wages that keep up with the cost of living; for secure, stable, well-paid jobs where they feel confident that they'll have a pay cheque coming in next week and next month and next year. They have the aspiration that, if they work on a weekend or a public holiday, they'll actually get paid for the time they're missing out with their family. They aspire to an affordable roof over their heads, a good education for their kids. They aspire to a health system that will be there when they need it, no matter their pay packet or their wealth. Do you know what? We in Labor share these aspirations with them. What these working Australians want for themselves, we want for them too. And guess what? We want to give them tax cuts as well. We want everyone on up to $125,000 a year to be better off, to get a bigger tax cut under Labor.
You do sometimes, every now and again, get a cut-through moment in here, where people drop the facade, stop running out the pat lines, and the spin falls away. Yesterday in question time we got a couple of those moments, where you actually see into the heart of people, into their values. When the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister whether a 60-year-old aged care worker from Burnie should aspire instead to be an investment banker from Rose Bay so she can get a $7,000 a year tax cut, the Prime Minister said she should aspire to 'get a better job'. 'Get a better job' were his exact words. Do you know what? We all knew exactly what he meant. What he meant was: become an investment banker, make more money, accumulate more wealth, put your money into shares or, better still, the Cayman Islands and get yourself a mansion. Because that's what aspiration looks like to this Prime Minister. It is the only aspiration that he understands.
Caring for elderly and vulnerable people, giving them comfort and love during some of the most difficult days of their lives, that's actually something to aspire to in your work. Working to educate the very young, providing them with a loving and supportive environment while their parents are off at work, making sure they're ready to start school—that's something to aspire to. Spending your life in the service of others, whether it's keeping their workplaces clean, serving in a shop or a restaurant, building offices or homes, farming the food that feeds us—they're all jobs to be proud of, but you wouldn't know it from those opposite. The Prime Minister thinks the only reason that anyone would do any of these jobs is because they can't get a better-paid job. It blows me away. These people opposite talk about 'job snobs'. Who are the job snobs here? People are proud of the work they do in aged care, in child care, in child protection, in manufacturing, in building, in farming, in retail, in hospitality, and those opposite think they only do this work because they can't really be merchant bankers. If only they could be merchant bankers, they would jump at the opportunity
People in these professions would like better pay. They'd certainly like to have their penalty rates restored. They'd like to see better wages growth than they've had in recent years, for sure. But they also do their work because they love their community, they love their country and they get personal satisfaction out of the work they do, and that's something the Prime Minister will never understand.
When the Prime Minister talks about aspiration, the only aspiration he understands is aspiration for yourself, for your own hip pocket. He means: be prepared to crawl over anyone who gets in your way through survival of the fittest, rule of the jungle, dog-eat-dog, trickle-down economics, opt out of paying tax if you possibly can—if your clever lawyers and accountants can get you a tax-free account in the Cayman Islands somewhere. That's the Prime Minister's world view to a tee. If he were still working at Goldman Sachs or working for Kerry Packer or presiding over Australia's worst corporate disaster at HIH, that would be his prerogative. But he's the Prime Minister now and is supposed to be the Prime Minister for all Australians. It's that arrogant, out-of-touch perspective which says, 'Where you're born is where you'll stay. Get what you're given and be grateful,' that's hurting Australia. That idea of cold charity and tough luck, that's hurting Australia.
Yesterday, in all of that red-faced, hoarse-voiced vitriol—a performance only equalled by his tantrum on election night—the most cutting insult he could think of to throw to those of us on this side was that we're 'university educated'. You know what, in the world that this Prime Minister inhabits, if you're a working-class person, if you come from a family where you are the first in your family to go to university, that makes you a class traitor. Universities are okay for him; he can go to Oxford. In fact, universities are a necessity for people of his stock; they're allowed in the club. But if you're a kid from the outer western suburbs of Sydney, if you come from a small country town, if you don't have ancestors who bought the first run of shares in Westpac then you ought to know your place. You're just getting ideas above your station going to university. That's what he means when he goes on about 'social climbers'. How often have you heard that term from the Prime Minister? He means: stay put, stay where you belong, and make sure your kids do too.
Let me tell you something: we don't call it social climbing in the Labor Party. We call it justice. We call it fairness. We call it opportunity for all. We call it giving everybody a chance to fulfil their potential, to lift themselves out of poverty, to give their kids a chance to live a more comfortable life than they've had.
He'll cut Medicare; he doesn't need it. He'll cut the pension; he'll never get it. He thinks public transport's an amusing hobby, not something you wait for at 5 am to get to your job in the city. He's never relied on penalty rates; he doesn't know anyone who has. Every Christmas he talks about the cleaners in this building and how great they are. But he's happy to see their wages cut and see them put on insecure contracts. This is a man who's got millions of dollars but not a cent's worth of empathy for anyone who's not just like him. He has got shares in everything, but he does not share the values of the Australian people. He was born out of touch. He's lived his whole life out of touch. He will always be out of touch. He proved it again today, going on and on, defensive, about this aspiration idea.
To all the aged-care workers out there, this is what we say to you: caring for the most vulnerable Australians is something to be proud of. You're doing a great job. You don't need a better job. You need a better government.
I'm not surprised that so many people are off politics at the moment, because that was just an outright disgrace—a 10-minute character assassination of a man who was not born into money. He had a single father. His father was a hotel broker—known to my grandfather—who did his best. And now the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is going to shame me.
Opposition members interjecting—
And I'm happy to take the interjection. I'm the grandson of an orphan who left an orphanage at 15 with the clothes on his back. He put everything on the line. He aspired, with my grandmother, to start our business. Am I ashamed of that? No, I'm not. What have I done? I've spent 23 years working and growing that business, working side by side with my staff. As for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, in all her mentions of all the workers, the one thing she didn't mention was that every worker employed, that she mentioned, came at the end of a small and family business operator—the overwhelming majority of them—putting their family home on the line, taking a risk, backing themselves and employing people.
I get asked this question by parents all the time: 'Where are my kids' jobs going to come from?' And I'm sure they're hoping for some pearl of wisdom about the internet of things, Industry 4.0, machine learning and artificial intelligence. The reality is simple: the jobs of tomorrow are going to come from where they've always come from—entrepreneurs prepared to back themselves, take on bank debt, start a business, grow that business and employ people.
That's exactly what the Prime Minister has done in his career. He started in his career as a lawyer. And he moved to the private sector afterwards. It's so sad! Modern politics—do you want to know why people are so off it? Ten minutes of tearing apart someone who should be a role model—the same as you; you all should be role models. We should be proud of our politicians in this place. Why? Because a person like the Prime Minister has seen fit to turn his back on his own career and serve the public, as you all have. But what do we do in this place? We stand here and we assassinate the reputation of everyone. Well, I say: rubbish! And I'm not surprised people are over it, because I'm over it too.
The Leader of the Opposition wants to stand at the dispatch box and do the same as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Yet his pathway to where he sits today was absolutely privileged as well. And good luck to him. He shouldn't be embarrassed by it; he should be proud of it. He's here serving his community. But what do we do? We just want to throw barbs at either side of the chamber. Do you know what? The Prime Minister of this country is a role model. He should be proud of his journey. People should see what he's had the chance to do and be encouraged by it. They might want to do the same.
Avoiding tax.
The member for McEwen is warned.
As for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and her selective rendition on penalty rates—I've met a few young students in my electorate, working on the weekends at McDonald's for six hours on Saturday and six hours on a Sunday. They will be $15,000 worse off over the next three years because of the EBA they are signed up to.
That's crap!
That is absolutely the truth.
No, it's not.
They are $15,000 worse off. Why? The pay rise from Monday to Friday that was meant to compensate for that doesn't do it if they only work Saturdays and Sundays. It doesn't do it. Those opposite put in place the better off overall test. They now claim it's broken. Coles have had their EBA struck out because of exactly what I said. It's not me; it's the Fair Work Commission.
Rubbish!
It's not rubbish. It was the Fair Work Commission. At Big W, if they work Saturdays and Sundays, over the next three years they'll be $13,400 worse off. At Woolworths, if they work Saturdays and Sundays—and we're talking about school kids—
So they don't work during the week?
Part-time workers don't; they work on Saturdays and Sundays because they're at school during the week. I'm talking about school students. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition wants to stand here and say that we're for cutting penalty rates. The Fair Work Commission came up with the decision, and we respect the independence of the Fair Work Commission. We weren't on our own.
In 2010 the Fair Work Commission reduced weekend award rates in restaurant awards. The shadow minister at the time was the current opposition leader. He did not say boo. In 2014, when he was the opposition leader, weekend awards were reduced. Not only did he not say anything; the shadow minister for industrial relations actually respected the outcome of the decision, saying, 'That's what the Fair Work Commission is there to do.' Why? You put it in place. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition put the Fair Work Commission in place between 2007 and 2009—and the Leader of the Opposition has the gall! When he was a union leader, CleanEvent lost all penalty rates on weekends, no matter who you were, under their EBA. The Leader of the Opposition had a personal involvement in that. This is the reality of where we find ourselves.
The topic of the MPI is 'this government's failure to respect the contribution of Australian workers'. What are we doing for Australian workers? We're not just talking; we're actually doing something. There's the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Act and $21 million of additional resources to the Fair Work Ombudsman to make sure that employers not paying their people in the right way are caught and prosecuted—as they should be. The Turnbull government does not stand beside any business that does the wrong thing by workers. Indeed, it empowers the watchdog, the Fair Work Ombudsman, to do their job.
The Leader of the Opposition, when he was in charge of the portfolio, drastically reduced the resources to the Fair Work Ombudsman and cut their staff as well. When the protecting vulnerable workers bill was sent to the Senate, what did they do? They voted against it. They say one thing here and they say another thing when it suits. The inconsistency is across the board. It's across all things. Yet they say they are protecting Australian workers.
Again, those opposite like to talk about the rise and the threat of the gig economy. The Fair Work Ombudsman two weeks ago brought action against Foodora. The system is working exactly as it should—
By giving tax cuts to people who steal superannuation?
I'll take the interjection—stealing superannuation. The 769 workers dudded by Queensland Nickel in Townsville were compensated to the tune of $67 million by the Fair Entitlements Guarantee. The Queensland Supreme Court two weeks ago froze the assets of former member and owner of Queensland Nickel Clive Palmer to the tune of $205 million. Our great hope is that the action we're taking in the courts will, as it unfolds, return every cent that the workers of Queensland Nickel are owed—that they are entitled to. This is the reality. Those opposite want to hypothesise or character slay; we're interested in results.
Today there are more people working than ever before in our country's history. That comes at the end of 4½ years of strong economic management. It doesn't come at the end of taking a punt or having a crack; it comes at the end of strong economic management. Of the one million jobs that have been created—417,000-odd in the last 12 months—80 per cent are full-time jobs, and this is at a time when the union movement in this country is claiming that we have a crisis of occasional work. Eighty per cent of the jobs created in the last 12 months are full-time. Twenty-five per cent of jobs in the last 20 years—and it hasn't changed—have been casual, predominantly filled by school students, uni students and carers, and they get a 25 per cent loading. Another myth that those opposite like to propagate is that those on casual wages aren't compensated for holiday pay. That's rubbish. They get a 25 per cent loading for that. That is the reality of what we face with those opposite—character assassination after character assassination, and misrepresentation of the truth.
The reality of where we find ourselves today economically is that more workers than ever have a job. That comes at the end of a plan. What do we want to do? We want to continue to decrease personal and company tax. We don't think that is our money, unlike those opposite. We think that companies or individuals should keep their profit from their labour. It's their profit or wage, not ours. We on this side get that. I know that those opposite don't get it. They've never actually put their hand in their own pocket and paid anyone themselves. They've never run their own business. Their ignorance is stunning. The character assassination isn't worth the paper it is written on.
What a surprise! In 10 minutes we didn't hear one defence of the Prime Minister's comments in question time yesterday where he told a 60-year-old aged-care worker that they should aspire to a better job. I wonder why the minister didn't defend that comment and why he didn't defend the Prime Minister.
Mr Laundy interjecting—
You didn't say a word about aged-care workers and you didn't defend the Prime Minister and what he said about aged-care workers. Why wouldn't you? It's because what he said was appalling. I think it shows that those on the other side don't interact with aged-care workers and their ilk. We on this side, of course, meet with aged-care workers all of the time. We meet with people who care for others in our community and we talk to them. Over 360,000 aged-care workers were insulted by what the Prime Minister said yesterday, yet the minister for workplace relations come to the dispatch box and talks for 10 minutes and does not even mention that comment! That comment was so insulting. To cast any doubt on these workers and what they do is appalling.
Anyone who has ever spoken to an aged-care worker, visited a facility or visited the home of an older person who has a home care worker come and visit them knows the incredible work they do and how hard they work. These people are feeding older Australians, they are showering older Australians and they are helping them with their chores so that they can stay at home or so that they can live with dignity and respect in their residential aged-care facility. It is not okay for this government to say things like the Prime Minister said yesterday—it is absolutely not okay—and for the minister to be silent on it shows that they really have no respect whatsoever for aged-care workers.
We know that they don't have much respect for childcare workers. We know that they don't have much respect for teachers and early childhood educators—for people who are teaching our young people. We know that they don't have respect for nurses and people working in our health system. We know this because this is a government that has wanted to cut health funding and does not want to support people who want to go back to work in terms of child care. We have families in Australia today who are missing out because of this government's childcare changes. We have kids that want to go to university in my home state of Tasmania but, with the university cuts, we know that places are going to be capped. So, even if you have a bit of aspiration and you want your kids to go to university, this government is saying to them, 'There'll be a cap on that, and not every child who wants to go to university will be able to.'
They come in here and they want to talk about aspiration for Australians. People that work in aged care, child care and education have aspirations. They have aspirations to care for our community. They have an aspiration to care for the vulnerable. They have an aspiration to actually put something back into their community. Just because a job is paid less does not mean it is valued less. That is the value judgement that we heard from the Prime Minister yesterday. It is the value judgement that we continually hear from those on the other side.
They seem to think that a job and its pay are the value of that work. That is absolutely not true. Absolutely not true! It shows their contempt for Australian workers when they continually repeat that rhetoric, use words like 'aspiration' and twist things. They come in here and say things like, 'People should aspire to get a better job when they're a childcare worker,' because that is what they really believe. Those on the other side actually really believe that you get paid for the value of your work.
We all know on this side of the House—and Australians know—that that is not true. There are people, millions of them, in Australia today who are doing difficult, rewarding jobs and who are not well paid. There are millions of Australians who are working in areas like child care, in areas like hospitality, in areas like aged care and in areas like disability, who are doing really, truly valuable work, who are not being valued and who have no value put on them by this government.
Interestingly, of the 360,000 aged-care workers, a majority of them—in fact, over 75 per cent—are women. They are women in insecure casual jobs. They are women who don't know what shift they're going to get next week. They are women who are going to people's homes to care for vulnerable people. This government does not value those workers, and that's what the Prime Minister said to them yesterday. It is outrageous, and this government should do better!
When the Deputy Leader of the Opposition started to speak today she referred to apprentices that she had met recently. And I think that's great. We should all take the opportunity to meet with apprentices and acknowledge the work that they do. We should also—and I'm sure that we all do—acknowledge the great work that's done by so many Australians in a whole variety of jobs here, and congratulate them and thank them for what they do for this country.
I want particularly to take up the opportunity to speak about apprentices, given that it has been raised in the context of this debate by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, because this is where the coalition government is certainly making some very positive commitments—to make sure that we are skilling Australians for the jobs of the future. There are approximately 4.2 million students involved in VET across this nation. They are gaining the skills that they need to get a job or to upgrade their qualifications, or upskilling for a different job, if they so wish. That's about one in four Australians aged between 15 and 69 who are participating in the VET sector.
We recognise that we do have some issues here with skills shortages in a whole range of areas, and many of those skill shortages are in areas where apprentices, through becoming qualified tradespeople or by going through a traineeship, will actually fill those needs now and into the future. When I was first appointed into this role, the best part of two years ago now, I took the opportunity to speak with many of our apprentices and to get feedback from them. I spoke to our Australian Apprenticeships Ambassadors. For those who are in the chamber today, let me say that we have around 300 Australian Apprenticeships Ambassadors here in this country. What they are committed to is visiting schools and visiting community groups, doing everything that they can to promote what they have done with their careers and to highlight to young people the jobs that are available to them if they follow a vocational education path—particularly if they take a pathway that leads them from an apprenticeship through to a trade or a non-trade qualification. They are outstanding individuals.
There were a number of things that I took from the very first meeting that I had with those apprentices. Firstly, was their lack of understanding as to why more people are not interested in becoming an apprentice and becoming a tradesperson. They also indicated that one of the things we needed to do to change that was start a campaign where we were able to show what the jobs of the future were likely to be—to indicate, by using individuals who were currently qualified through the VET sector, the jobs that they were doing.
We talked to childcare workers. We talked to people who were in health care, disability services, aged care and a whole range of industry sectors—building, construction, hospitality and tourism. We talked to them about ways that we could put together a strategy to ensure that we had the skills for the future. Through all of that engagement about two years ago, we developed the Real Skills for Real Careers strategy. Real skills for real careers—this is what we are out there now promoting throughout the community. We have engaged with leading sports organisations—NRL, AFL SportsReady and Touch Football Australia—so that we can get into the hearts and minds of our young people, so that those who are heading into their final years at school have before them some real career opportunities. We want them to understand that, for some, university will provide them with the opportunity they need for the future, but, for many others, a pathway through vocational education, where they can study, learn on the job and earn while they are studying, is going to lead them to a very rewarding and fulfilling career.
This government is absolutely committed to meeting Australia's skills needs now and into the future. We are working with state and territory governments around this country to make sure that together, positively, collectively, we will increase the number of apprentices in training that we have in this country. And, through that, we will go a very long way to meeting the skills shortages that we face now and in the future. I can assure you that the coalition government is absolutely committed to meeting skills needs and making sure that we honour and respect those people who are following a vocational education pathway.
It's got to be said that this government shows, time and time again, its genuine lack of respect for Australian workers. Coming to the table and talking about the jobs of aged-care workers shows that this government recognises a person's worth in this community by the size of their pay packet, not the value of the work they do within a community. But we should not be all that surprised. After all, this is the party of WorkChoices. This is the party that made it legal, for the first time in Australian history, to pay people below an award rate of pay. This is the party that went out of its way to show its disdain for Australian workers.
Only today, those opposite brought a superannuation bill before the House to give a 25-year amnesty to dodgy employers that have done the wrong thing by their workers by underpaying superannuation. Not only do they want to give them an amnesty so they can voluntarily come forward; they want to allow that to be a tax deduction—not a penalty but a tax deduction! That shows where they see worth in the community. And yesterday the Prime Minister showed his true colours. When asked about the difference in taxation benefits for a millionaire and an aged-care worker, his response was: 'They can be aspirational. They can get a better job.'
I don't know about you, but those of us who believe in community see day in, day out—and I imagine many on the other side would too—the value of workers in the aged community. They do an incredible job. We aspire to have our parents taken care of as they age and be treated kindly and with respect. We make a lot of demands on these aged-care workers, no question about it. Yet aged-care workers are very, very low-paid workers. My little brother is the secretary of the HSU, and I know aged care is a very big issue for them. I know that the cuts that this government has placed upon the aged-care sector are why wages are terribly restrained in that area. They get what this Prime Minister did yesterday—they made a statement about it, actually. They talked about how this Prime Minister has demeaned the work of aged-care workers—people who, as I've said, go out on our behalf looking after our friends and relatives, making sure they're treated with respect in their elder years and doing the things that most people probably wouldn't like to do. That's the way they treat the people who look after the aged and infirm in our community.
Talking about people who actually represent workers—Deputy Speaker Hogan, you will know from your time in this parliament how many times those opposite have given praise to worker representatives. Yes, trade union officials. Every day you will hear an attack being made on trade union officials and many of us on this side being linked to the trade union movement. I'm proud to say that I did grow up in the trade union movement. Hopefully in my time there I made a contribution towards looking after workers, their welfare and their families; I hope that I was able to achieve that. I think that's the aspiration of all people working in the trade union movement. Sorry, they actually have praised a trade union.
Have they?
They have: Kathy Jackson, the then National Secretary of the HSU. As a matter of fact, the Leader of the House and the then Prime Minister made it very clear that she was a hero of the working class; the person that other union leaders should aspire to be like. I'm not quite sure where she is at the moment, but probably still defending the criminal litigation that's been taken in terms of funds being taken from that organisation, the fact that member's didn't get the benefits that they were promised—a whole host of things. That's the hero they want to hold up and say, 'This is what the trade union movement should be about.' No wonder they bring legislation to support dodgy employers today. (Time expired)
The Liberal-National Party believes in free enterprise. We believe in empowering the individual to realise their full potential. The Australian Labor Party believes in big government and ensuring that the average Australian worker is kept down and cannot achieve his or her full potential. That is why the motion being put by the shadow deputy leader today is a disgrace. I say that on three grounds. Firstly, the Labor Party wants to deny Australian workers the opportunity to work in the first place. Secondly, the Labor Party wants to ensure that the Australian worker is treated as a second-rate citizen. Thirdly, where the Australian worker makes a buck, the Labor Party wants to tax them as much as it possibly can.
Let's take these three in good order. They want to deny the opportunity to work. Here we are, as a government, trying to provide company tax cuts so that companies can reinvest in their businesses and create jobs for Australians. The Australian Labor Party do not want that to happen. They do not want to see more jobs created for Australians. Here we are, making a record spend on infrastructure—$75 billion over a 10-year period—yet the Australian Labor Party will not support our infrastructure spend. When they make announcements, they're announcing old money or they're covering money that's already been announced by state Labor governments. They're not interested in seeing infrastructure built, which, of course, would create jobs for everyday Australians.
We have the most ambitious trade agenda that any government has ever had—evidenced by the China, Korea, Japan, Peru and TPP-11 free trade agreements—and all we have been is stymied by those opposite. With the China FTA, we have the union movement, with Labor support, running a fear campaign. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition wanted us to dump the idea of any TPP-11—and, of course, now we're on a fast track to have that ratified—denying the opportunity for everyday Australians to enjoy jobs through exports.
Our latest national accounts delivered a 3.1 per cent growth over a 12-month period. The No. 1 driver from the last quarter was exports, and yet those members opposite are trying to refuse the opportunity for Australians to enjoy jobs through the export markets. Despite their mantra for fairness, the Labor Party will always put the worker second. We know that because this government restored the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC. Those opposite wanted to fight against it. They were happy to see lawlessness prevail on the Australian worksite so the thugs and bullies could have it over the everyday Australian worker. That's how they treat them, as second-rate citizens.
We on this side, of course, wanted to prioritise Australian workers by getting rid of the 457 visa scheme and replacing it so Australian workers get more work. But of course, those opposite love the 457s, as evidenced by the opposition leader, who had almost a world record in increases when he was the responsible minister for the 457 visas—from about 68,000 to 110,000. Loving the idea of foreign workers over Australian workers, that's the Australian Labor Party. Despite the fact that this government is now seeking to legislate an amnesty so that hard-earned savings earned by workers can be restored to them, the Australian Labor Party are denying that opportunity. Second-rate citizens: that is how they treat the workers. Those workers who make a buck, they get taxed. We want to have personal income tax cuts. What do they say? 'Uh-huh! We do not want the worker to pay less tax.' They want to ensure that if they own an investment property, the everyday Australian worker will be punished through negative gearing capital gains tax restructuring. That is how they treat the Australian worker. And likewise the retirees, older Australians in particular, if you own a share portfolio through their franking credit scheme, it's all over for you too; you will pay more tax.
There has been much said by the members of the government about the aspirations of Australian workers. The term 'aspiration' has a few meanings. As a nurse, I know of its use in medical terms. To aspirate means to inhale a foreign object or fluid, and aspiration then means to have it sucked out so you don't die of a coughing fit or pneumonia or worse. I am tempted here to use an analogy to the government's use of this term but, in the interests of time and getting to the crux of the issue, I have resisted. 'Aspiration' is a broad term generally meaning a strong desire to have or do something. The example sentence given in the online Oxford dictionary is the sentence: 'I didn't realise you had political aspirations.' It is quite apt, really, given its overuse by the members of the opposite side yesterday, who seemed to want to narrow-cast the meaning to one thing and one thing only—the aspiration to be rich and politically powerful.
While there is nothing wrong with aspiring for wealth and, indeed, power and while we on this side believe workers should receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, there is so much more to the aspirations of our workers. Yesterday many of my friends and colleagues and, indeed, many of my constituents were hurt and outraged by comments by the Prime Minister that inferred that anyone working in aged care would automatically be aspiring to a better job. I have had direct connection with the aged-care sector, with the carers, the nurses, the cooks, the recreational officers and others who work in aged care. Indeed, in my first speech, I referred to the aged-care sector and those who work there. I spoke of those who rely on those wonderful people who dedicate their working life to their care. I said a society is judged by how it cares for its most vulnerable. Our elderly are indeed among our most vulnerable. The aged-care sector is screaming out for reform and resources, a call that has been ignored by this government—a government that used smoke and mirrors in the last budget claiming that money had been injected into the sector when there was not one cent of extra funding; it had merely been shifted around, reallocated. And then those opposite made claims that this is new funding. I say again: no few funding for the sector.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the unions who represent workers in aged care. In my state, there is the Health Workers Union, United Voice, and the ANMF, who value their members and the work they do. Over my years as a nurse and at the ANMF I worked with and met many of those workers over and over again. In my new capacity I was recently visited by a delegation of wonderful Health Workers Union members who were aged-care workers. They are tired, overworked, concerned and caring but adamant to make change. The Health Workers Union and the other unions are all campaigning for better funding, better wages and better conditions for nurses and carers.
Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan, do you know what those workers' aspirations are? Their aspirations are to be able to give better care to the elderly, the people whose lives have been entrusted to them. They hope for better staffing, better resources and better pay, but not one of the people who came to me said they wanted a better job. They love their jobs. They are dedicated. They get intrinsic rewards from ensuring dignity and quality of life. They aspire to make their residents' lives as comfortable and meaningful as possible, and they aspire to ensure that their residents have, at the end of their lives, a dignified death. That is the type of aspiration that the member for Wentworth and his colleagues perhaps do not understand. When they talk of aspiration and connect it to unfair tax cuts that favour the wealthy, they show their true colours. I'm not even sure that all wealthy people would agree with the Prime Minister saying they aspire to be wealthier. Many of us would have seen testimonials from the incredibly rich US citizens who decried the recent round of Trump tax cuts that favoured them above middle-wage earners or the poor.
Labor supports tax cuts that benefit our aged-care workers—tax cuts that mean they can have a little more to spend on life's needs and maybe even a few luxuries; tax cuts that we know will go straight into the economy, spreading their effectiveness even further and lessening inequality. Tax cuts for the rich who, let's face it, don't need them mean our aged-care workers lose healthcare services, have poorer quality schools and, importantly, have fewer resources to do their jobs properly. Tax cuts will exacerbate rising inequality.
I don't rise to speak on many of the MPIs, but I really couldn't go past this one, particularly as I would be following a former trade union leader who was talking about respect. In my response to the MPI today I'm going to talk about the lack of respect that many in our trade unions have for workers. The Labor Party is not the party it once was. It is not the party of Bob Hawke or Paul Keating that backed jobs, understood aspirational Australians and backed workers and their families. Today's Labor is too busy reporting to the union bosses of the CFMEU. It is too busy accepting donations from them and too busy being linked to those organisations that have shown nothing but disrespect for Australian workers. The CFMEU is a case in point. Last year about 80 officials were before the courts. Last year $14.9 million worth of fines had already been paid by the unions, and it has now clicked over to $15 million worth of fines. It is an organisation that just does not respect the rule of law. They openly flout the legal system. But why don't you hear about this from the Labor Party? Perhaps it is because of the over $600,000 worth of donations from the CFMEU to the Labor Party in the last three years alone. What a disgrace!
Australian workers think it's unacceptable as well. I really can't understand how the Labor Party can talk about respect for Australian workers when you look at the CFMEU's own actions at Glencore's Oaky North mine site last year. They were threatening and intimidating workers who were going to work at a job to make a life for themselves and their families. I choose not to repeat those particular threats that were made. They were not acceptable for repetition here in parliament. They're not even acceptable for repetition in the roughest and toughest front bars of pubs across Australia. And then we get to someone like John Setka, Bill Shorten's workplace relations director and key advisor. He is a person who has a long history of criminal behaviour, yet he's determining Labor's agenda on almost anything from behind the scenes. It just shows you Labor's priorities. But, given that the unions have donated over $31 million to Labor since the member for Maribyrnong became the Labor leader, it is no wonder they are joined at the hip.
I'm in parliament for hardworking Australians who want to apply their effort and succeed. The government has a plan for every hardworking Australian, and we can see those plans bearing fruit now. Some of the best news we have seen is on the creation of jobs. Four hundred and fifteen thousand new jobs—the largest number in our country's history—were created only last year. And 75 per cent of those were full time. Over a million jobs have been created since the coalition government was elected in 2013. That's respect for the contribution of Australian workers, right there—making sure that many more people have the opportunity to work hard and be rewarded for their effort.
In relation to personal tax cuts, the government's responsible plan for personal income tax relief is a plan for every Australian. We have a plan that makes personal income tax lower, simpler and fairer. Our tax relief package encourages and rewards those hardworking Australians. It backs businesses to invest and create jobs. Hardworking Australians are respected when they keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets and they get to decide how to spend it.
The other thing that we can do as a government is to respect the contribution of Australian workers by managing their taxpayer dollars in a very disciplined way. This government is making sure it manages taxpayers' money in a disciplined way. We've kept a tight rein on spending growth. Spending is forecast to grow by an average of 1.9 per cent. That is the lowest spending growth of any government in the last 50 years. And that's less than half of the four per cent spending growth we inherited from the Labor Party. The underlying cash balance is in the best position we've seen since the Howard government's final budget, and the budget will return to balance in 2019-20. We have legislated over $41 billion of budget repair measures. That's respect for the workers who work hard and pay their taxes.
The government is standing up to Labor and union thuggery. We are providing an opportunity for more Australians to get the benefit of work, to provide for them and their families. That's respect for the Australian worker.
I don't want to get personal about that particular contribution from the member for Tangney, so I won't. But those opposite just don't get it. They fundamentally don't get what this debate is about. We had the Prime Minister, the so-called leader of this country, talking about an aged-care worker aspiring to management. He was saying you'll get more value back the more you get paid. So the value proposition is in the wage. And you'd probably agree—the member might believe that—in your world view. Millions of other Australians, who those opposite have probably not connected with in any real way, see life a bit differently. Maybe they were brought up, as I was, by parents who gave us a sense of the value of community, the value of volunteering, and, of course, yes, a sense of the value of a dollar earned, but it was always put in the perspective of that responsibility that we all have to those in our community and to finding your unique gift in your life.
One of the things about the Labor Party that is core to us is lifting up the horizons of the Australian people—not just of the elite—and lifting up their opportunities, through doing things like investing in education, and supporting everyone, because we are all part of this team. We are all part of Australia; we are all Australians. So our focus should be to provide the services and the care that we owe our fellow Australians, because that's the contract. We went through this decades ago. The contract is that, when you work and pay taxes or contribute in your community in whatever way you can and you raise your family, you'll be looked after in your old age. But who's going to do that? Will it be those opposite, the investment bankers, the managers? Management has a place, of course, but is aspiring to management where the value is? How about the person who works with our elderly, who holds our elders' hands while they're dying? Those people who are providing that service will benefit from our system when they aspire enough to become managers.
I helped a constituent in my electorate recently who was having a very difficult time with a for-profit, on-the- stock-market, residential aged-care provider. His mum was having an incredibly difficult time and was not receiving the greatest level of care. I went along. The reason why some things had been missed is that, of course, they didn't have enough workers. The workers weren't being treated well, weren't being paid much at all and were stretched, so sometimes things were missed. When I went to talk to the management, they were quite dismissive, unfortunately. In the world view of those opposite, the people who are not respecting their workers by giving them good conditions of pay and good conditions of service, the managers who are getting paid more to screw things down, are the pinnacle. They're not. (Time expired)
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter of public importance as we await the deliberations that are occurring over in the rarefied atmosphere that is the Senate. As we await the vote that's going to occur in the Senate, many people are asking a question of the Leader of the Opposition, and that is: how much more of their money does he think he deserves? They know he won't spend their money wisely and they certainly don't want to give him any more of their hard-earned cash. Why are the Leader of the Opposition's comrades over there in the Senate working to stop hardworking Australians from getting a tax reduction on 1 July? Why are they standing in the way? Why does the Leader of the Opposition have a vendetta against a new tax structure that would address the important issue of bracket creep? Why does the Leader of the Opposition want to prevent average Australians from keeping more of their hard-earned money as they earn more, gain new skills and invest in their own training and intellectual capital? The opposition leader wants a much greater cut of their hard work.
The government has in the parliament legislation that addresses one of the biggest bugbears of the current tax system: bracket creep. We hear too often from our constituents that they feel that they shouldn't do extra overtime, that if they work harder then too much of that money goes in tax. We are putting in place a system that will encourage hardworking Australians to work even harder. The plan that we have before the parliament is a plan that recognises the fact that wages will grow over time. With more experience in the workforce, with more investment in training, you have the opportunity to earn more money. We want to see hardworking Australians keep more of that money, but the Leader of the Opposition, in stark contrast, wants to get his hands on more of their cash.
The plan we have before the parliament is a good plan. It is a plan that has three phases. Phase 1 of the plan will come in on 1 July—if the Labor Party does not get its way and frustrate the introduction of those tax cuts—and under that plan taxpayers would receive an initial tax reduction of around $530. Phase 2 of the plan comes in 2022. And when phase 3 comes in, in 2024, around 94 per cent of taxpayers will be on a marginal rate of 32½c in the dollar or less. I'll repeat that: 94 per cent of taxpayers will pay a marginal rate of no more than 32½c in the dollar. That compares with around 63 per cent of taxpayers if no action were taken. Clearly, this is a government that is about encouraging people to do better, whereas the Labor Party merely wants to stand in the way.
We are about simpler, fairer and lower taxes. They are about getting their hands in the pockets of average Australians when they strive hard to earn a better living for themselves and their families. We're about building a stronger economy because we know a stronger economy creates more jobs and more opportunities for Australians. We are about allowing the pie to be grown. The Labor Party are about redistributing the same pie. We're about fixing Labor's budget mess by putting in place responsible financial management for the purposes of growing a stronger economy, creating more jobs and creating more opportunities for Australians. We're about investing in infrastructure because we know better infrastructure means a more efficient economy and more jobs. It's not just the fact we would have new infrastructure such as the Coffs Harbour bypass, creating safer motoring and faster travel times; we are also in the process creating more jobs.
We're about putting in place free trade agreements so we can have more exports—again, creating more jobs and more opportunities for Australians, and higher farmgate prices for our farmers. The benefits of trade cannot be underestimated. The Labor Party by comparison was unable to negotiate quality free trade agreements. This government has succeeded—free trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan. And we're now working on a new trade agreement with Europe. We're about creating opportunities. The Leader of the Opposition is about taxing Australians harder.
The discussion has concluded.
I rise to speak on the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018. This bill amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 to make provision for a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards.
In my community on the Central Coast of New South Wales, aged care really matters. We are an older population. One in five of us living on the Central Coast is aged over 65. And one in six of us, or 19,000 people, is employed in health care and social assistance. It's the biggest workforce on the Central Coast and it is the workforce I come from. I'm a pharmacist and have worked in health for almost 20 years. I will never forget my first visit to an aged-care facility. It was 1998 and my first year as a registered pharmacist. I was delivering medications to a psychiatric nursing home in the inner western suburbs of Sydney. I walked in, and it was a picture of misery. I walked out and took some time to pull myself together before going back into the facility, as the week's medications just had to be delivered.
Last week, I spoke at a forum on the Central Coast organised by the Health Services Union—my own union—called 'Our turn to care'. We heard stories from aged-care workers that took me right back to that first visit that will never leave me. I heard that aged-care workers had been told to wait until a person's incontinence pad was 70 per cent wet before it could be changed, that they were only allowed one pair of gloves per shift because the second pair would be too costly, and that the money spent on each person per day in an aged-care facility is sometimes just $6 per day. Older Australians deserve to be cared for with dignity and respect. Aged-care workers deserve support and resources to care for people with dignity and respect. Clearly, we must do more to make sure that all aged care is quality aged care.
Currently, there are standards that cover three different areas of care. They include four standards for residential aged care, two standards for home care and two standards for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program. The eight new standards across all areas of care will be effective from 1 July 2019. This is an amended date as there were concerns from the sector that the original 1 July 2018 start date would give stakeholders and providers little time to do the necessary preparatory work.
The new standards will focus on quality outcomes for consumers rather than provider processes, and they have been driven by the sector and other stakeholders since 2015. The Review of national agedcare quality regulatory processes, also known as the Carnell-Paterson review, handed to government on 25 October last year, had a focus on quality care. The review made 10 recommendations, one of which was to establish an independent aged care quality and safety commission. The government adopted this recommendation back in April but is yet to provide details in relation to this new quality and safety agency. Labor welcomed this announcement by the government, but we are concerned it has not given consideration to the delivery of care across multiple settings.
I have worked across multiple settings in my professional life as a pharmacist, but it was when my father was diagnosed with younger onset dementia that my view of health care was turned upside down. When you're sitting across the consult table as a daughter and a carer, rather than as another allied health professional, your world view shifts. I think we have to be very mindful that there are different demands and different requirements across different settings. Through my late father's experience, I've now had firsthand experience of residential care, in-home care, respite care and day centres, and each setting has different requirements. That is something the government should be really mindful of when this detail is worked through.
The minister's announcement seemed to be focused on those providers delivering care in a residential aged-care environment, and I think it needs to be less narrowly cast. What hasn't been at the forefront of any discussions is the protections for people who choose to age at home. My father passed away in February, and we were very fortunate to the end to be able to care for him within our own home and to have palliative care at home as well. If families are supported properly to do that, it's something that more families may do. It gives people at the end of their life the dignity that we would want for ourselves and for those we love.
The government must give consideration to the growing delivery of care in the homes of older Australians. As I said, I recently lost my dad, who lived with younger onset dementia. In helping my mum care for my dad, with my brothers and sisters, I saw a different side of the health system to what I'd seen in all my years working as a pharmacist in community and hospital settings. Labor is keen to understand how the government will ensure the quality of care delivered in the homes of those who choose to receive part of their care at home, through home care packages, as well as the quality of care delivered in residential aged-care facilities. And Labor looks forward to hearing how the government will integrate home care into the newly established commission. This new agency is due to begin on 1 July 2019, so the government has much work to do to make sure it gets this commission right, and we will do all we can to support them to do this.
Making sure that all aged care is quality aged care is not just a function of standards, although standards really matter. Quality aged care can't be achieved without proper funding. Yet, despite all the rhetoric in the lead-up to the budget, there was not one extra dollar for aged care in this year's budget. What the government has done is pretend to put new money in aged care, but the reality is there isn't any additional funding for aged care. Money has gone from residential care to support home care packages. There's no new money. This is after the Abbott-Turnbull government has cut aged-care funding by billions over the past five years. Every Abbott-Turnbull government's budget has cut aged-care funding. We've seen funding cuts to the Aged Care Funding Instrument and funding cuts to residential aged care, billions of dollars that are no longer supporting older Australians in residential care. It is now clear that the build-up to the budget and the government's rhetoric about aged care did not match what was finally announced, sadly. What the government did in its budget was simply cut money from residential aged care to pay for home care packages.
Over the past five years, the Abbott-Turnbull government has slashed billions of dollars from aged care, and it is solely responsible for the growing waiting list that exists for in-home care. We know that across Australia there are over 100,000 people currently waiting for home care packages. We know that many of those people have accepted packages below the level that ACAT has assessed that they require. We know that in my community of the Central Coast there are currently 750 people waiting for home care packages—a third of those people with high needs, dementia or those type of conditions. How can the government find $80 billion in tax cuts for big business, including $17 billion for the big banks, but not find one extra dollar to invest in the care of older Australians, of our mums, our dads, our grandmas and our grandpas? It is extremely disappointing that the Turnbull government did not use this year's budget to invest in the care that older Australians deserve.
Older Australians need the government to act now. What I haven't seen from the government is any sense of urgency. There doesn't seem to be an understanding that this is something that can't wait, that people that need this care aren't able to wait, that their families can't wait and that they are under enormous strain. Funding just 14,000 new home care packages over four years—it was a hoax; it really was, because 3,500 places a year isn't even enough to keep pace with demand. The waiting list grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone. It's particularly cruel after promising older Australians that they would address the wait list. The people that I have met through my dad's experience, particularly people living with younger onset dementia—there's a particular set of circumstances when you're caring for somebody with this type of diagnosis in their 50s or in their 60s, when their primary carer is typically someone who is still in the workforce and still paying a mortgage. There are particular demands on these people that other people perhaps don't have, and it's something that we really need to shine a light on.
Even the Minister for Aged Care was forced to admit what we already knew, that the home care packages announced in last month's budget wouldn't come close to solving Australia's aged-care crisis. Responding to whether the new home care packages announced in the budget would be enough to solve the crisis, the minister could only say that the Turnbull government would have to consider new measures. They need to act now. This is urgent. I really look forward to hearing what these new measures will be and when they'll be delivered, and so do many of my constituents.
In my community on the Central Coast of New South Wales there are 30,000 people who care for someone else every day. That would be mirrored in electorates across the country. Just one example from my electorate is a man in his mid-70s who lives alone. He lives with mental health and has difficulty navigating the aged-care system, which for anybody is difficult to navigate—it's overly complex and it's not straightforward. If you were in a situation of crisis, it's not something that you would have the capacity to do. He had been assessed by ACAT as requiring a level 4 package. He had been waiting three months in April, and his condition is deteriorating rapidly. He receives just one hour of cleaning per week. That is all the support that this person receives at the moment.
What is of further concern is that the government is now delaying the public release of the next quarterly data wait list for home care packages. The last package of data revealed that almost 105,000 older Australians are waiting for home care packages right now, with the average wait time for a high-level package now more than a year. As I've said, people who are assessed as needing a level 4 package aren't people that can wait a year; they're someone with complex needs, someone with end-stage dementia or someone at risk of a fall which would end up having them hospitalised and then going straight into residential care. These are the sorts of people that are assessed as level 4.
As we know, the demand for home care packages grew by 20,000 older Australians in the last six months of last year. The Minister for Aged Care must be honest with older Australians and immediately release the latest round of data on the wait list for home care packages. People need to know where they are in the queue. People need to have certainty. People need to be able to make decisions based on reliable and up-to-date information. As you would expect, most people go into residential care within 10 kilometres of their home. People want to be able to stay near their GP, they want to be able to go to the pharmacist that they've been going to for decades, they wants to be able to be visited by their family and they want to visit people who they know, their friends and family. But they need certainty, particularly people with complex needs, who know that the wait lists are longer for them because of the types of needs that they have.
With the latest quarter ending in March, this data is now well overdue. The questions Labor are asking this minister are: where is the data, why is there a delay, is there something that the minister is hiding, is there something that the public deserve to know and is there something that families and individuals need to know now?
If the Turnbull government is confident that its baby boomer budget will deliver for these older Australians, it should release the latest data on home-care packages immediately. It must be released to the public. People deserve to know. Families deserve to know. People waiting in limbo need to know. The Turnbull government created this aged-care crisis, the Turnbull government is ignoring this aged-care crisis and it's budget fails to fix the aged-care crisis. With some older Australians waiting years for the care they need, the government must take action now.
In conclusion, I know the experience in my community would be the experience of many communities across Australia. We have an ageing population. People are living longer. What that means is that we have a different set of circumstances to what we've had in our society before. What it means is we need to plan better to support people to be able to, firstly, live better at home, because that's what most people want to do. Most people want to be able to live at home with dignity and respect. That was my father's choice. He wanted to be able to live in his own home, the home that he designed and built. My dad was an engineer and a builder. That, to him, meant more than anything else. I think that's something that we need to do. We need to respect the wishes of older Australians. We need to give them dignity and we need to treat them with care. In order to do that, aged care must be properly funded. The people who work in aged care must be properly paid. They need better support to be able to care for people.
People who work in aged care do so because it's a vocation and they really want to help and support other people. All that people working in aged care are asking for is to be properly paid. All they're asking for is to have the resources to be able to care for people who are within their care. That's what this government is not allowing them to do. The government doesn't see the urgency, it hasn't properly seen the crisis and it really needs to act now. I implore everybody in this House to make proper funding of aged care and proper support for people who work in aged care a priority and to act now.
It gives me great pleasure to speak about the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill. I've spoken about these issues in this place many, many times. In 2004, when I was first elected, I had one of the oldest electorates in the country, and it remains so. That's why issues that deal with aged-care support and issues that deal with older Australians and the assistance they require in their older age are very important to my electorate—and to all of us on this side of the House, I must say.
What we know is that these people worked all their lives, contributing to and building our nation, making it one of the best countries in the world and helping the next generation to prosper. It is very important that we as legislators in this place do whatever we can to ensure that these people are given the services they require in old age in a way that gives them dignity and helps them continue their lives as best as possible. We need to put the services in place to ensure they are looked after in their old age. We look after children. We look after workers. We look after people who are unemployed. We look after people who go to hospitals. Aged care and aged-care services are no different. It should be a priority to provide every service we can to these people. I will always do my best in this place to ensure that I represent older Australians and that they're dealt with in a compassionate and respectful way.
We've heard different members from this side speak. I applaud the member for Dobell, who made such a passionate speech and told her father's story. There are thousands of similar stories around the country of people who have parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents who require care. This bill goes some way towards assisting them and ensuring we have a system in place that ensures services are provided in a proper way and there are mechanisms in place for checks and balances.
The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. Currently, there are standards that cover-off on all three different areas of aged care. They include residential aged care, with four standards; home care, with two standards; and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review, with two standards. The eight new standards in the bill, across all areas of care, will be effective from 1 July 2019. This is an amended date, as there were concerns from the sector that the original 1 July 2018 start date would give stakeholders and providers little time to prepare the necessary work.
So we know that it's already delayed by one year. The government has dragged its feet on this. The new standards will focus on quality outcomes for consumers. We know that since September 2015 the Department of Health has consulted with stakeholders and all other agencies to seek input into the content of the quality standards. Peak stakeholders have been contacted to garner their views. At this stage they are still assessing the bill and the explanatory memorandum that's with the bill.
I have to say that although we support the bill, there are a few areas of concern. Certainly, there are concerns that I have and that the opposition has. I mentioned earlier the length of time that it's taken the government to introduce legislation into the parliament. This was a 2015-16 measure. Here we are in 2018, and it won't start until 1 July 2019.
There are many areas that this particular government hasn't concentrated on. There are gaps in our aged-care reform bills and gaps in the regulatory system, and one of them is the home care that is required by so many retirees and older Australians around the country. We heard the minister announce 14,000 aged-care packages in the budget. I have to say that when I think of those 14,000 aged-care packages, as welcome as they are, it's the biggest con that I've seen in this House of Representatives. I say so because there are approximately 110,000 people waiting for packages currently. There is a list with 110,000 names on it for people who require packages. That list is growing by 10,000 to 20,000 every quarter. Every quarter it's growing, so we could have anything up to 160,000 or 180,000 on that list by the end of the year. Yet the minister announced the 14,000 new packages with a party-type atmosphere—hoo-ha, hurrah!—that this was the pinnacle of aged-care reform and would solve all the problems.
What a joke! It's an absolute joke, and a disservice to our older Australians. This is the biggest con since the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I can just imagine the minister sitting in cabinet with all the other ministers around him, telling him about how good this would be—the 14,000 new places—and all laughing amongst themselves because they knew it was a con. And it is a con. Every Australian can see through this. There are 100,000 people waiting on a list for aged-care packages, and the list is growing by 10,000 to 20,000 every quarter. And we announced 14,000! It is a drop in the ocean, and will do absolutely nothing to support those people who have worked all their lives, who have built the foundations of this nation and who have ensured that we live the lives that we live today because of their hard sweat, blood and tears in past generations.
I think that as a nation and as a government we can do better than that. As a nation, we should be doing all that we can for these wonderful people who are our mothers, fathers, grandparents, great-grandparents and people close to us who we love—our neighbours—because that's the way that it is here in Australia. These are people that we have to look after. We'll be measured in the future by the generations to come on the standards and on the support that we gave to older Australians, and I have to say at this point that we're not heading on the right track. It's getting worse, and it will be worse unless we make some drastic changes.
We heard the member for Dobell say how we are becoming an ageing population. We are living a lot longer, and that's a great thing. But if we're living a lot longer we also have to put services in place that will look after our older Australians. And the services, I have to say, are not there. We're not funding them properly and not providing adequate packages to keep people at home, and we know that people want to stay at home. If you ask the majority of Australians, 'What do you want to do when you get older and frailer?' they will say, 'I want to remain in my house: the house that I've lived in my entire life; the house that's close to my family; the residence that's within my community—my community groups, my friends, my relatives and my neighbours.' It's a natural thing to want and to aspire to, and it should be natural for us in government and in parliament to try to produce some policies and a framework to make sure that that happens. But, to do that, we have to fund these services adequately, and, as I said, we're currently not doing that.
We have to think outside of the square and try to come up with a system that is funded properly to provide those services and to treat these people with absolute dignity, because, as I said, they're the people who worked hard and built the foundations of this nation that we stand solidly on today. We are a great nation. When you look at the history of Australia, we are one of the best nations in the world. That's due to our forebears who worked so hard. In many cases they fought in wars. They paid their taxes and, because of their blood, sweat and tears, ensured that today we have comfortable, good lives.
Residential aged-care facilities are mirrored in the homes of those who choose to receive care as part of the home care packages. We look forward to hearing how the government will integrate home care into this newly established commission as well. This new agency is not due to begin until 1 July 2019, so it has already been delayed by 12 months. The government has a lot of work to do to ensure that this commission is the right way to go and that the correct systems are in place. It's really unfortunate that this bill won't do much to address the home care package crisis, but it is important for me to mention it all the same. It's a topical issue. It comes up many, many times on talkback radio. There are letters to the editor. People talk to me when I'm having street corner meetings, visiting shopping centres and doorknocking. Constituents who contact me say, 'My parents'—or an aunt or grandparents—'are waiting for a package.' What happens is that, when you're waiting for 12 to 24 months, as people who have come to my office have told me, you become frailer and weaker. If those mechanisms aren't in place to support you, you will become frailer very quickly. What does that mean? It means you will end up in the acute emergency department of a hospital or in an aged-care facility, which then costs the government and every taxpayer a lot more. So isn't it better to ensure that we have the packages that people require to keep them at home and keep them healthier? They will also keep the expense down.
This is what will happen and what happens currently when people aren't getting the required packages: I've heard of people who've been on waiting lists for over a year and have passed away before they have even received their packages. I have many examples, which I have sent to the minister. I've sent all of them in writing. Unfortunately, we get back standard responses and nothing much is done about them. It is very sad to see people come to my office to talk to me about their parents who are very frail and want to stay at home. They want to give their parents the assistance that they require. They want to make sure that they do everything they can to care for them. What happens in many cases is those carers also then become ill and sick through the pressure and the work that they do. It's very disappointing to see that this particular area in this bill did nothing to address the home care packages.
A lot of good work has been done by Leon Byner on 5AA in South Australia. Leon is currently running one of the highest-rating programs on radio in Adelaide and he has been running a campaign on this for a long time. Many people call in and he refers them to us. We write letters to the minister, but unfortunately these falls on deaf ears.
I worry that this is the new norm with the government. There are issues that are pressing for our communities, issues that we need to deal with, and we just fluff them away, like we did with this particular announcement during the budget of 14,000 home care packages when we know that there are 100,000 on the waiting list and that that number is growing by 10,000 to 20,000 every quarter. This government funded the 14,000 new home care packages over four years in this government's budget, but it was nothing but a big hoax. It's particularly cruel, after promising older Australians it would address the waiting list. These were promises made by this government, but, to date, we haven't seen anything. Even the Minister for Aged Care was forced to admit what we already knew: the home-care packages announced in last month's budget wouldn't come anywhere close to solving Australia's aged-care crisis. It's certainly a crisis that exists within my electorate, being an electorate with one of the oldest populations in the country.
Responding to whether the new home-care packages announced in the budget would be enough to solve the crisis, the minister could only say that the Turnbull government would have to consider new measures. That is an admission in itself that it's not working, that the new announcements are not going to work and that we need to do a lot more in this area.
We also know the government's delaying the public release of the next quarterly data wait list for home-care packages. We know they're doing that, and we know why: because the list and the numbers on that list are growing. They're growing and we're not doing anything about it. We're asking the minister many questions. Where is this data? Why is it being delayed? Is there something that you're hiding? I don't think there is anything that he's hiding, because it's common knowledge. Everyone knows that this list is growing, and will quadruple before we know it.
The Minister for Aged Care must be honest with older Australians. I know the minister. I know that he cares. I know he has real empathy for our older Australians. But it's his own side that's letting him down, that's not assisting him or supporting him in coming up with good measures to ensure that we look after our older Australians. We know, through the estimates process in the Senate, that the Department of Health has previously committed to releasing data two months after the period that the data covers, yet the government won't do it. With the latest quarter ending in March, this means the data is already a fortnight late. Again we ask: what is the Minister for Aged Care hiding in the latest round of data? The last package of data revealed almost 105,000 older Australians were waiting for packages, and they know that those numbers are blowing out each year.
As I said, the demand for packages grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone. As our national demographic ages, we know this will become a bigger issue. We know that the Turnbull government has promised the world to older Australians waiting in the queue for these packages but they're getting nothing. I've already mentioned that, sadly, the Minister for Aged Care has already admitted the government will need to consider other interventions. That's an admission that you need other interventions to reduce this waiting list. I'm personally sick of waiting, and the minister— (Time expired)
Mr Deputy Speaker:
You had to watch residents being abused by staff and know that even if it was reported, nothing would be done because they couldn't do without the staff member. People were lying in wet beds for hours on end because there were not enough staff to change them.
That's an extract from a recent survey, conduct by the Health Services Union's New South Wales branch, entitled 'Your Story'. I've chosen to utilise this extract to open the debate on this bill not because I'm proud of the current state of the aged-care sector but because I believe it succinctly puts into perspective the dire situation faced by many elderly Australians around the country today. It's stories like this that lead me to raise a voice for vulnerable Australians in what this House is doing this afternoon, although I do note the absence of many who want to contribute on the other side.
The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill before us essentially makes a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. As a consequence, the bill also varies the functions of the chief executive officer of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. The implementation of the Aged Care Quality Standards will replace the separate existing standards applicable to residential, home care and flexible care services.
Situations like the one I recounted earlier are not unique. Media stories we hear on a regular basis, such as that of the Oakden facility in South Australia, highlight the inappropriate care outcomes facing many elderly Australians. It is for this reason that we will be supporting the passage of this bill today. We welcome the uniformity of a single set of aged-care standards and the shift towards quality outcomes for consumers rather than providers. However, we do so with some caution. We're not going to allow the community to be fooled into thinking that this government has a genuine care about elderly Australians because, if they did genuinely care about elderly Australians, you wouldn't have had to wait for two years after the 2015-16 budget for these measures to be introduced. In addition, the government has shown no willingness to work with our side of the House. It is not seeking to have a bipartisan position. At no stage has the government consulted the shadow minister prior to even introducing the legislation before us now. It shows that they are not determined to have a bipartisan approach adopted when it comes to aged care.
This bill reinforces that this government has misplaced priorities; you only have to take a look at the most recent budget handed down by the government. The government has not put the best interests of older Australians front and centre. It has, in fact, done the opposite. It has been said by many speakers before me that this government really has played a hoax on older Australians, pretending to allocate more funding to aged care when, in reality, as the government knows, not one single extra dollar was put into aged care. What they did in the budget was merge two line items—one for aged-care facilities and one for home care—and say, 'This is the injection of new funds.' I felt very sorry for the minister. Whether they told him or not before budget day, I'm not quite sure. He is a minister who has a good reputation among all of us. Trying to sell an approach that he wouldn't have known about then was completely wrong. Not one extra cent went into aged care.
On top of this, keep in mind the Abbott-Turnbull government's previous cuts to aged care that robbed the industry of billions of dollars. We've had an MPI debate only today that largely centred around the Prime Minister's view about aged-care workers and what sort of tax entitlements they would be entitled to compared to what tax benefits a millionaire would get. I think it was particularly offensive—and I saw many of those opposite put their heads down when he said it—that he said that maybe they could aspire get a better job. Resulting out of his comments in that regard, my brother—who is, by the way, the general secretary of the Health Services Union—wrote: 'In Mr Turnbull's world, your worth is measured by your earning power, not the difference you make to people's lives. The aged-care workers I know are deeply caring and empathetic people who are driven not by money but the desire to make older people's lives better. Of course, thanks to Mr Turnbull and his government's savage cuts to aged-care funding, this job is so ridiculously underpaid and getting harder every day.' Whilst my brother might be a trade union official, I think he probably echoes the view of many workers in the healthcare industry, who we come to rely on but we all know are hopelessly underpaid at the moment.
While all this is going on and while they're not putting one extra dollar into aged care, they are absolutely committed to giving big business a $80 billion tax cut—and to big banks. We all know the view that they have taken for the last couple of years on a royal commission into banking. As the royal commission starts to roll out its findings, the government know what's happening in the financial sector, but the big banks are still going to get a $17 billion tax cut—and yet we cannot find enough money to put in to cater for elderly Australians. I think that says much about their misplaced priorities. Thinking about trickle-down economics, all that is wonderful, but I am sure people who represent the Liberal and National Party side have elderly Australians in their electorates too. I am sure they have people in their communities whose relatives care about getting the best care they can, whether it is in residential care or in-home care or from flexible care services. We too share that. I think those opposite should be more committed to the people who have contributed so much of their lives for the betterment of our country, have paid their taxes and have been ideal model Australians in their older years. They are going to be subject to this cruel hoax of being told that the government is investing more in health care only to find out there's not a dollar more going in.
I will quote again from the Health Services Union, which summed up the ramifications of the government's persistent attack on the healthcare sector. The union said:
What is undisputed among providers, unions, consumer advocacy groups and residents is that cuts to aged care funding by consecutive federal governments are having a significant and adverse impact upon the provision of quality care to older Australians.
That's not something this parliament should be proud of. We should be doing better. It is now clear that in the build-up to the last budget there was a bit of fanfare. There wasn't much in that budget that wasn't leaked out in advance. Maybe that's a modern political tactic—I'm not sure. But there was plenty that went out about aged care. The government promised much and delivered little. They over promised and underdelivered. That's not the way to actually satisfy a healthcare sector. It's not the way to satisfy those who are prepared to invest in a healthcare sector. I think those businesses do it very tough too. The ones I know, particularly in my community, are there and, it's true, they have a profit motive. But they are there to deliver services as best they can to elderly Australians.
At a doorstop a few days before the Treasurer brought down his budget, the health minister said:
It's going to be a very good budget for health and aged care in particular.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. So, whether or not he knew—I'm sure, as a senior cabinet minister, he would have known what the provision was—the reality is that it was not there. The government decided to fan up speculation about it and failed to deliver. You could put that down to political spin or whatever. Maybe it's just contemporary politics—I don't know. But to do that at the expense of elderly Australians, people who probably are the most vulnerable in our communities, I think is just thoroughly reprehensible.
The funding of 14,000 new home care packages over four years is a cruel hoax, quite frankly. I can only think of my own electorate. Mine is not a rich electorate. It's very multicultural and is one we are very proud of. I know how significant aged care is in my electorate. I attended the opening of the AVACS aged-care centre only a few weeks ago—AVACS being the Australian Vietnamese Aged Care Services. We are seeing what is occurring even in multicultural communities. I know the strain that the aged-care sector is under. I know the providers are seriously working hard to deliver for residents and cater for people in care, but we can do better by ensuring that the appropriate resources and finance go in to ensure they can deliver better services to their clients and residents. The Turnbull government's poor implementation of its own home care reforms and funding cuts to the aged-care budget are hurting older Australians.
The government's response to older Australians is an insult. It does nothing to address the aged-care crisis, which has effectively been created under their watch. The government has a proven track record of cutting funding and underinvesting in aged care. The Turnbull government has created an aged-care crisis. It has ignored the very crisis it created. And now it has brought down a budget which fails to address, in even a small way, the nature of that crisis.
This government has not shown much compassion for older Australians. We have a government that expects Australians to work longer—to work until they are 70 years of age. We have a government that has taken away the energy supplement for over two million Australians, of whom 400,000 are aged pensioners. Despite what then Prime Minister Abbott had to say about there being no cuts to pensions, we have seen a continual erosion of the dollar value of the pension and of what people can live on in their older age.
I would strongly suggest that we all have a responsibility to ensure quality aged-care services are available to all Australians of senior years, to ensure that there is a real and positive change in this sector. If you cannot spend enough time and resources to look after elderly Australians—Australians who have contributed so much to this country—then I think it is not only a reflection that we have failed; it is a reflection on all of us that we have failed to address appropriate priorities whilst having the honour of representing our communities in parliament.
I call on this government to reverse its continued attacks on the aged-care sector. This government should stop taking care of its friends at the big end of town and, for once, ensure that care and resourcing is directed to the most vulnerable Australians, and, in this instance, I would suggest, the most vulnerable of all are elderly Australians.
I rise to also contribute to the debate on the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018. In every single budget, this government has attacked older Australians and ripped out funding from critical aged-care services. Since they've come to power, the Liberal government have cut more than $2 billion from aged care. On their watch, the waiting list for home care packages has ballooned to over 105,000, and older Australians have been left to languish for well over a year to access packages that they have already been approved for. Some have been forced into residential care too soon, and, in some circumstances, against their wishes, when they simply couldn't wait any longer or their families were in no position to lend further support. This is a tragic outcome. It decreases the quality of life for older Australians. It hurts their families and the extended networks that these people belong to within their neighbourhoods and communities. It is also, of course, a much, much bigger impost on the federal budget to place people into residential aged-care facilities, when it was, firstly, not their desire, and, secondly, in many cases, a premature move into residential aged care.
In May, it looked like the government was finally going to invest properly in aged care in the 2018 budget. We were told that there were great things to look forward to. Well, what an absolutely cruel and shameful hoax that turned out to be. In fact, it very soon became clear that there was no new money for aged care. Instead, the government was funding the new packages by ripping funding out from other parts of the aged-care budget. The government could not find a single cent to solve the aged-care crisis, yet it had time to find $80 billion to give tax cuts to big business, to those multinationals and to the four banks. Talk about twisted priorities! Not a single cent for aged care, but it can give tax cuts to those who, frankly, don't need them and haven't even requested them.
The bill before us today establishes a single set of aged-care quality standards for all providers that are covered under the Aged Care Act. They represent a change in focus, moving from provider processes to the quality of outcomes for consumers. These update a number of standards that currently apply to different sorts of care, including two for home care, four for residential aged care and two more for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Care Aged Care Program quality review. These changes will come into effect in July of next year, 2019, which, of course, is an extension already on what was the government's planned start date of July 2018. This is to give providers the time they needed to prepare. There was no way that the government could achieve its initial intentions, and already we have moved into having to get extensions of time.
These changes are because of the results of some consultations that took place with the aged-care sector and other stakeholders. Those consultations have been taking place since 2015, so some three years ago. Most of those consultations were not controversial, but, in fact, we are only seeing this legislation now, three years later than first announced, and that is completely unsatisfactory. It is a massive time lag between intention and delivery into this House. And over those three years we have seen waiting lists grow longer for those aged-care packages, with people struggling with increased out-of-pocket expenses to access care. All of these issues have been compounded at a time when inaction becomes, sort of, the default position of this government.
There is, of course, a tendency for this government to drag the chain when it comes to important aged-care issues. In October last year, the Carnell Review of National Aged Care Quality Regulatory Processes was given to the government. The review, which focused on quality care, put forward 10 recommendations. One of the most notable of these was a recommendation to establish an independent aged-care quality and safety commission, which Labor thoroughly supports. While the government has agreed to this, we are yet to see any details of the commission, which is due to start on 1 July next year.
We are also concerned that the minister seems to be very focused on residential aged-care providers at the expense of those Australians who choose to stay at home. This is a critical point. The government needs to pay as much attention to ensuring that the same quality aged care that Australians get in residential facilities will also be available to those who choose care as part of their home care packages. And, of course, we still need more information about how home care will be integrated into the new commission, because, quite frankly, with the botch-up the government has made of home care so far in its tenure, we have good reason to be concerned. The Australian Medical Association were right when they said:
… much more needs to be achieved to ensure older Australians receive the care they need and deserve in their later years.
But I suspect that calling what the Turnbull government has done to home care in this country a botch-up is way too kind. Those opposite have known about the relentless growth in the waiting lists for home care packages for a long time. Instead, they went ahead with their decision to spend $80 billion of precious public money on tax cuts for corporations rather than fixing this appalling aged-care mess of their own creation.
As I mentioned earlier, in the week leading up to the 2018 budget, Australians were led to believe that the terrible crisis facing aged care was finally going to be addressed, that there would be a substantial investment to reduce Mr Turnbull's home care package waiting list. On 6 May, the Minister for Health even went on the record to promise, 'It's going to be a very good budget for health and for aged care in particular.' On this side of the chamber, we were cautiously optimistic at the early budget news. Regretfully, our hopes were thoroughly dashed on budget night when we learnt that the figure that had been referred to was already in the forward estimates. There was absolutely no new money at all. Not a single dollar. Nothing. Zero. In fact, more than 21,000 residential care places are set to be cut over the next three years to pay for the very modest increase in home care packages that has been made available.
Independent budget analysis by Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy found:
The Australian Government must also invest more in home care packages and residential aged care places. The additional high level home care packages falls way short of the 82,237 consumers currently awaiting an approved high level package. There is also a projected 94,200 gap in residential aged care places by 2025.
Not only did the government not spend a single cent extra in aged care; they tried to pull a swift one by trying to convince us that aged care was actually the good-news centrepiece of the budget. The absolute gall is breathtaking. Let's be very clear: this is a hoax, pure and simple. The government knew that not a red cent more of funding was being given to aged care in this budget. They knew that their so-called investment was being shamelessly ripped out of other parts of the aged-care portfolio. They certainly knew that this shuffling of money wouldn't result in any net benefit to older Australians, yet they still proudly backgrounded journalists with leaks of billions of dollars in extra funding. The government's utter duplicity was confirmed once and for all in Senate estimates last month, when department officials confirmed that there is no new funding and agreed that the funds had all come from existing resources that were spent otherwise. This is appalling. Government members have treated older Australians with utter contempt, and they should hang their heads in shame.
At this point, I would like to point out that there is only one government member to speak on this legislation. One single member was willing to back in their own government's action in this important area, and I think that speaks volumes. One solitary person on the government benches volunteering to justify the inexcusable. It is unbelievable. Actually, it is quite believable, really, because government members would know as well as I do that their budget announcement was a rort, a cynical attempt to make people believe they were doing something about a crisis without having spent a dime. They would be acutely aware that their leadership has again backed in big businesses and the banks ahead of older Australians. They would know exactly what this continued negligence is doing to their older constituents in the communities and their families, because, just like me, government members will be seeing the real-world impacts of the Turnbull government's neglect of our aged-care system in their electorate offices every day.
In Newcastle, I am regularly contacted by older people or family members who are at their wit's end—people like Richard from Elermore Vale. Richard is in his 70s and requires permanent oxygen. He wants to stay at home, but he needs help to do so. A level 4 package would give Richard access to a portable oxygen tank to use when he has to leave his home, when he attends his medical appointments and when he goes about regular day-to-day business that we would all take for granted. It would help Richard maintain his independence and ensure that he was able to get to external appointments without ever worrying that his oxygen was going to run out.
I couldn't think of something more terrifying than to be timing all of the business you have to do outside of your house on the basis of how long your oxygen tank can last, but that is what Richard faces every day. If he were able to access the level 4 package, which he is entitled to, he would be able to have a portable oxygen tank that would give him so much more independence in our community. He's been waiting for more than eight months for this level 4 package. When he calls My Aged Care, he is told that he is the 'highest priority' and that he will have a package within one to three months. So far every month has passed with no good news and no package.
This is not good enough and the government must fix it. Instead, they are devoting their energy to pretending that it is being fixed. It is no surprise that the government seem to be sticking with their chosen strategy of spin and obfuscation, because now we see the government trying to dodge scrutiny by delaying public release of the quarterly waitlist data for home care packages. Australians deserve to know where that data is. Why is there a delay in releasing this data? What is the government hiding?
It is time for the government to come clean with older Australians and immediately release that waitlist data. We learnt during estimates that the department has committed to releasing the information two months after the end of the quarter. Given than the most recent quarter ended in March, we should have had that data in May. It is now 19 June and no data has been made available to the Australian people. One might be cynical enough to think that perhaps this data is not going to see the light of day before certain by-elections that might be occurring around the country.
It's not good enough. It has been a cruel hoax on older Australians to pretend otherwise. The government needs to do the right thing, invest properly in these home care packages, release this data and come clean with all Australians.
A few weeks ago in this place, a series of meetings were held with aged-care workers. We had United Voice members and HACSU members who came to parliament to brief people who work in this place about the crisis facing aged care, and to launch their campaign Our Turn to Care. Before people jump to conclusions and think they were here to talk about their wages, they weren't. I will get to the quality of wages for aged-care workers in a moment. The workers came to start sharing the crisis in what they are seeing happening at aged-care facilities and the need for there to be radical investment and radical reform of the sector.
These are the people at the front line of delivering aged-care services, and they do it because they love it. That was one of the first things that they said: 'We're here to tell you what is happening to the residents in our care, in our places of work. We're here to tell you that this is a ticking time bomb. And, unless the government acts quickly, the scandal and the crisis that is occurring in aged care is about to blow up.' They talked about the fact that some of our aged-care for-profit providers have meal budgets for residents as low as $6 a day. Regardless of what the resident is already paying in their aged-care fees and to live in the facility, the budget to spend on food for that resident is $6 a day. What can you buy with $6? These are people who require a nutritious meal. These are people who require regular meals. These are our older Australians who require respect and dignity in their later life, and they are not receiving it currently in some of the facilities in Australia.
And it's not just about food. Day programming: many of the programs, many of the activities that aged-care residents have enjoyed in some centres have been cut. There are fewer and fewer resources available for those facilities in some of the for-profit agencies that we have in this country. Workers talked about if one of their co-workers was sick, that person would not be replaced, putting safety at risk. I have met with people in my own electorate who say: 'We don't blame the staff. People get sick; they are not able to go to work. But why wasn't that person replaced? Where was the relief worker to turn up so that my mum got showered that day or my dad was taken for his walk that day?'
There are really two tiers of delivery within our aged-care services. I want to acknowledge the work that the not-for-profit sector is playing in ensuring that their quality of care is up there. We have one service in my electorate, RM Begg, which says that under the current model, unfortunately, it is slowly going broke. The staff do not compromise on quality and they do not compromise on care. If you are an older resident who might have quite developed stages of dementia, one thing they like to do is keep you active in a safe way. When I was last out there, I actually watched a nurse and an aged-care worker supporting an older gentleman who had late-stage Alzheimer's go for a walk with his walker around the centre. I said, 'What are you doing?' They said, 'We find that it helps to calm him down, he quite enjoys it and he can sleep better at night.' There are not too many facilities in Australia that could spare two workers to do that at the one time because we have no staff-to-resident ratios in our aged-care facilities. Unlike early childhood education, there are no ratios around how many people are required to work in a facility.
So from this briefing, which was backed up by a lot of visits and conversations with people working in the sector, backed up by conversations with family members, there is a real problem with staffing on weekends. We don't have enough people working in some of our aged-care facilities on weekends. You do have to pay a little bit more for people working on weekends because this is a low-paid sector where many are on the award, meaning they do get penalty rates. So rather than employing people to work on weekends, some of the for-profit providers just don't roster people on. There are no standards. We have no rules around how many people working on weekends make it safe or not safe,
The fact that aged-care workers came to say, 'It is our turn to care', and spoke about the need to reinvest in the quality of the care that is delivered in giving older people dignity and respect showed me something that really needs to be recognised. This is a workforce that is undervalued. They have skills. They require levels of education, whether it be TAFE or university, to work in an aged-care facility. They are upskilling themselves as a sector and they tell you straight out that they do it because they love the work. But love doesn't pay the bills. I want to take a moment to reflect on what the Prime Minister said in question time about aged-care workers. His comment yesterday that the aged-care worker in Burnie, the 60-year-old, should aspire to a better job demonstrated that the Prime Minister has never actually met any aged-care workers. Most of the aged-care workers I have met tell me how proud they are to work in aged care. They love the role that they are doing. They aspire to work in aged care. That's their role. That is what they love. But this government has not invested and valued their work fairly. They are undervalued. They don't aspire to be bank managers. They aspire to work in a sector where the residents have resources, where the residents have care, where the cooks have food in the cupboard, where they are spending more than $6 a day on meals, where they are able to take them out on excursions, where they are able to have sing-a-longs, and where they are able to do arts and craft with arts and craft material and not just newspapers. Their aspiration is for their sector and that is what the Prime Minister doesn't understand. Not everybody in our society wants to be a banker. And thank you to all of those aged-care workers who do put their hand up to say they want to work in this sector. Thank you for your compassion and willingness and commitment to take care of our older Australians, giving them the dignity and the respect that they deserve. I just wish that we had a Prime Minister who acknowledged their work, acknowledged that it is undervalued and worked collaboratively and collectively with the unions in that space to see an investment go into their wages.
If we're going to solve the crisis of care in aged care, we need to look at what people are being paid. We need to lift the wages and the conditions of people working in the sector. Aged care has one of the highest staff turnover rates, and part of the reason for that is that the job is demanding and complex. Workers are asked to do more and more. They are with people when they're passing, which is incredibly emotional. They form incredible bonds with these people. Yet, they are paid some of the lowest award wages in our country.
The bill before us does look to establish various functions, like a chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency, and it also talks about the Aged Care Quality Standards. It does create a single set of standards that will apply to providers under the Aged Care Act. I'm just a bit disappointed that, within this reform that's before us, we're not looking at those two critical issues that I've raised—we're not looking at wages and the undervaluing of the sector and the people who work in it, and, when we talk about quality, we're not looking at the meals, the delivery of care or the liveability of aged care and people's experience of it.
But we shouldn't be surprised that the government is again just tinkering at the edges when it comes to aged care. In this budget, we saw significant cuts, again, to the sector. For all of the talk and the huff and puff of those opposite in the lead-up to the 2018-19 budget, there weren't any new dollars for aged care. They basically overpromised and underdelivered again. They said that there was $100 billion that the government would lead from, but, on closer inspection, on budget night, Labor discovered that it wasn't new money; it was already in the forward estimates. They also talked up that there would be a significant investment in new home care packages, but they've only funded 14,000 new home care packages over four years in this budget, going nowhere near the gap that we currently have. The waiting list, just in the last six months of 2017, grew by 20,000, and other members have already highlighted the significant shortfall.
Data reveals that almost 105,000 older Australians are waiting for home care packages, with the average wait time for high-level packages blowing out to more than a year. I've had people in my electorate come and speak to me about their parents being advised that they're going to have to wait three years, that there are no new packages for complex care, for level 4 care, coming online in our region for at least three years. Another person was told, 'Look, you're just going to have to wait for a few people to die before you get access to a home care package.' That is outrageous! We've known for a very long time that the retiring baby boomers and the people a little bit older were ageing. And now that they're putting their hand up, having been assessed as needing support, we're saying, 'Sorry, you're going to have to wait for someone to die before you get access to a package.' It is wrong. People who choose to live in their home should receive the support that they've been assessed as needing.
Another problem that people in my electorate have raised with me about home care packages is when one person in a couple is assessed to be level 2 and the other is assessed to be level 4. They can get access to the level 2 straightaway, but they have to wait for the level 4. Then it comes down to billing—who's responsible? Who do they charge the cleaning to? They're a couple. Can they split it? They don't quite know how to manage the package. It's complex. It's based upon singles, not couples. So, there's a real problem with how the government is delivering home care packages.
The government also needs to lift its funding for HACC services. In regional Australia, particularly in Victoria, our councils are still largely responsible for delivering HACC services. The market is just not going to go there. They can't make enough money by delivering HACC services out in Ravenswood in my part of the world. Or go to electorates like Murray and Mallee; the council still delivers it. The federal government needs to genuinely partner and put more of its funding into these HACC arrangements. To their credit, ratepayers and local governments have really helped to fund the sector by filling that gap.
But this government's attack on our older Australians doesn't stop there. This government wants to have a higher retirement pension age than any other country in the OECD, lifting it to 70. How can you expect nurses and bricklayers—people who work in physical professions—to work until they're 70. This is one of those issues where, when I'm out in my community or speaking to people in regional Australia, they just shake their heads. It's easy for a politician on a green bench or a red bench to sit there until they're 70. It's not easy to be a nurse. It's not easy to be a teacher. It's not in any way respectful to expect older Australians to work until they're 70.
The government has also axed the clean energy supplement for around 400,000 age pensioners and, all up, two million Australians. That's a straight-out pension cut. Let's just call it what is: axing the energy supplement is a cut to the pension. Pensioners are spending more today on energy bills than ever. Last week I held a couple of discussions with pensioners in my electorate—first in Bendigo and then in Kyneton. I spoke to them about how tough life is today. Maggie shared her story. Her pension day was on Monday, and on Friday she realised she didn't have much money left in her wallet. A friend lent her 30 bucks, so she went to Coles and bought a few things to get her through the weekend before pension day on Monday. She bought one carrot, one capsicum and one potato. For a moment, everyone gathered there just stopped and said, 'When have you ever just bought one potato?' and she said, 'Yes, and it cost me $1.04.' The fact is that she is counting every single dollar and she is watching exactly what she spends. Maggie, who has worked hard her whole life, has retired and is now trying to survive on the single pension. Rather than more support from this government, what she's got is a cut. The government is trying to cut the age pension again by axing the energy supplement. Maggie doesn't know what she'll do if she loses that. She said she'd rather starve than go cold. Central Victoria is a cold place, particularly at the moment. The idea of starving is unacceptable and the idea of going cold because you can't afford the heating is unacceptable.
In conclusion, this bill seeks to establish a single quality framework, but I question the government's commitment to quality.
I rise to speak on the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018, which Labor supports. It amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013. Earlier today I made a contribution in this place on the Prime Minister's comments yesterday about an aged-care worker aspiring to management, and later in my contribution I will refer to some observations from my electorate. Before I do that, I want to recognise that the member for Dobell, in her contribution a little while ago, gave a really excellent insight into what it was like for her—someone who herself was a health professional before coming into politics—when her own parents were faced with these challenges. I really learnt a lot from listening to that.
What I've seen with my own eyes in my electorate is that the people who work at the coalface—the aged-care workers who care for our elders, our seniors—are doing an absolutely vital job. It's not necessarily an aspiration to become a manager that might, in some cases, be screwing those workers by not paying them much and not doing the right thing in terms of conditions of work—having them in casual, insecure work and having them look after too many of our elderly and so becoming stressed themselves. I've seen that happen. Perhaps the Prime Minister needs to get out a bit more and have a look at how people are working and operating and how the actions of some for-profit residential aged-care providers are conducting themselves.
When I visited a residential aged-care home in my electorate, I was, quite frankly, shocked at the way the management was conducting their business. At the same time, I was incredibly impressed with the way the aged-care workers were conducting themselves—giving of themselves and loving their job, which is incredibly important when looking after our seniors in the latter years of their life. That was a good experience for me. I now have a better idea about what we need to do in this sector having visited that residential aged-care home and having listened to the shadow minister, the member for Franklin, and heard her passion—and I'll reflect on that later.
Focusing on our seniors who are receiving aged care—whether it be in their own homes or in residential aged-care facilities—rather than focusing on the provider and the provider's processes is incredibly important. The fact that we have new standards is a good thing—and, as I said, we support the bill and the establishment of these new standards. But, like some of the other contributors from our side, I am a bit concerned, as I've seen with my own eyes the crisis that aged care is in and have learnt from my colleagues and from talking to people in the sector that there is pressure on facilities and pressure on providers. More beds are needed, more places are needed and, in short, action is needed. Unfortunately, what we've seen from the budget is that this government is not aware of the gravity of this situation or doesn't care. I'd like to think it's the former—that they aren't aware—but I hope they get up to speed quickly.
We're supporting this legislation in a bipartisan way, and my contribution is made in the spirit of bipartisanship. I do acknowledge the work of the Minister for Aged Care. I think he does mean well and has been trying hard. My impression, though, is that either he has not been persuasive enough in gaining the support of his colleagues or his colleagues are just not listening. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie, that he is a compatriot of yours from the west. Being from the north and from a regional part of Australia, I hope that he is being taken seriously and being listened to. However, it appears that the government, under the Prime Minister's leadership, is not seeing the aged-care sector as the priority that it should be. As I said, from the experience that I've had, urgency is certainly needed, and the fact that there has not been an extra dollar put into this sector is of incredible concern.
As some of my colleagues have mentioned previously, the Australian population is ageing. Newsflash! The Australian population is ageing; there are more and more people who need support. The bankers are going to be all right. The bankers are making record profits, so with $17 billion going to the banks they're going to be okay. What's in the budget about priorities? What you've said to our Australian elders—to our parents and grandparents, to those who have paid their taxes—is that you're not going to put an extra dollar into the system that provides them with dignity in their later years in life, but you're going to help out the banks and just shovel billions of dollars their way, even though they're doing very well. I don't know how you reconcile that, but there you go.
There is a crisis in aged care. We want to know how the government intends to ensure quality care for those who are remaining at home. We are very concerned that there is no real plan for aged care across multiple settings. But, as I said, what we do know is that there is not one extra dollar for aged care in this year's budget. In fact, under the last two governments—the Turnbull one and the one before that, the Abbott government—there has, in fact, been a cut of funding to aged care by billions. Cutting aged care and giving billions to the banks doesn't compute with me and my value system, nor, obviously, with the principles of those on this side of the chamber.
The government sort of pretended that there would be $100 million more for aged care in this year's budget. There was not. The $100 million was already there, provided in the forward estimates. We've heard a lot of talk about the new packages—14,000 new packages over four years. Now, these new packages, 3,500 a year, are not enough to keep up with demand. The waiting list grew by 20,000 senior Australians in the last six months of 2017 alone. I know that there is a big waiting list in my electorate, and if you're not aware—if you do not have friends or family in this situation—just two days ago I had a phone call about it with a family who is fifth-generation Territorian. This lady's children are fifth-generation Territorians, but she is contemplating leaving the Northern Territory because she can't get care for her elderly and very unwell mum. That is significant—that is incredibly significant. The Territory is a tough place; to be a pioneering family that is so deeply connected to the Northern Territory and to consider moving south so that your aged mum can get the care she needs tells us that there is a crisis. It is just one example of this crisis.
It's just unacceptable for people—for our elders who have given us so much. This family is one example. They built modern Darwin and, unfortunately, because of the lack of resources, the lack of priorities and the lack of value that this government has given to this sector over five years, real people like them—real families—are being affected.
I mentioned before that I have been visiting an aged-care facility. I went to visit the lady at the request of her family. She's passed on now, but her kids are very determined that there is going to be more scrutiny in this area, more accountability for some of these providers, because the crisis is really affecting families. When I read the minister's second reading speech, unfortunately I didn't pick up any hint of concern about some of these underlying issues in our aged-care system. When Labor were in government, we delivered significant improvements to aged care through our Living Longer Living Better reforms.
By the way, when we were in government we increased the pension by a record amount. We wouldn't contemplate cutting the pension and taking $14 a fortnight off seniors, for example, because we understand the lived reality of people on the age pension in this country. We just would not take resources off them because we understand the costs for people to live in a comfortable environment. In my electorate—it's up in the tropics—a lot of Territorians on the age pension don't even run their aircon, even when it's really sticky and really humid, because they can't afford it. So they are better living with their electricity bills when they're running their fans. These are real people, and ripping $14 a fortnight off them is not helpful. I digress, but I wanted to use that as an example of the priorities that must be given to making sure that our seniors are respected and are cared for if they're in residential care facilities. We need to make sure that the workers are respected and valued—not valued only if they aspire to management, but respected for the job they do, which is caring for our elders.
In the time I have available, I want to quickly flag that we have a lot of postwar migrants. In my electorate there are a lot from southern Europe, and Greece in particular. We need to be very aware of that so that, as that postwar population goes into aged-care facilities, we make sure they have the services they need. It's the right thing to do, so let's start looking after our people in aged care a lot better. (Time expired)
The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018 amends the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 to make provision for a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the aged-care quality standards.
With respect to those standards, there are currently three different areas. They include residential aged care, where there are four standards; home care, where there are two standards; and the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review, where there are two standards. I stress the term 'standards' because none of these standards come into effect until 1 July 2019, which is still over a year away. And while we on this side of the House will be supporting this legislation, it is somewhat concerning that it has taken so long to bring these matters to the parliament and, indeed, that it will take yet another 12 months before the effects of this legislation are felt out there in the community.
There are currently some 235,000 Australians in around 2,700 aged-care facilities around the country. A similar number of employees work in those facilities, which are a combination of for-profit and not-for-profit centres. The reality is that all of them are trying to keep their centres viable, and that means they're all striving to make a profit. Indeed, if they are unable to, it would be only a matter of time before they would have to cease operations.
This legislation arises from a failure of the health department, the Aged Care Quality Agency and the Office of the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner to protect vulnerable people, mainly older Australians, from mistreatment, inadequate care, physical abuse and medical neglect in some residential aged-care facilities. I stress the word 'some' because clearly there are some very good operators out there and there are also very good services and people who provide home care. But it's not always the case and it hasn't been the case for years. Indeed, over the last two decades I can recall regular media reports, scathing media reports, exposing the maltreatment of people within residential care facilities.
In 2015-16, there were 2,862 notifications of assault to the Department of Health. In 2017, there were 4,713 complaints to the age commissioner. This is with respect to residential aged-care facilities. Those numbers, however, do not reveal the true extent of the concerns that would be generated by those facilities; they might not complain because of fear by the residents themselves or by the families of the residents, or fear of retribution towards the resident should they complain. Indeed, there are even allegations that lawyers acting on behalf of the facilities are bullying those people who dare to complain about any service that they are unhappy about.
Perhaps of even greater concern is that they cannot and would not ever represent the true level of concerns we should have about these facilities because, as we know, around 53 per cent of people in residential aged-care facilities have dementia or Alzheimer's disease or an illness that prevents them from being able to communicate or formally lodge a complaint. So the reality is that we're dealing with the tip of the iceberg with respect to the number of concerns that come out of those facilities.
We also have a report that was undertaken over a 15-year period by Professor Joe Ibrahim with respect to deaths that occur in residential aged-care facilities. His report covered a 15-year period where he looked at coroners' reports in respect of the people who died whilst in a facility. He found there were some 3,000 deaths over that 15-year period that were avoidable. He means they were avoidable because they occurred through things such as misdiagnosis, poor care or communication errors. In some cases it was assault of one resident by another, which included choking. Sometimes it was because of medication errors. There were other factors, but those were the kinds of factors that were occurring. These deaths could have been avoided had the care been there in an improved way.
The reality is that the sector has been dogged by negative stories, criticisms, scandals and damning statistics which for too long have been conveniently ignored by many of the operators of those centres and by the government departments we trust to oversee those centres and ensure they comply with the standards and regulations that are set. However, the most damning proof that the system is failing is that in the last two decades we have had numerous inquiries into the aged-care sector or inquiries that relate directly to the aged-care sector. The most recent ones we often talk about are the Productivity Commission report, the Australian Law Reform Commission report, the Carnell-Paterson review and the current ICAC investigation in South Australia into the Oakden facility, which also led to a Senate inquiry. We now also have the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport conducting an inquiry into the aged-care sector in this country. The fact that there are, and have been, so many inquiries tells its own story. Inquiries are not held unless there is a problem. In this case, the problem goes back years, and it has been ignored for much, much too long.
Over recent years, I have visited many centres. Indeed, only last week I went to a centre and spoke at length with the manager of that centre. But I've also met with family members who have talked to me about the experiences they have undergone with respect to members of their families who were in centres, and I have met with aged-care workers, including those whom I would describe as whistleblowers who came to see me in confidence and who don't want their names provided publicly. They told me about how they saw the industry from the inside. Indeed, some of the people that I met with were at management level. They were not just personal care workers or nurses; they were people that worked at senior management level. It's clear to me that the aged-care system in this country is in crisis and that we can and should be doing a lot better.
I accept that the government is aware of the concerns that I have raised and has met with and listened to the same kinds of people that I have been speaking with. The government's response to doing a lot better appears to me to be simply moving the deckchairs. It may be necessary to change the rules, change who is responsible for the rules and change the way bureaucracy carries out its responsibilities and functions. Clearly, this legislation does that, and we support it. But it seems to me that that is not going to solve the real problems that we're confronted with. What is required is a cultural change both within government bureaucracies that are entrusted with the responsibility to oversee the aged-care system of this country and within those providers who are not living up to the standards that we set for them. Until we get that culture change, I suspect that no amount of regulation or changing of the rules is going to make enough difference to prevent the kinds of mistreatment that we have seen for too long.
It is not right and it is not acceptable to mistreat any vulnerable person of any age. I suspect that if these were children that we were dealing with there would be much more community outrage about the issue. Yet the reality is that many of the people that either are in need of home care or are in residential care are as vulnerable as the little children that we also strive to protect whenever we can and in the best way we can. I have visited centres in my electorate over many years and I have seen the changes within them myself. Indeed, some time ago I met with a delegation of about 15 or 20 family members of residents of a particular aged-care facility within my electorate who talked about the declining nature of care that was being provided to their family members. It's clear to me that there has been a decline in the level of care that is being provided to people in these facilities. Whether that is because of financial pressures I don't know. Perhaps in some cases it is, but the reality is that there has been a declining level of care.
The level of care has been declining because staffing numbers have dropped. It's been declining because the numbers of registered or enrolled nurses within those facilities have been reduced and replaced by personal care workers or not replaced at all. It's been declining because allied health services to those centres have also been cut. It's been declining because the standard of food provided to those residents has also deteriorated. There are other areas that I could refer to, but what's clear is that the level of care is declining. All of this points to cost-cutting measures carried out by the operators of those centres, who, in many cases, would say, 'That's because there have been cuts to the aged-care sector by government, and we are simply trying to operate within the means we have.' Again, it's not for me to comment on whether or not that is true, but that is the response we are getting.
One of the problems resulting from of all those cuts—and I've already talked about people who died because they were given the wrong medication—is that when patients who can't properly communicate are misdiagnosed within those centres they ultimately end up having to be transferred to public hospitals. Operators will do that, rather than bring in registered nurses or enrolled nurses to care for them, because it is an easy way out for them. That in turn adds to the cost of our public health system. The reality is that the facilities they are in should be able to—and in the past would have been able to—care for them without transferring them to a public hospital. It is something that needs to be factored in every time we look at this issue.
The last issue I want to speak about is the home care packages the government has provided. It claimed in the budget that there will be an extra 14,000 packages over four years, which is 3½ thousand a year. The reality is that in the last six months of last year alone there were applications for another 20,000 home care packages, so 3½ thousand a year will not even pick up the growth in numbers. But, just as importantly, if those people do not get the home care packages that they need then one of the options that they will be forced to consider will be going into a residential aged-care facility. Family members at home without the package will not be able to help them, so they will have no choice but to look at residential aged-care accommodation. If that ends up being the case then, again, it will come at a greater cost. Indeed, sometimes, when families try to look after them at home, it ultimately results in the person going into hospital as well. It's a false saving.
It's time the government acknowledged the problem for what it really is. It's an important problem. It's a serious problem. It will not be fixed by simply moving the deck chairs or by not allocating a single new dollar to the aged-care system, as this government has done—that is, it has not allocated a single new dollar to the system. It has simply said, 'We will change these responsibilities and then that might fix the problem.' It won't. We are an ageing country. We have an ageing population, particularly in South Australia. If we don't address it, the situation is only going to continue to deteriorate.
I stand in this place this evening with some experience of the aged-care system. I come to this place with a passion to see our elderly citizens relieved of some of the burden and complexity currently impacting their lives. My father tragically lived with the devastating disease dementia. It's a disease that does not discriminate in who it attacks. It's a disease that robs a person of their independence and requires him or her to seek services in the aged-care sector. The reality is more than 413,106 people are living with dementia now. It is thought that there'll be about 536,164 people living with dementia by 2025 and about 1,100,890 by 2056. Dementia is the single greatest cause of disability in Australians over the age of 65 and the third leading cause of disability burden overall. Dementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia.
My parents were both in their 80s. As my father's health deteriorated, my mother was forced to seek support from the aged-care sector. Now, I worked in the community sector for some time, so I was not unfamiliar with government systems, but the aged-care system was a whole new experience. It was so very complicated and complex. I want to be very clear at this point: all of the staff we dealt with were extremely helpful, kind and caring people, but the system was just so complex. It was very difficult for my mother to ask for help, because she did not want to be seen to be not coping.
The assessment was thorough, and very emotionally difficult for my mother. Luckily, I was able to be there to support her. We need a system that is designed to understand that this is a very emotional and difficult time for families because they are confronted with the reality of their loved one's condition and the fact that life will never be the same again. The nurse who did the assessment was very compassionate, but we were not able to access the level 4 home-care package that my father needed. However, we were offered a level 2 package. It took more than 18 months for my father to secure a level 4 package. This put undue stress on both my mother and my father. Sadly, my father had a bad fall, which meant that he had to enter an aged-care facility. This broke my mother's and father's hearts, as they had been married for nearly 61 years.
Entering an aged-care facility just creates another level of stress on everyone concerned. The system is, once again, complex, and the care very expensive—if you can get a room. Just to make matters worse, at this time my mother also had a fall whilst visiting my father and broke her pelvis. So she now needed an aged-care assessment. This was done in her home but on an online iPad. It took five hours, and, when the nurse hit the submit button, all of the information went blank on her screen. So the assessment had to be done again at another time, and this was incredibly stressful for my mother.
That is a very brief overview of my personal story of dealing with aged care in this country. But my story is just one of many, of the people in Herbert. As you can see, it is not a very pleasant or happy story. That certainly is not the fault of the nurses, doctors or staff. And, certainly, in my instance, it was not the fault of the provider. They went above and beyond their duty to assist my parents.
The difficulties and stresses that I have identified must be fixed by this out-of-touch Turnbull government. Right now, there are 323 people waiting to receive home-care packages. Nationally, there are more than 100,000 older Australians waiting for packages. The Turnbull government should be absolutely ashamed of this fact, but, sadly, the public has come to expect situations of this nature from this government.
When you're sick, you see the cuts to hospital funding and also the attempt to privatise Medicare. When you need access to higher education, university funding is cut. When you're a pensioner and you're living below the poverty line, the pension is cut and your energy supplement is taken away. When you live in Townsville and you need a job, the government refuses to fund vital infrastructure. So, needless to say, when you need access to aged care, what does this government do? It cuts funding to aged care.
You only have to look at the Turnbull government's budget handed down last month to understand that those opposite have not put the best interests of older Australians front and centre. There was not one new extra dollar for aged care in Australia in this year's budget; instead, there was a pretence of giving new money to the sector. But the reality is that there isn't any additional funding for aged care. The reality is that the Abbott and Turnbull governments have collectively cut aged-care funding by billions over the past five years. Collectively, these LNP governments have cut aged-care funding in every budget. Every single year, the LNP have cut aged-care funding. There have been cuts to the Aged Care Funding Instrument and funding cuts to residential aged care—billions of dollars that are no longer flowing to support older Australians in residential care. All of this talk about funding aged care is just that—all talk.
In the lead-up to this year's budget, the Turnbull government began to frame its message around aged care, particularly the support it would give older Australians choosing to age in their own homes. Even the Minister for Health said on 6 May that this would be a good budget for aged care. Minister Hunt said:
It's going to be a very good budget for health and for aged care in particular.
That was on 6 May 2018. There were also big figures leaked to the media by the government, to the tune of $100 billion. Closer inspection, however, highlighted the fact that the $100 billion was not an increase of funding across the forward estimates. There was no new money; the $100 billion was already in the forward estimates. Closer to the budget, there were more reports that the government would be investing new money into home-care packages. But again this did not happen. It was just political spin. And, whilst this government is spinning its web of myths, there are vulnerable older Australians who are left waiting for access to aged-care services.
This country has had three ministers for aged care since 2013 and not one has done anything about fixing this national crisis over the past five years. In fact, it has only become worse, because we are an ageing population. Older Australians will not be fooled by this uncaring government. The Turnbull government budget has cut money from residential aged care to pay for home care packages. This government is, in fact, robbing Peter to pay Paul. Just because you rob from one to pay another does not mean that you are fixing the problem. In fact, all the government has done is fund 14,000 new places in new home care packages over four years, and 3,500 places a year isn't enough to keep up with the demand. The waiting list grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone. We need 105,000 beds yesterday, not 3,500 beds a year.
This commitment is nothing but a cruel joke. It's particularly cruel after promising older Australians it would address the waiting list. So, after all the rhetoric by the Treasurer and other ministers, it turns out that there is, in fact, no new money at all in the budget to fund in-home care and residential aged care. Smoke and mirrors were used to pretend that there was a plethora of money being allocated to aged care. Clearly, the Turnbull government overreached and underdelivered and has let our most vulnerable citizens down. Over the past five years, the Abbott-Turnbull government slashed billions of dollars from aged care and has been solely responsible for the growing waiting lists that exist for in-home care.
This government would rather give an $80 billion tax cut to big business and the banks than properly fund our most vulnerable citizens who need aged care. Our older Australians deserve a fair go and they certainly deserve better than they're getting. During their years, they worked hard to help build this great country and, when they need support in their hour of need, this government is letting them down. But the Treasurer is all too happy to find not just one, two or three dollars for big business and the banks. Again, I say that he is very happy to find $80 billion in a tax cut for them. Yet, he can't even find an extra cent for our failing aged-care sector. Shame on this government!
And then have this bill on the table, a bill that, once again, keeps older Australians waiting for months and months. This bill seeks to amend the Aged Care Act 1997 and Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 to make provision for a single set of Aged Care Quality Standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The bill will also vary the functions of the chief executive officer of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. Currently, there are standards that cover three different areas of care. They include four standards for residential aged care, two standards for home care and two standards for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program quality review. The new single sets of standards will apply across all areas of care and will be effective from 1 July 2019. These new standards will focus on quality outcomes for people rather than on provider processes and have been driven by the sector and other stakeholders since 2015. This is the beginning, but we certainly cannot stop here. More needs to be done and, certainly, more funding is needed.
At this point I would like to raise the fact that the funding around aged care is now what we call person-centred or customer-centred. We need to ensure that people actually understand what that term means and what that service looks like. It doesn't simply mean that you have the person sitting in the room while everybody talks around them. It means that education needs to be provided to staff to actually engage the older citizen in the conversation and engage them in the processes that are occurring around them.
A very fine example of this I experienced with my father, who was in an aged-care facility. He would not eat. The person coming to get him for his meal would come and say, 'Come on, it's time to come and have dinner.' He would say, 'No,' and sit there crying, and the person would walk away. I was there one evening when this happened. I said, 'You can't do this. My father needs to eat.' She said: 'Oh, this is person-centred care now. If they say they don't want to eat then we don't make them eat.' I said: 'He has dementia. He's not particularly well. He needs to be engaged and talked with. You need to build a rapport with him and encourage him to come down to the table and have his meal.' For my mother, who was in her 80s, to be there for three meals a day to ensure that he ate was an unfair burden on her, and it certainly wasn't keeping her healthy.
I urge the Turnbull government to fund aged care properly and to fund it now. The Turnbull government has been part of the creation of this aged-care crisis. It ignored the fact that aged care was in crisis and that the budget does not fix the aged-care crisis. The Turnbull government hasn't shown much compassion for older Australians on this account. The Prime Minister is expecting Australian citizens to work until they're 70. He has also tried to axe the energy supplement, as I mentioned earlier, to two million Australians, including approximately 400,000 age pensioners. On behalf of the 323 people on aged-care waiting lists in Northern Queensland, I demand action from the Turnbull government. We must pay respect to our older citizens because they deserve no less.
When it comes to aged care in this country, we know those opposite are nothing more than a sham. I'm delighted to follow on from my colleague the member for Herbert, who is a terrific advocate for seniors and pensioners in North Queensland and has been a strong advocate in making sure that seniors in my home state are looked after. We know that, whilst the government are handing out billions of dollars to big business and the big banks, over 100,000 elderly Australians are languishing without appropriate aged care. All the spin, all the substance that the government like to put out—the smoke and mirrors that the government like to whirl around when it comes to question time or the minister talking about so-called record funding—won't change the fact that 100,000 elderly Australians are languishing without appropriate aged care. In my opinion, this is a government who simply don't have their priorities right. Rather than ensuring our elderly and vulnerable are provided with appropriate aged care and the dignity they deserve, the government persist with looking after their mates at the top end of town, suppressing wages, cutting school funding, cutting hospital funding and, despite what they might say, doing nothing for aged care in this country.
As we've heard already, just prior to the year's budget we had the health minister parading out in front of cameras, telling us how the government were going to look after elderly Australians. In the doorstop on 6 May, he said, 'It's going to be a very good budget for health and for aged care in particular.' As someone who represents a large and diverse community, when I heard that statement, I was looking forward to seeing real reform and, more importantly, real funding to deal with seniors and the difficulties that I've come across in my electorate in accessing aged care. I know members opposite have also had constituents, loved ones and families contact their electorate offices across Australia to complain, to worry anxiously, about whether their loved one—their parent, grandparent, husband, wife or partner—would have access to an aged-care place. Hearing that statement from the minister, I was heartened to think that the government had heard that message. We've all known about it; we've heard it day-in, day-out. But what is the minister's idea of a good budget for aged care? If he thinks no new funding is a good budget, I would hate to see what a bad budget looks like. Around the same time as the health minister was bragging about the so-called good budget for aged care, there were also big figures leaked to the media, including the astronomical figure of a supposed $100 billion of new money for aged care. On closer inspection, it became evident that this was also not an increase in funding across the forward estimates. In fact, there was no new money.
Speaking to the finer points of the Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018, the bill is a result of the Review of national aged care quality regulatory processes, also known as the Carnell-Paterson review, which was handed to government on 25 October 2017 with a focus on quality care. The review made 10 recommendations, one of which was to establish an independent aged-care quality and safety commission. The government adopted this recommendation back in April this year but is yet to provide details in relation to this new quality and safety agency. On this side of the House, we welcomed the announcement by the government, but we are concerned that the government has not given consideration to the delivery of care across multiple settings and that the minister's announcement seemed to be very focused on those providers delivering care in a residential aged-care environment as opposed to elderly Australians who choose to receive care in their own home.
I thought to myself: 'Why is this the case? Why would the government be more focused on residential aged care than home based care?' I can tell you why. It is because, under the Turnbull government, there are over 100,000 elderly Australians who are on the wait list to receive appropriate aged home care. These numbers are startling. Included in this figure of 100,000 elderly seniors, there are more than 300 seniors who have waited more than two years for their approved home care package, without any care whatsoever. But it doesn't stop there. There are a further 6,336 older Australians who currently have no care at all and have waited for care for more than a year. On top of the 100,000-strong wait list for appropriate home care packages, the latest figures show that the waiting list grew by more than 20,000 between 1 July and December 2017 and is likely to continuing growing without the release of more packages.
Those opposite have said that the funding for home care packages that they are delivering is somehow looking after elderly Australians—but this is nothing more than a sham. In the budget we found that those opposite had funded just 14,000 new home aged-care packages over four years, which amounts, as the shadow minister has said, to nothing more than a cruel hoax. That equates to a mere 3½ thousand places per year, which isn't even enough to keep pace with demand. As I just mentioned, we know that the waiting list grew by 20,000 in the last six months of 2017 alone, and the government's response is to allocate 16,500 packages short of what is required. What on earth is the sense in that? To put this into perspective, in my community, in the electorate of Oxley, that will mean just 23 extra home aged-care packages per year for the next four years for elderly Australians in my community—23 each year over the next four years.
Listening to the minister, he thinks that is a suitable and, more importantly, acceptable solution, but somehow wants to be congratulated for it. He somehow wants to be acknowledged that this government is doing something to deal with this crisis. What a sham! When it comes to aged care in this country, we should be doing all that we can to respect and look after those Australians who have worked hard and built this country over the last 50 and 60 years. These people laid the economic foundation for the prosperity we enjoy today, and the government should be doing more.
Government members interjecting—
I take the interjections from those opposite. They think that they've done enough for elderly Australians and they can put their feet up. Well, today I'm here to tell the government: stop resting and start working for older Australians. We know that this tired government is running out of steam, but I plead with members of the government to listen to what the community is saying. Help those seniors who need a hand—those seniors who helped build this country.
Every day I see what quality aged care means for people like my mother and all of her friends, who live in a fantastic local residential facility. I know because I go and visit them and I hear the great work of the people who work in the aged-care sector—and tonight I pay tribute to the aged-care workers in this country who do so much to protect and look after our loved ones. We know that it's essential that we provide first-class, world-class aid to those thousands of elderly Australians, just like my mum, who are living in the aged-care system. I want the best system for my mother, just as I want every other family member in this country to have quality aged care. This government is failing the community, time and time again. Despite the government proudly announcing 14,000 extra places and trumpeting how great this year's budget was, there was not one extra dollar for Australia's aged-care system in this year's budget—not one single cent extra. What the government has done instead is pretend to give money to aged care. But the reality is that there isn't any additional funding. This is after the and Abbott Turnbull governments have cut aged-care funding by billions of dollars over the last five years. Collectively, these governments, in every budget, have cut aged-care funding. We have seen cuts to the Aged Care Funding Instrument and funding cuts to residential aged care—billions of dollars that are now not flowing to support older Australians in residential care.
It is now clear that the build-up to the budget and the government's rhetoric and nonsense around aged care did not match what was finally announced. It over-promised and drastically under-delivered. Here we have today the government making adjustments to aged care through this bill without addressing the main issue. This bill will make provision for a single set of quality standards that will apply to all for aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act and vary the functions of the CEO of the Aged Care Quality Agency to reference the Aged Care Quality Standards. The new single set of standards proposed in this bill will apply across all areas of care and will be effective from 1 July 2019. But, like most things the government do, they couldn't get their house in order. This is an amended date as there were concerns from the sector that the original date of 1 July 2018 would give stakeholders and providers little time to do the necessary preparatory work. In bringing this bill to the House, the minister said:
The single quality framework places consumers at the centre of their care and focuses on giving people greater choice and flexibility. It is part of the reforms being progressively implemented in aged care to create a competitive, market-based system where consumers drive quality and where red tape is reduced for providers of aged care.
Of course we want elderly Australians at the centre of aged care and of course we want quality for those in the aged-care system, but the actions of the government do not measure up to these words.
It was only last week that I had the pleasure of visiting two new state-of-the-art aged-care facilities in the Centenary Suburbs in my community—Seasons Aged Care and the Wesley Mission's Sinnamon Village. Both of these facilities, I am very proud to see, place the residents at the heart of everything they do. I commend them for their dedication in doing so. However, even the managing director of Seasons Aged Care recognises and pointed out this government's deficiency when it comes to caring for our elderly Australians. In a letter I received from Mr Loudon earlier this year, he pointed out:
We have seen the national queue for home-care packages continue to grow to over 100,000 older Australians who have been assessed as needing care and support but are unable to access this care and support at their assessed level of need.
In a policy environment predicated on older Australians ageing in place close to family and friends and being part of local communities, it is unacceptable that a growing waiting list of 100,000 older Australians are unable to get the level of care they require.
He goes on further to state:
This situation impacts on the health and wellbeing of older Australians and results in higher costs to government in the form of premature entries into residential aged care and/or avoidable presentations to hospital emergency departments and/or unwanted hospital admissions.
When the industry is calling the government out for its lack of action on aged care, you know there is trouble.
Earlier this week I watched the interest of colleagues on this side of the House, and it is pretty noticeable that on this bill tonight we have one government speaker. No-one else from the government has bothered to actually enter the debate and talk about this issue. So I commend the shadow minister. I commend our leader on this side of the chamber, Bill Shorten, who is making quality access to aged care a major point of difference in how we on this side of the chamber deliver health care and what the government has on offer.
The member for Franklin, the shadow minister, rightly pointed out that the last package of data revealed that almost 105,000 older Australians were waiting for a home-care package, and the average waiting time for a high-level package has blown out to more than a year. However, the situation may be worse than this. The minister's department, as we know, has delayed releasing important data on those waiting for home care packages. Tonight I add my voice to the growing chorus from this side of the chamber, from the sector and also from the people entering into the residential aged care system. Why hide the data? Why not be up-front with the Australian community about how we are placed for dealing with some of the most frail and vulnerable people in this country?
I say: release the data, come clean, and be up-front with the Australian people. The Minister for Aged Care must be honest with older Australians and immediately release the latest round of data on the waitlist for home-care packages.
When it comes to delivering funding for the aged-care sector, when it comes to the crunch, this side of the chamber can be trusted and older Australians can have a guarantee that we will deliver that funding. Sadly, those on the government benches have proven through this budget alone that they are not interested in hearing the pleas of older Australians. The Turnbull government has promised the world to older Australians waiting in the queue for a home-care package.
We know this government is truly inept when it comes to driving aged-care reform. More importantly, it's been neglectful in not funding residential and home-care services. As I've mentioned a number of times today, there are 105,000 older Australians waiting for a home-care package. This is shocking and simply unacceptable.
My electorate of Canberra is the largest by population in Australia. I proudly represent a very large number of older Australians, older Canberrans and older people who look to government to make sure that as they live longer they also live better. At the last census more than 26,000 people in Canberra were over 65. That is 13.8 per cent of my electorate.
My mother is a feisty 78-year-old feminist and she lives by the mantra 'old ain't dead'. She is a fantastic feminist. She is a big fan of Betty Friedan. She read Betty from when Betty was a feminist in the seventies, in her 20s, 30s and 40s. Then Betty got older and started talking about the invisibility of women in their old age. My mother is a signed-up card-carrying member of the Betty Friedan fan club and my mother is very much out there being vocal. She's also a very strong campaigner. She's a fantastic campaigner. She comes out with me during elections and to help with pre-polling.
Dr Mike Kelly interjecting—
No, you're not getting her, member for Eden-Monaro. You get a large chunk of the Canberra community helping you out in elections, but you ain't getting my mamma! As I said, Mum is a very feisty feminist. She is 78 years old and lives by the mantra 'old ain't dead'. And that's definitely the case. As Australians live longer they are living better. And we want them to live better. It's a sign of a great civilisation. It is a sign of a society that is prosperous and wealthy, and that is what we want for our future. This is what we want for our older Australians.
I also heard this message at my positive ageing forum that I held last year with the shadow minister for ageing and mental health and the member for Franklin—and I again thank her for attending that event and speaking at that event. More than 80 Canberrans turned up to discuss how older members of our community can stay fit and healthy and contribute to our nation's capital. Issues were very broad-ranging. It was terrific. It was quite exceptional in terms of the range of issues—from aged care and retirement villages to the role of pets. It is a very important thing—particularly if you're at home on your own, like my mother is—to have a companion animal. But there are also challenges with companion animals. For Mum, it is when she travels to be with her grandchildren and my sisters or comes up to see me in Canberra. If people are going into a home or aged care, what happens to the pets? So that was one thing we talked about: the role of pets in keeping people well and happy at home and feeling as if they are loved and they've got something to love.
We talked about the role of nutrition and how vitally important it is. The minister and other colleagues and I were recently at the launch of the fabulous Maggie Beer's book on the importance of nutrition for ageing Australians. It is vitally important. And I've seen it with my mum. My mother has a very good appetite and is well known for her appetite. But, as she has aged, her appetite has diminished. She is eating less than she used to. But she is very mindful of it. She has been living at home. She was a single mum and brought up three girls on her own, so she has been very mindful of the need to stay healthy through nutrition. So each night she cooks for herself a beautiful meal; she enjoys that and takes great pride in that. But she tells me, whenever I see her, that most of her girlfriends might have just a bit of grilled cheese on toast or a boiled egg for dinner, if they can be bothered; otherwise it's just some crackers and something very basic, rather than something nutritious and well-rounded and covering all the food groups. Nutrition is vitally important for older Australians.
Exercise is also vitally important for keeping those bones strong. What is the name of the classes that mum goes to? 'Move it or lose it'—and that's very much the case. Move it or lose it. You need to exercise. You need to get out there. She's doing zumba; she's doing ChiBall; she's doing swimming—she's doing everything. As you can probably tell, I absolutely adore her, and she is an exceptional woman, and a proud feminist who has brought up three very proud feminists. Access to sunshine is also very important, for vitamin D. All these elements are so vital to health and wellbeing.
Aged care is a significant concern. It comes up time and again at my mobile offices and the coffee catch-ups, and it also came up at this positive ageing forum. Unfortunately, some people who were at the forum were in tears about their experiences. There are the inconsistencies in standards and fees. There is the complexity of the system. Anyone who has dealt with the aged-care system will highlight to you the enormous complexity of it. There are the endless rounds of paper and the duplication—it is extraordinarily complex. There is the guarantor clause. There are the mountains of paperwork, and the lack of digitisation, in this day and age. There is the absence of clear guidance on the steps that need to be taken to get a loved one assessed or in care. There is the delay in processing to support staying at home.
And, of course, there is the cost. I know that, when we were looking at putting my late father-in-law in care, I was just gobsmacked by the entry fees and then the weekly fees and then the daily fees and then the exit fees. It's breathtaking. You've got to sell the family home to be able to do it; I don't know what other way you can do it. And then the fees are just constant.
So it's not only complex, and dogged by mountains of paperwork and a lack of digitisation and delays. There is also this expense. And there is also such variation between one aged-care service and another in terms of the cost—and not just the cost: some have entry fees and some don't; some have exit fees and some don't; some have weekly fees and some don't; some have daily fees and some don't.
There are more than 1,700 residents living in 18 mainstream residential aged-care facilities across Canberra, and I've had the pleasure of visiting many of them. I've spent a lot of time talking with residents, and I've spent a lot of time talking to staff, and I've spent a lot of time talking to families. There are also 20 different home-care providers supporting the many, many older Canberrans who want to continue to live in their own homes as they age.
And I've been blown away by how many Canberrans are actually still staying on in their own homes when they are over 100! They are over 100 and they are still living at home—it's quite extraordinary. I've been to many Canberrans to present them with their 100th birthday congratulatory messages and my own message and a bunch of flowers, and to join in their celebrations, and I am always astounded by the numbers of them who are living at home at 100, 101, 102, 103—it is quite extraordinary. And we want that. We want that for our community.
Canberra is fortunate to have many quality aged-care providers and services. However, we all recognise that the system needs to be constantly improved to meet changing demands and to meet our expectations that our loved ones are cared for and are able to age with dignity. That's vitally important, regardless of their choice, whether it is to live in residential care or their own homes. And I know, from speaking to the many people in my electorate in aged-care services and the providers, that there are three things of particular concern to my community here in Canberra. The first is the quality of care that is being provided in the aged-care sector. The second is getting off that interminably long waiting list to access the necessary home care and support they need. And the third is the financial cost associated with aged care.
The single quality framework bill we're talking about today has become associated with the neglect and mistreatment of residents at the Oakden facility in South Australia. The images we all saw were heartbreaking and I'm sure all of us here and so many Australians in every city and country town, right across the nation, were thinking, when they saw those images: 'What if that was my mum?' or 'What if that was my dad? or 'What if that was my loved one?' The bill provides a single set of aged-care quality standards that will apply to all aged-care providers under the Aged Care Act. The changes include four new standards for residential aged care, two standards for home care and two standards for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program, all to be introduced by 1 July next year.
The new standards have all been driven by the aged-care sector—recommendations to improve the quality of care of our loved ones coming from the hardworking aged-care workers. How important is that, despite the comments that the Prime Minister has been making in recent days? He might think it's witty, but it's not, and he's being disrespectful to this hardworking community, people in my community. These people help us care for our loved ones—the people who have brought us up, cared for us and nurtured us—as they age. The new standards fought for by aged-care workers were signalled as a 2015-16 budget measure, so I think we have to ask: why have they taken so long to be introduced? If these standards were introduced earlier, could Oakden have been avoided?
A number of other changes in the bill are based on the 10 recommendations from the Review of national aged care quality regulatory processes. One of these recommendations was adopted by the government a few months ago, establishing an independent aged-care quality and safety commission, but unfortunately we're still waiting on the detail. And, as we all know, the devil is in the detail. One thing that I have noticed about this bill and the discussion around it so far is the focus on providers delivering in a residential aged-care environment. Where is the discussion on the protections for older people who choose to age at home? How will the quality framework in this bill be implemented, monitored and evaluated in the homes of those who choose to receive a home care package? How will the newly established commission integrate home care into its regulatory framework?
One Canberran who receives a home care level 2 package has asked me in a letter, and I also ask this question: what responsibility of the providers is there to ensure good care of their clients? After reading through this bill, I still don't have an answer. But that particular Canberran is lucky compared to the many others who are on the waiting list for home care, many having been there for some time. According to community organisation Aged and Community Services Australia, recent data shows the number of people on the waiting list for a home care package has grown to nearly 105,000 people, including 40,000 people who've been allocated a lower level package than what they've been approved to receive. Also, more than half of those waiting for level 3 and level 4 packages are in the queue for more than six months, and it's still not clear how current funding commitments will meet the projected need of about 140,000 packages by 2021-22, or an extra 66,000 packages.
Whenever I hear about the delays that people have in accessing home care packages, I remember a particular story from one of my constituents. I was contacted last year by Ian, whose wife was waiting for access to a level 4 home care package. Home care packages have four levels, from level 1, for basic care needs, all the way through to level 4, which is for high-level care needs. Ian told me that, at her assessment, his wife was assessed as being eligible for full-time residential care, respite care or a level 4 home care package. When Ian and his wife took up the home care package with the local provider, they were told there were no level 4 packages available, so they opted to receive support at a level 2 until one became available. Ian's wife soon developed a strange paralysis and was hospitalised for weeks until home modifications could be completed. Some of the much needed equipment could have been subsidised under the level 4 package, which Ian's wife was assessed as needing but would not get until the letter of advice came through from My Aged Care. They were on their own. A key frustration I shared with Ian throughout his experience was the lack of available information: 'How long is the waitlist? Where am I on the waitlist? How often is it updated? Who will keep me informed of my application status?'
Ian's frustration is felt by so many others in my community. These are issues that were raised with the shadow minister at the Positive Ageing Forum last year. When it comes to caring for older Australians, this government needs to do better; we all need to do better. We need to do better in creating a system that is designed around people and not process. We need a system that not only addresses residential aged-care facilities but also addresses the risks our older Australians could face with home care. We need to give it the Faye test, the mum test. I ask, 'Is it good enough for my mum? Is it good enough for fabulous, feminist Faye? Is it good enough for anyone in my family?' (Time expired)
It's appropriate that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, are sitting in the chair, given the work that you've done previously for senior Australians; I want to acknowledge that. The Australian population is ageing and the expectations of older people are changing. In recognition of this, the Australian government is making fundamental reforms to the aged-care system. The reforms aim to promote high-quality aged-care services that meet consumer needs and preferences and to create a competitive market based system where consumers drive quality. The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018 provides for the making of the aged-care quality standards that will apply to all approved providers of Commonwealth funded aged care. The bill contributes to the establishment of a single consolidated and streamlined quality framework for all aged-care services, as announced in the 2015-16 budget. The aged-care quality standards, co-designed with consumer groups, representatives from the industry and experts in standards development, are focused on achieving quality outcomes for consumers by enabling consumers and carers to influence the design and delivery of the services in order to ensure that they are consistent with the consumers' preferences.
The strong focus on consumer outcomes in these standards is evident in the consumer outcome statements that introduce each standard. For example, the consumer outcome for standard 1 is:
I am treated with dignity and respect, and can maintain my identity. I can make informed choices about my care and services, and live the life I choose.
Standard 1 underpins all other standards so that this consumer outcome applies right across all of the new standards. The final draft version of these standards is available on the Department of Health website. The standards have been subject to extensive public consultation, and there'll be a 12-month transition period to give the sector time to adapt. Implementation of the aged-care quality standards contribute to the response of the Review of national aged care quality regulatory process, which highlighted the need to make improvements to aged care.
I note that there has been some discussion during the debate on this bill's amendment to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 which exempts certain protected information received by the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency from disclosure under the FOI Act. As part of its functions, the quality agency handles sensitive and personal information from people, including care recipients, the friends and families of care recipients, approved providers of aged care and the staff of approved providers. The proposed amendments will not change the current arrangements for the publishing of audit reports by the quality agency, including where they have found that a provider has not met the requirements of the relative quality standards. The quality agency will continue to be required to publish its accreditation decisions and the associated audit report under the requirements of the Quality Agency Principles 2013 as soon as practicable.
The proposed amendment will also not change the current process whereby the chief executive officer of the quality agency can decide to release protected information in cases where it is in the public interest, or where it is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious risk to a care recipient. The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018 enables the introduction of a contemporary set of Aged Care Quality Standards that will promote high-quality services that meet consumer needs and preferences. I thank all members for their contribution to the debate on this bill.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018 is proposing to introduce an income test with a high threshold of $250,000 per annum to both carer allowance and carer allowance (child) healthcare card from September 2018. These are almost the only social security supports that to this point have not been means tested before. The government, we understand, estimates that around one per cent of carer allowance recipients would be affected by this proposed change. The Minister for Social Services has indicated that the savings generated by this measure over the forward estimates will be redirected to funding the integrated carer support service.
Labor has listened to key stakeholders in this area, including Carers Australia, who we understand support this change. Carers Australia and other carer service providers have indicated that they have been working with the Department of Social Services to design a more integrated and nationally consistent model of delivering services to carers across Australia. Labor will support this bill because we are satisfied that the vast majority of Australian carers will continue to be able to access more and better support.
I welcome the government's commitment to provide help to carers before they reach crisis point. We are very concerned about this. The additional counselling support, emergency crisis support and financial planning support that will help many carers at what can be a very difficult and isolating time is welcome. But Labor is concerned that little is known about the proposed integrated carer support service. Not only is the detail about these early intervention supports very limited, but the commencement of the new program has been delayed. These new supports were meant to be available for carers from 1 July this year, but we understand they are now delayed until October. Labor will hold the government to account on this and ensure that the proposed integrated carer support service is properly implemented.
Labor recognises the very significant contribution that carers make to the lives of the people they care for as well as to the broader community. Their dedication in overcoming what can be daily challenges is something that I'm sure all members in this place acknowledge and respect. Over many years, I've had the pleasure of meeting with many carers who provide care to a relative or a friend, particularly in my portfolios of ageing and mental health. Care that enables dignity and independence for the person receiving the care is so important.
Labor has consistently stood up for Australia's carers. In 2009, the former Labor government increased the carer payment by $30 a week. In 2014, Labor stood up for carers by opposing the Abbott and Turnbull government's unfair plan to cut the indexation to the carer payment. If they had been successful in cutting this indexation, the carer payment would have been cut by $80 a week over 10 years. It was a very significant cut that Labor was able to block. I know that many carers have not forgotten about this cut and I understand they are wary of any proposed changes by this government. That being said, we will support the bill today. We support the introduction of means-testing for the carer allowance because it will ultimately lead to better services for carers through the introduction of integrated carer support services. I commend the bill to the House.
I thank the previous speaker, the member for Franklin, for her words of support and the support of the opposition for the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment for Carers) Bill 2018. Australia's welfare system is based on targeting those Australians who cannot support themselves. The carer payment, the age pension and family benefits are all subject to an income test. This bill ensures government financial support is provided to those who need it most. Targeting payments keeps our welfare system strong and sustainable into the future. This bill is to introduce an income test for carer allowance and for the carer allowance (child) health care card only.
Every day, around 2.7 million Australians care for someone who needs extra help due to disability, age, mental illness or long-term physical illness. In 2017-18, the government expects to spend $8.5 billion on payments for carers. This includes $5.4 billion on carer payment, $1.7 billion on carer allowance for those caring for an adult and almost $600 million for those caring for a child. Unlike most other social security payments, which are income tested and targeted to those most in need, there is currently no income test associated with carer allowance. Carer allowance is an income supplement for people who provide daily care and attention in a private home to a person with a disability or severe medical condition. The current payment is $127.10 per fortnight.
Carers caring for a child under 16 years with disability or a medical condition get a health care card for that child with their carer allowance. Those caring for children under 16 years who do not provide the qualifying level of care required for carer allowance but who provide at least 14 hours of care a week are provided with a health care card in the name of the child.
There is currently no assessment of financial need to qualify for carer allowance and the carer allowance health care card. This bill will introduce an income test with a high threshold of $250,000 per annum to both carer allowance and carer allowance (child) health care card from 20 September 2018. The $250,000 per annum income limit will apply to both singles and couples. The income test will be a fixed limit with no indexation. From 20 September 2018, eligibility for the carer allowance payment and the carer allowance health care card will be restricted to carers whose own income and that of their partner's, if applicable, is below $250,000. This will be based on adjusted taxable income from the previous financial year. The income test will apply to new recipients and those who are receiving carer allowance or who have a child health care card only on 20 September 2018.
Carer allowance adjusted taxable income, or ATI, includes taxable income, employer provided fringe benefits, foreign income, net investment loss, reportable superannuation contributions, tax-free superannuation income, tax-free pension or benefit, and paid parental leave income. It will exclude deductible child maintenance expenditure. Income from long-term financial assets will also be included in the income test for people who receive tax-free income streams. Around 6,500 carer allowance recipients will be affected by income testing in the 2018-19 financial year, because their own income combined with that of their partner's, where applicable, is more than $250,000. An estimated 400 people with a carer allowance (child) health care card only will be affected by the income test. To put this in perspective, as at September 2017, 608,873 people received a carer allowance; 16,579 people received a carer allowance (child) health care card only; and 264,157 people received carer payment.
As we announced earlier this year, the Australian government will invest all of the $85.6 million raised through this measure to introduce a range of new early-intervention and tailored services to ensure carers get early support to manage the stress their role places on them. Getting help early through support services can make a big difference to a carer's life. It can help to reduce emotional or physical strain, and assist carers to stay in work or study, take breaks from caring responsibilities and help plan for the future.
Carers Australia, the peak body for carers, worked with the government as part of a two-year consultative process to design a new and improved model to deliver support services for carers. The integrated carer support service will provide a national integrated approach to service provision for carers, as opposed to the current fragmented system. The introduction of the integrated carer support service represents the biggest reform for carers in more than a decade. It will consist of an expansion to the Carer Gateway website from October 2018, which will enable carers to access new digital services such as peer support, counselling and coaching.
From September 2019, the government will establish a network of regional delivery partners across Australia to provide carers with access to new and improved local services such as information and advice, needs assessment, targeted financial support, counselling and coaching, and crisis support where required. The introduction of the integrated carer support service over the next two years forms the third and final stage of the Integrated Plan for Carer Support Services. The plan reflects the Australian government's priority to recognise, support and sustain the vital work of unpaid carers, as well as support the government's current investment in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Welfare expenditure on carers in the form of payments and services is an important part of the Australian welfare system. In addition to the $8.5 billion the government expects to spend on payments to carers in 2017-18, the government will also provide around $162 million for the delivery of programs and services that assist and support carers. The government recognises the very significant contribution carers make to the lives of the people for whom they care and to the broader community. The need for carers is increasing, so it is essential we get the balance right in the welfare system between financial support and availability of services. Both must remain sustainable into the future.
We all value the immense contribution carers make to our community, and we understand the challenges they face in helping others in their homes and in their communities. The introduction of a generous threshold for income testing the carer allowance makes the introduction of these new services possible. This bill allows the government to provide financial assistance to those who most need it and increase support services for carers in need. I commend the bill to the House.
It's a pleasure to follow the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services. I place on record my thanks for her support for carers that she's been very diligent in providing. It is a shame that the Prime Minister didn't see the value in all the work she has done. So I want to thank her.
Day after day we are seeing money being ripped out of the hands of the most vulnerable Australians. There are almost 2.7 million carers in Australia who give up their time, energy and resources to assist family members, as you, Deputy Speaker Andrews, and I very well know through all the work that we do together on the Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. They support people in their families who are living with a disability, who have a long-term health condition, who are terminally ill, who are mentally unwell or who are drug-dependent.
People become carers in many different ways. For some people it's a gradual process, while others can find themselves taking on this huge responsibility much more suddenly. It's a shame this government didn't bring this issue forward months ago. If they were actually serious about supporting our carers, they would have; but we know for a fact that they are not. Instead, what we are seeing is the Prime Minister forcing Australia's hardworking carers to wait in the dark.
There are just under a million carers in New South Wales, and 2,000 of them are young carers under the age of 25. In my electorate of Lindsay, there are around 15,000 carers. That's about 10 per cent of my entire community. The carers in my community, I think, deserve better than what is being served up. It takes a very, very special person to become a carer. The work they do is not easy, and I thank them. The legislation before us today, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018, introduces a family income test of $250,000 a year for the carer allowance and the carer allowance (child) healthcare card from 20 September 2018. Carers' payments have not previously been income tested, and the proposed income test is fixed and will not be indexed. We support this change because it will mean that the vast majority of Australian carers will be able to access more and better support, if the government does what it's promising.
According to a report by Deloitte Access Economics, The economic value of informal care in Australia in 2015, unpaid carers provided 1.9 billion hours of unpaid care in that year alone. The Deloitte report also states that the replacement value of unpaid care to the Australian economy in 2015 was $60.3 billion. I think that everybody in this place would unanimously agree that, if we had to put that on the government's purse, we simply could not afford it. The value we place on carers doing paid or unpaid caring work is simply not enough. Informal carers cover a wide range of assistance activities such as personal care, transport, medical care and meals assistance. That means, across Australia, informal carers save the Australian government $60 billion, and we need to make sure that we are supporting them. Informal carers are usually people close to the person who are sacrificing their time, their energy, their money and, sometimes, their careers. It is crucial that this government understands the mental and material consequences of this massive responsibility. To say it is a self-sacrificing job is an understatement.
The ABS most recently undertook a study of disability, ageing and carers in 2015. Information about carers is an important component of that survey. It found that the information collected provided an insight into the many different characteristics of carers and how caring impacts their lives. In 2015, almost 2.7 million Australians, or 11.6 per cent, were carers, with 856,100 people aged 15 years and over identified as primary carers. The ABS survey also found, in that same year, that the average age of a primary carer was 55 years; one-third of primary carers were living with a disability themselves; females made up the majority of carers, representing 68.1 per cent of primary carers and 55.5 per cent of all carers; and, for people aged 15 to 64 years, the labour force participation rate for primary carers and other carers was lower than for non-carers. It is estimated that each week in Australia unpaid carers spend an incredible 36 million hours in those roles. While caring can be rewarding for the carer, it can often be quite thankless through the challenges they face. For carers across Australia, the debilitating financial stress of providing care is not an unfamiliar feeling—a feeling that those opposite can hardly be familiar with. The stress of financial pressures and of juggling both their own needs and the needs of their charges can often lead to serious mental health issues. Financial stresses can include extremely expensive medical bills for complex health needs as well as the inability to properly find a job with flexible hours to empathise with a carer's role.
We need to do more to ensure that carers are well supported in their quest for paid work as well as ensuring that they receive their fair share for the hard and sometimes thankless work that they do. The mental strain of being a carer can come in many different forms. From social isolation due to the high time demands of carer responsibilities to the lack of access and availability of respite, these issues can often hit home rather harder than financial stresses. I speak from my own personal experience when I say that taking on the responsibility of a carer can really turn your life upside down. It means dropping everything in order to prioritise someone else's needs above your family's and your own.
The current payments to carers by the government include the carer payment, which is an income support payment for people whose caring responsibilities prevent them from undertaking substantive paid employment; a carer allowance, which is an income supplement for people who provide daily care and attention at home to a person with a disability or a severe medical condition; the child disability assistance payment, which is an annual payment for carer allowance recipients who care for a child under 16 years with a disability; and the carer adjustment payment, which is a one-off financial assistance to families in exceptional circumstances who do not qualify for other government income support payments. The carer supplement is paid to recipients of the carer allowance for each person they care for.
As at December 2017, there were just under 615,000 recipients of the carer allowance, just under 17,000 recipients of carer allowance with a child healthcare card only and 270,000 recipients of carer payment. The carer allowance is a fortnightly supplementary payment of $127.10, which is hardly a lot of money, to help people who care daily for someone who is sick, frail aged or has a disability, to meet their costs of caring. The carer allowance child healthcare card can be given to children who have a medical condition or disability that requires extra care of at least 14 hours a week, which is not enough to provide their carer with eligibility for the carer allowance.
This bill anticipates that around one per cent of carer allowance recipients and healthcare card holders will be impacted adversely by these changes. In December of last year there were 5,016 recipients of the carer allowance in my electorate and 2,142 recipients of the carer payment.
I know that as a community we need to do more to support not only those who need care but also those who provide it. We need to ensure that there is better support and service provision to assist with the physical, emotional and financial wellbeing of carers. I also know that women are once again disproportionately more likely to be unpaid carers for people living with a disability. They are most likely unpaid and less likely to participate in the workforce than others who are not carers.
Labor recognises the invaluable contribution that carers make to our community. The Carer Recognition Act, which Labor introduced proudly in 2010, was for a national carer strategy and set out some practical actions with time frames and individual agency responsibilities to better protect and help our carers. As we stated, supporting carers is everyone's business, to provide carers with the rights, choices, opportunities and capabilities to participate in work, family and community life. We need to do more to strengthen awareness and understanding of the valuable role of carers and their rights as individuals.
The minister says that the savings which will be generated by this measure will be put towards paying for services to carers—services that are months and months behind schedule. Australian carers were meant to be able to benefit from the increased supports provided by the integrated carer support services from July of this year. Instead, this conservative government is making them wait three months longer and holding the commencement of the program back until October. For months we've been calling on this government to provide further details about what precisely these supports will be and when they will be available.
I'd like to make mention of one amazing carer in my electorate, Elise Webber. I've spoken about her in here a couple of times before. She is the mum of Bobby, who we affectionately term 'Bobby the Brave' after a horrific act of child abuse by his non-biological uncle. Bobby has been left with cerebral palsy, blind, spastic level 5, quadriplegic and with brain injuries which were described as catastrophic and not compatible with life. Bobby has an amazing fighting spirit, and I'm sure that he gets it from his mum. He has multiple lifelong injuries which have severely impacted the way his family are able to live their lives, including both of his sisters and his dad.
Elise cares full-time for her son, Bobby, with the most incredible attitude. She is the Lindsay 2018 Carer of the Year. She is an exemplary carer and an absolute demonstration of the kind of person we need to be supporting. She was also the recipient of the Lindsay Woman of the Year award in 2018, and I couldn't be more proud to know her.
Elise and the carers like her deserve to be treated as valuable members of our community whom we support, and should not be used as a footstool to let the responsibilities of government rest on. We'll be watching very closely to ensure that these savings are directed to exactly the location the government has promised, and that we do more to support our carers and those like Elise.
I rise to speak in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018. I'm very pleased to follow my colleague and friend Emma Husar, the member for Lindsay. I know this is something that is very close to her heart.
This bill introduces a family income test of $250,000 for the carer allowance and the carer allowance child healthcare card from 20 September 2018. Many of my colleagues have addressed the technical aspects of this bill. In the time that I have, I'm going to turn to carers, sharing their stories in their own words.
I'm a pharmacist, and for almost 10 years I worked in the mental health in-patient units at Wyong hospital in my electorate of Dobell. It was when I sat on the other side of the desk, when I became a carer, that my view of the health system was flipped upside down. So much was invisible to me until I became a carer. As my mum says, you don't sign up to be a carer; you do it because you love them.
I live in a place where people care. I have experienced that as a pharmacist working at Wyong Hospital, as a mental health worker and as a daughter. My experience is backed up by the numbers. The Australian Bureau of Statistics undertook a survey of disability, ageing and carers in 2015. At that time, there were 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia. Over 850,000 Australians were primary carer for a person with a disability. Almost all primary carers provided care for a family member. More than two-thirds of primary carers were women, and the weekly median income of a primary carer was 42 per cent lower than the median income of non-carers. More than half of primary carers provided care for 20 hours per week or more. According to the 2016 census, there were nearly 34,000 people on the Central Coast of New South Wales—where I live—providing unpaid assistance to people with a disability. In December 2017, 9,346 people on the Central Coast received the carer allowance and 141 received the carer allowance (child) health care card.
To recognise and support carers on the Central Coast, I hosted the 'Walk in my Shoes' carers conference in December last year. More than 300 carers came along for the forum. We held workshops with NDIS, Dementia Australia, Carers New South Wales, Candles Cancer Support Group, Younger Onset Dementia Social Support, Centrelink, My Aged Care, Health Direct Australia and more.
I would like to share with you the story of Greg, a male carer. He was one of the presenters at my conference. Greg works with Candles Cancer Support Group and Men Care Too on the Central Coast. Greg didn't know he was a carer; he thought he was just helping his mum. It wasn't until his mother, Lyn, started losing mobility from a degenerative spinal condition that he realised he was doing more than just being a good son. These were Greg's words:
It took me a long time to acknowledge and recognise that I was a carer. I noticed Mum's health decline and her mobility had changed and that's when I started to look for outside support.
Greg said it was when he started to look for support that he realised the challenges carers face and wanted to make a difference.
I've done a lot of community work so I thought I was linked in and aware of the support that's available, but I found it daunting and overwhelming at times.
There are around 1.2 million men in Australia in caring roles, which is roughly one in 10. So there are a lot of blokes out there caring, but there is not really a program or service out there for them. Greg said peer support for men is an important part of the caring journey. Greg said:
We focus a lot on how to fix things, but when you're caring for someone, you can't always fix things. You may feel like you're not doing something right or that as a man you should be strong and stoic, but it is not always possible to do that. It is important for us to recognise that and talk to other people, our mates and the people around us. It makes it that little bit easier, takes the weight off your shoulders. There are around 13,000 blokes that are carers on the coast, so there's a lot of us around.
I want to turn to the value of care. According to a report by Deloitte Access Economics the economic value of informal care in Australia, the replacement value of unpaid care to the Australian economy in 2015, was $60.3 billion, and unpaid carers provided 1.9 billion hours of unpaid care in that year alone.
I'll turn now to the impact of the changes briefly. The carer allowance, at $127.10 per fortnight, is relatively small in recognition of the significant contribution made by many carers. These payments have not previously been income tested. The proposed income test is fixed and will not be indexed. It is anticipated that around one per cent of the carer allowance recipients and healthcare provider holders will be adversely impacted by this change.
Labor supports this change because the savings generated by these changes will be put towards paying for services to carers through the Integrated Carer Support Service. However, these services are now months behind schedule. Australian carers were meant to benefit from the increased supports provided by the Integrated Carer Support Service from July this year. Instead, this government is making them wait longer and holding back the payment of phase 1 of the program. We will hold them to account. If the government were serious about supporting carers they would have brought this program forward months ago instead of forcing Australia's hardworking unpaid carers to wait.
This government must do much more to support carers in our community, carers like Neville. When I met Neville, he came to talk to me about having to fill in more forms about his wife's care. Her circumstances wouldn't change; they couldn't get better; there was no way that they would improve. He had been a carer to his wife, Judy, for over 25 years after a brain injury following a cardiac arrest in 1992. Her care needs are high and Neville, at nearly 83 years of age, is still doing everything he can to make Judy's life at home more comfortable. Neville continues to be an advocate for carers and is a former president of the Australian Federation of Carers. He needs help, and Judy deserves it. Judy was approved for a level 4 care package in August last year but the funding has still not been provided. They are desperate. They need home modifications to the bathroom and additional physio services which they can't access at her current level. It's just not good enough. And it's not only the aged and carers who are being let down by this government. People with disabilities and their carers are also being poorly served by a desperately under-resourced Centrelink and a botched NDIS rollout.
I want to now turn to Joanne. Joanne is the carer of her sister Lexanne. Lexanne suffered a stroke 18 months ago which left her with limited movement in her right side, blind in one eye and confined mostly to a wheelchair, with leg braces for walking very short distances. She can't push her own wheelchair but, due to her vision impairment, an electric wheelchair is not an option.
When Lexanne moved in, Joanne became her primary carer, but at every point she has had to fight for help. Lexanne's application for the disability support pension took more than six months to process and was rejected. The decision was finally overturned on appeal, but this process took several more months. In the meantime the financial burden fell to Joanne, who works full-time at a local train station.
Lexanne's NDIS experience has been equally poor. Her first plan included around $30,000 for home modifications. Despite this, an OT's report and quotes were lodged, but more than nine months passed before they were processed, by which time all the quotes were out of date. During the review, new quotes were approved and she was placed in the queue for the building contractor, but, while she waited, all the funding for the home modification was removed in her annual review for a plan because it hadn't been used.
I want to now, in conclusion, go to the words of my mother. My mum was, until very recently, a full-time carer for my father, Grant, who lived with younger onset dementia. These are the words that my mum wanted to share with you tonight: 'People say it's a tough job being a carer. Why would you do it? Basically you do it because you love them. So you do what you do. People don't sign up to be carers. It just happens. For people with dementia, you learn that they are more than their memories. They have an emotional memory and an emotional relationship. Grant can experience joy and happiness as well as frustration and disappointment. He is participating in life.'
I am sorry to say that I constantly hear cases like the ones I've mentioned from too many of my constituents. But this government doesn't seem to listen, doesn't seem to care and has no sense of urgency. Australian carers and those who care for them deserve so much better. Thank you.
I rise to support the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payments for Carers) Bill 2018. This bill makes sensible changes to the carer allowance by introducing a family income test of $250,000 a year for the carer allowance and the carer allowance (child) healthcare card. While Labor supports this bill, more must be done to support carers in our community. Means-testing, whilst a legitimate mechanism to target funding to those who need it the most and one that is well understood by the Australian community, will in this instance deliver considerable savings to the government. The minister has said these savings will be put forward and put toward paying for extra services to carers, but any announcements about these services and what they entail are months behind schedule. So, whilst we support this bill, we will hold the government to account and make sure they deliver on this promise of extra services to carers.
As we've heard in this House, the work carers do is invaluable. I know this very personally. I am one of nine children. We were 'the three boys, the three girls and the three babies', or the 'littlies' as we are referred to. I am the in the middle of the littlies. My immediate older sister, Honnie, is the eldest of the littlies, and she has an intellectual disability. She is completely adored by all of us and she actually lives the life of Riley.
Her disability is such that she has a high level of function. She knows her own mind very well. She has definite opinions. For example, she infuriatingly barracks for Collingwood when the rest of us are staunch Richmond supporters. But it does mean that, for the rest of her life—and for the rest of us—she will require care. Living alone for Honnie, my sister, is simply not an option. She has always been cared for by the family. She lived with my mother until Mum died. She then lived with and was cared for by my brother and his children for a couple of years, until he, sadly and suddenly, died. This was a tragedy for my sister as well as for the rest of us. The poor thing came to me on my brother's death, put her arms around me and said, 'Geddy, I just can't take a trick.' She was deeply affected by her mum's death and our brother's death.
There was then, for us, a conundrum about what to do with Hon. We all have incredibly busy lives, we work long days, we travel for work, we have our own children and busy households to care for. And while we often share, if you will, Honnie's care, moving her from house to house is not like having a home. As we all know, having a home of one's own is incredibly important for one's wellbeing, for one's mental health and for one's stability. Enter my elder sister Trish, whose circumstances had led her to move back to Melbourne from Sydney. Luckily, her family had grown, her children had moved on and she was in a situation where she could dedicate her time to become my sister's carer. We were all incredibly grateful for this.
Trish moved into a house with my sister Honnie. They live a modest but comfortable life: close to family; close to where my sister attends her adult training centre; close to public transport, which my sister has learned to use; and close to the shops, where she loves to have a coffee and take herself shopping. She's actually a bit of a shopaholic. This means that she can call her place her own. She has a home where my sister lives with her, provides all her care and takes a great deal of responsibility for all her needs—from daily showering and meals to sorting out her NDIS applications and her medical appointments, and even taking her to see her beloved Collingwood play. It is no mean task to take this on. It is a big responsibility, and I do not underestimate what my sister has offered to do for the family. We are all very grateful for Trish, and we do not take her commitment lightly. The rest of us still help out, giving respite here and there and giving them a break from each other. But without Trish, I know we would have struggled to give Honnie the quality of life she deserves. Carers like my sister Trish are unsung heroes, and we've heard tonight that there are millions of people just like her.
For so many the stress of holding down a job and providing care for a loved one is extremely difficult. Without financial support, that can become almost impossible. The little carer's allowance that they get can make a huge difference, and is important beyond measure both to carers and to those in their charge. We also know that the value to the community of unpaid care was around $60.3 billion in 2015, according to a report by Deloitte Access Economics, and that there are around 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia. Of course when it is your family and your sister, these statistics do not mean a lot. All we want for my sisters, both Hon and her carer Trish, is for them to have fulfilled lives where they are loved and can live their lives out with dignity and quality.
The majority of unpaid carers in this world, like my sister, are women. They are less likely to participate in the workforce than others who do not have caring responsibilities, making the sacrifice they make even greater. I'm sure that at times my sister wishes she had continued her career. I'm sure that at times my sister wishes she could just get on a plane and travel. I'm sure she wishes that she could do a lot of things that she cannot do now because she has dedicated her life to Honnie. Caring is hard work. It is a commitment. And often it is simply not recognised. As I have seen from my sisters though, it can be incredibly valuable and fulfilling.
Carers deserve the savings from this measure to be allocated to the extra services for them and the ones they care for. They deserve the very best that we can give them. They should already know what the integrated carer support services will provide and when they will be introduced. Labor calls on the government to provide this information and to make the services available. For people like my sisters Trish and Hon, it could mean the difference between having a good quality of life and not. It can mean the difference between my sister Trish being able to provide the health care that my sister Hon needs, and to make sure that she can go on outings on her own, feel independent, do her shopping when she wants to and make sure that she is able to attend her adult training centre where they provide much needed services for Hon. They are the ones who have taught her to get on trains, taught her to get on buses, taught her to go out and earn her own little bit of money that she can in adult training centres, to make sure she can get the coffees when she wants, and that my sister Trish feels confident that she can help Hon achieve all of these things. This bill is important—I know that—but so are the savings and the direction that they will be taking. The savings will be incredibly important to making sure that the services are there for people like my sisters Trish and Hon.
I rise tonight to unequivocally state my support for the Australians for Mental Health campaign led by 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Pat McGorry. Mental ill-health will affect approximately 50 per cent of all Australians at some stage in their life. Too often, they suffer in silence because of the fear of judgement from friends, family and peers. Too often, people are afraid to identify themselves as experiencing a mental illness in case it is perceived that they are mentally weak or incapable of dealing with life's challenges. These misconceptions and a lack of understanding of the significance of mental illness are negatively impacting some four million Australians who are diagnosed as experiencing mental ill-health and who display courage by acknowledging their illness—and, in many cases, to be failed by the system which is meant to be supporting them.
Advocates for additional resourcing for mental health advise that mental ill-health costs the Australian economy about $40 billion every year. They say an investment in mental health will not only see a financial return to the economy but, most importantly, improve the lives of the four million Australians who need assistance and treatment when dealing with their mental illness. The Australians for Mental Health campaign is lobbying for more prevention and early intervention services, which currently are not readily available or accessible. Independent reports from those in the mental health sector—and I worked in that sector many years ago—tell us that our mental health services remain fragmented and remain underfunded. As an example, similar OECD countries spend up to 12 per cent to 16 per cent of their health budget on mental health services. Australia's spending has fallen to a mere five per cent. That's almost Third World levels of expenditure on mental health.
Tonight, as I did earlier today on the issue of national security, I'm calling for a bipartisan approach from all political parties to work together to create an improved mental health system that delivers high-quality care for Australians with mental ill-health. The Australians for Mental Health campaign has a plan for a future in which every Australian can expect the same level of care for their mental health as they do for their physical health. It's vital that prevention and early intervention services are scaled up to engage and treat people with mental ill-health at the earliest possible time and prevent the progression of illness and the development of high-risk crisis situations. This month we have witnessed the tragic deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain from suicide, reminding us that mental health challenges do not discriminate. They touch every layer and every level of the community.
One of the main goals for Australians for Mental Health is to ensure that every Australian has access to a mental health hub. These centres would be multidisciplinary and fully integrated without outreach capability. They would have a range of mental health specialists on hand to provide integrated services for mental and physical health—GPs, allied health staff, addiction specialists, psychiatrists and vocational experts. Experts tell me that we should be prioritising investment in mental health hubs or localised services in Australia. Many vulnerable people are missing out on accessing services because they are just too hard to access. Australians for Mental Health also point out that investing in mental health hubs actually saves money and benefits the economy.
Targeted spending on mental health care keeps people in the prime of their lives in the workforce. Illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease generally strike later in life, whilst 75 per cent of mental health disorders emerge in young people who are just starting out in the workforce. Governments of all persuasions invest in young people so that they can reach their full potential, but at least half of them are going to experience a period of mental ill-health during their transition to adulthood.
In the immediate vicinity of my electorate of Holt, for example, we have two headspaces, one at Narre Warren and one at Dandenong. However, both services are in high demand and under immense strain to keep up with the growing population. Headspace Narre Warren saw over 1,200 young people in 2017. The national average is 650 young people. It's clear to me, in reflecting on this need for support from the Australians for Mental Health campaign, that we could also do with some additional spending in the area of Cranbourne, near Cranbourne East, the fastest-growing area in Australia. In that spirit, I ask for additional bipartisan government support on this particular issue.
I rise to speak on an issue that is perhaps not widely discussed in our public life but is a growing concern and severe problem which deserves our full attention. I'm speaking of modern slavery. We could be forgiven for thinking that slavery ended some time ago in the 19th century. The impassioned words of William Wilberforce and other abolitionists finally put to rest the belief in the West that owning another human being's life was in any way permissible.
Sadly, more slaves exist today than at any other time in human history. Contemporary slavery has changed a lot from its historical precedents. Very few people today are kept in chains but are instead most commonly owned through bonded labour. This describes the situation where the extreme poor take out loans to be paid off by labour, only to discover that they have no hope of repaying the loans and are therefore bonded by debt to work for life. In other cases, workers are coerced by threats to their family or are forced into sexual slavery. In whatever form, modern slavery is a wicked crime and a gross deprivation of human liberty.
In Australia, slavery occurs far less than the international average. Since 2004, the government has identified upwards of 350 suspected victims of slavery, and advocacy groups estimate that there are in excess of 4,000 people trapped by criminal syndicates in slavery-type scenarios. In comparison, there are an estimated 45.8 million people worldwide in some form of slavery. Even though we have very few cases domestically, Australia is in fact very connected to slavery through worldwide value chains for consumers goods. Many goods which Australians consume, such as clothing and electronics, involve components that may have been involved in slavery, often without the knowledge of the downstream businesses or consumers. This is a terrible situation that can only be rectified through regulatory changes and with cooperation from the business community in Australia.
To their credit, most Australian businesses have been quick to act when they have discovered that their operations involve slavery. The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have both publicly supported the need for higher reporting standards to put an end to modern slavery. This demonstrates that businesses are often simply unaware that the inputs that go into their products have been produced in part or wholly by slavery. The opaque international supply chain system is so vast that it can be difficult to tell which products may have been produced through slave labour. It is therefore clear that relying on voluntary reporting simply isn't good enough and more must be done. Putting the onus on businesses to actively investigate their operations and report their findings is an essential reform.
I'm proud to say that last year's parliamentary inquiry into modern slavery and global supply chains, led by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Subcommittee, my colleague the member for Dunkley, was an excellent success, and the final report presented many valuable recommendations. Of note, the inquiry endorsed a dedicated modern slavery act similar to the legislation adopted by the UK in 2015 with the passage of their Modern Slavery Act 2015. As suggested by the inquiry, the central aspects of this bill should include the creation of an independent antislavery commissioner to monitor supply chain reporting in Australia, a national compensation scheme for victims of slavery and protections for workers vulnerable to exploitation, such as seasonal foreign labourers in Australia.
I would like to thank the Carlingford Baptist Church and Reverend Hales, who met with me recently to draw this issue to my attention. I would like to publicly add my support for essential legislative reform. I encourage the parliament to adopt the recommendations of the inquiry's final report in full. Only through exposing this horrid practice, which is all too often hidden in plain sight, might we redress the terrible injustice committed against millions of the world's most vulnerable people.
In April this year, at the invitation of the Turkish ambassador, I had the privilege of leading a parliamentary delegation to the Republic of Turkey. The trip was particularly significant as it also commemorated the last Anzac Day of the centenary as well as marking 50 years of assisted Turkish migration to Australia. The Australian Turkish community has come a long way since the first arrival to Australia on a chartered Qantas flight 50 years ago. The Turkish Australians have established themselves as hardworking, proud, dedicated members of our multicultural community. Leading the delegation to Turkey was an uplifting and emotional experience, particularly the journey to Gallipoli and Anzac Cove, where we attended the Anzac Day dawn service. While I have attended many Anzac service commemorations in my community, walking in the footsteps of those brave men was an extremely humbling experience—and one which is really hard to describe.
Though the initial relationship between Australia and Turkey was born out of hostility, the envious friendship that has been forged between our two countries is a hallmark of our visit. This is best encapsulated in the words of the founder of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, when he said:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country … You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.
I can gladly say that these famous words are still well and truly alive in modern-day Turkey as Australians are very highly regarded.
As I visited a number of organisations, households and popular attractions, I noticed that many locals had connections with Australia, whether by relatives or friends or simply through the words of Kemal Ataturk. The hospitality, friendship and warmth that were shown to me by many of the locals were unparalleled. During the trip, I also had the opportunity of meeting a number of organisations providing humanitarian relief, particularly in the Middle East crisis. The Turkish Red Crescent, a number of the Christian support agencies, Small Projects Istanbul—which I can proudly say is also founded and led by a fellow Australian, Karyn Thomas—and UNHCR, who do a fantastic job administering humanitarian assistance across the nation.
It is significant to note that Turkey plays host to a disproportionate number of displaced persons, having taken in around about 3½ million refugees fleeing persecution and neighbouring conflicts in the Middle East, predominantly in Syria and Iraq. Turkey is the second-biggest provider of humanitarian aid in the world, a ranking that they should be justifiably proud of, having spent $6 billion on humanitarian assistance last year alone. This is the figure which you can expect will continue to rise despite the number of economic and political challenges the country currently faces. There is currently an ongoing struggle for Turkey to uphold peace and protect its borders whilst respecting the plight of refugees. Currently, there are issues amongst the Turkish community in relation to job security, with many locals viewing themselves in competition with refugees in terms of the availability of jobs.
Keeping in mind that Turkey is a country with a population of 80 million people, whilst the domestic economy is growing around seven per cent, it is nevertheless experiencing double-digit unemployment as well as inflation. It comes at a time of a snap election, with unprecedented spending sending the Turkish currency to record lows that have fallen by almost two per cent. With an election now just days away and the move away from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential system, it is clear that Turkey is a country in transition. The delegation examined Turkey's responses to calls for humanitarian assistance and its position on the global scale, particularly given its strategic location, and the governance and current economic and political issues that it is currently dealing with.
While Turkey faces many challenges, its people are proud and patriotic and share a strong belief in humanitarian goodwill. I take the opportunity to thank the Australian Turkish alliance and the many people involved in organising this invaluable, historic and culturally rich experience.
Mr Speaker, in 1891 Sir Henry Parkes, the long-serving premier of New South Wales , spoke of Australia becoming one people with one destiny. Parkes, who is now known as the father of federation, was speaking about the movement in the 1880s and 1890s to federate the colonies, an event that finally brought about the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Australia is founded on the idea that we are one people with one destiny. It was the catchphrase of the federation movement of the era. It was the toast of the great gatherings in aid of that cause.
Becoming and remaining one people with one destiny is an ongoing endeavour. In an era of identity politics, it is important that we recall that we are one people with one destiny. It was for this reason that I chose One People One Destiny: A Work in Progress as the title of my new book, which the political editor of The Australian, Dennis Shanahan, generously launched at Parliament House last evening. As I surveyed the policy challenges of the past three decades, it struck me how much the task of nation building is a work in progress. Hence the final chapter, 'The task ahead for the lucky country '.The challenges of population, participation and productivity—identified, as you will recall, in the first Intergenerational reportremain today. The challenges of an ageing population, declining productivity and inadequate participation in the economic activity of the nation remain significant for many people. The issue of population, including the inadequacy of infrastructure, the price of housing and the amenity of our suburbs is a major concern for many people. The ageing of the population and profound changes to employment because of new technologies require greater attention, and raising our low productivity is one of the most important yet least appreciated issues facing Australia today.
But there are also other challenges that Australia faces. In the style of the intergenerational reports, these concerns can be described as society, security and sustainability. We have been fortunate in Australia to have inherited a civilisation with cultural values that have fostered human dignity and liberty, supported democracy and the rule of law, enhanced social cohesion and sustained economic progress. Social cohesion is the bond that unites families, communities and the nation. It falls to every generation to transmit to the next, whether born here or overseas, the cultural values that underpin Western civilisation. No culture is perfect, but the West has accorded greater freedoms, more justice and enhanced prosperity for more individuals than any other civilisation known to history. We should celebrate our civilisation. In particular, the foundations and the story of Western civilisation should be taught in our schools and, dare I say it, in our universities. And where elements of it are under attack—whether our freedoms or our democratic system—they need to be defended and strengthened.
The primary role of the Commonwealth government is the security of the nation. We live in increasingly uncertain times. The rise of China, the aggression of Russia, the continuing menace of Islamic terrorism, and even the threats that are not yet dimmed from North Korea and the risk of a failed state in our region, all pose challenges to Australia's national interests, including our international trade and prosperity. Most importantly, we must intensify our efforts to cooperate with our allies and regional partners and hasten the interoperability that flows from these arrangements.
Thirdly, a sustainable economic future depends on the continued availability and use of our vast energy resources. Australia cannot afford to neglect this economic advantage and condemn future generations to higher costs, unreliable energy supplies and a lower standard of living. Energy sustainability requires ongoing investment in the use of our plentiful resources, such as coal and gas. Renewables will not replace traditional fuels. Future policies should reflect this reality, minimise subsidies, work for the mutual benefit of landowners and producers, and provide long-term security for the necessary investments, including the continued development of clean coal technology, gas exploration and production, and the storage of renewable energy.
There are many specific policies required to meet our future challenges, but these six areas—population, participation, productivity, society, security and sustainability—are the foundations of national prosperity and cohesion.
Mr Speaker, I know what a keen student of history you are, and no doubt you will remember, or remember reading about, the time Mick Young regaled this House, telling how the gatehouse at the Downer mansion was bigger than the Lodge, and no doubt you might recall—I know what a good student of history you are—how Paul Keating famously called Alexander Downer 'the idiot son of the Adelaide establishment'. Well, we know there's a Downer running in the Mayo by-election soon, but she's not from the Adelaide establishment; most importantly, she's from the Victorian establishment, and there we have her, on TV, with 'Georgina Downer, Victorian Liberal Party'.
Mr Wood interjecting—
And we have a member from Victoria, the member for La Trobe, opposite, saying that she's fantastic. Well, the reason he thinks that she's fantastic is: she's Victorian! That's why he's saying she's fantastic!
We remember the quote from the Financial Review which said:
We asked the woman herself and she laughed it off, reminding us that she hadn't lived in the serial killing capital since before Snowtown was on the map, and is comfortably ensconced with her family in Melbourne.
So not only was she happy to claim Melbourne as her home; she was happy to snub and insult South Australia, and to refer to some of the worst criminal acts in the state's history, many of which occurred in my electorate, as some sort of joke—some sort of thing to be laughed about and to slur Adelaide with. I mean, you just can't quite believe it. Those are comments she has not denied to this day, even though she has been challenged to do so in the South Australian parliament. Of course, remember, on the Adelaide Now website, she also said, 'I live and work in Melbourne and have no plans to return to Adelaide.'
So we know that the Liberal Party candidate in Mayo is seeking to take a seat back for the government, for the first time since the 1930s, I think, or maybe it was a bit before that—maybe it was before the war. We have here a woman trying to make by-election history in the seat for the government. And we know she is imported from the Melbourne establishment. That's pretty significant, because we know she has also been on TV saying that less GST revenue should come to South Australia, because, she said:
More recently, WA's sense of unfairness at the distribution of GST revenue has fed calls for a WAxit—
WA's exit from our nation. She said:
The current arrangements for the carve-up of GST revenue do not work.
And on she goes, about Western Australia.
I agree with her!
And the member opposite says she agrees with her. There are fixes for the great state of Western Australia, but what we have here is a Victorian who is sticking up for Western Australia—but not for South Australia; there's no talk of protecting South Australia's GST revenue stream.
So what we have here is a candidate for a by-election in the Adelaide Hills; a candidate who is a carpetbagger; a candidate—
An opposition member: A blow in!
who's a blow-in; a candidate who's from the Melbourne establishment; a candidate who has adopted very, very orthodox positions on the GST revenue. We know she's against the minimum wage—we know that; there are some quotes about the minimum wage here that I could read for those opposite. She said on the Speers show that the minimum wage was 'all very well for people who already have a job but actually presents quite an obstacle to those 700,000 Australians who are out there looking for work and might not be able to get jobs because of these artificially high wages set by the Fair Work Commission'. It doesn't sound very supportive of the minimum wage.
We also know that she opposed the banking royal commission. She said, 'No, it's not going to achieve anything, I don't think. It's in the public interest ultimately to have a competitive and lightly regulated banking sector.' So she's obviously no oracle, either, because she thought the banking royal commission wouldn't come up with anything. Hasn't she been wrong about that!
The people of the Adelaide Hills—and my mum used to live up there, so I know something of the area—have a very important decision to make. I'm no friend of the Nick Xenophon Team party—
Mr Wood interjecting—
I hear my friend interjecting there. I've made many speeches in this House attacking the Nick Xenophon Team. But would you really back in another Downer—in this case from the Melbourne establishment—into the seat of Mayo?
I rise again to speak of my great concerns about the crime wave which has been going through Melbourne, particularly in my electorate of La Trobe.
I've raised this on numerous occasions in recent times. We had an awful incident where during daylight hours we had 10 young males, armed with baseball bats, break into a house. In the house at the time were an elderly pensioner and her son, who is autistic. The elderly pensioner is also wheelchair-bound and has multiple sclerosis. She was in absolute fear; I've spoken to her about the incident. I congratulate Victoria Police, who ended up arresting 10 young people for breaking into that house.
There was also another incident in March 2018. Again, young Sudanese connected to the Apex gang broke into a house in Collingwood and attacked a disabled pensioner. The reason I highlight those two incidents is that both were actually captured on video and we got to see firsthand how frightening it must have been for the occupants of these premises.
Young people in our youth justice centres are some of the most disadvantaged young people in Victoria. Sixty-two per cent have been suspended or expelled from school, 63 per cent have been the victims of trauma, abuse or neglect and 24 per cent have issues concerning their intellectual ability. I have become increasingly concerned about the escalating youth violence in Melbourne and I have no doubt many Melbournians will share my concerns.
We need a new approach, and the overwhelming message that came through to the migration committee, which I chaired, was that early intervention is the key. So if we can do everything we possibly can and at the earliest stage in someone's life we can prevent them going down the wrong path and getting involved in gangs and in home invasions. There are simply no winners with that.
So it gives me great pleasure to talk about the Les Twentyman Foundation. Les, as we all know, is just an amazing guy from the western suburbs in Melbourne. His foundation has support programs and services for at-risk young people and their families. His programs and services cover education support, recreation, counselling, personal development, arts and drama and life experience. The Les Twentyman Foundation has been going for 35 years. It's a great privilege to have been able to get to know Les and, in particular, one of his programs, the EMBRACE program. This becomes a vital cog, acting as an outreach resource for schools. It focuses on providing support to kids at the greatest risk of going down the wrong path.
One thing that Les and his organisation have done very well is to identify the need to train up youth workers who are going to be specifically relevant to the needs of children. As I mentioned before—and I haven't shied away from this—sadly, we are finding in Melbourne that out of all the home invasions by those under the age of 18, 12 per cent were committed by those born in Sudan. So through the EMBRACE program, the Les Twentyman Foundation specifically trains up Sudanese youth workers. There are people like Gum, who I've met and who has appeared before the committee, who go and help young people at school and ensure that they don't go down the wrong path.
The great news is that I took the Les Twentyman Foundation proposal to government and spoke to the Prime Minister—and I must also give a very special thanks to Minister Dan Tehan—and we've been able to have a $1.5 million commitment over the next three years, starting on 1 July this year. I say to state Labor: you need to get on board and match this, because it's in your area in the western suburbs. It's all about early intervention. If we want to get on top of crime, then the best way is by helping young people at the start of their lives.
It being 8 pm, the House stands adjourned until 9.30 am tomorrow.
House adjourned at 20 : 00
For the last 12 months I've been waging a campaign to upgrade the emergency department at Bankstown hospital. Bankstown hospital is bursting at the seams, but a particular part of the hospital that needs help urgently is the emergency department. To give you an idea of the problem, the latest data from the New South Wales Department of Health indicates that only 57 per cent of people who turn up to emergency with what is called an imminent life-threatening condition are seen within 10 minutes—only 57 per cent. That compares to almost 90 per cent of people who turn up to St Vincent's Hospital, only 20 kilometres away, and are seen within the recommended 10 minutes.
Over the last few months, hundreds and hundreds of local residents have signed my petition calling on the state government to upgrade the emergency department at the hospital. Finally, we've had some good news. Yesterday it was announced that there'd be $25 million to expand the emergency department. That is good news, but it is just a start, because Bankstown hospital needs a lot more than just an upgrade of the emergency department. The ICU, the intensive care unit, is so cramped that staff tell me that they have to use a storage space to brief the families of patients that are in intensive care. That is simply not good enough. Can you imagine if your child, your husband or your wife were in intensive care, and the only place that the doctor could brief you was in a storage cabinet?
The other problem is parking. Anyone who has been to Bankstown hospital will know this is a nightmare. Doctors have given me the example of the problem of parking being so bad that people with cancer have missed their treatments at the hospital because they can't find a parking space—not in the car park and not even on the street—within a kilometre of the hospital. As a result, they miss their cancer treatment. This is only going to get worse in the future, as Bankstown continues to grow, unless something is done about it. Bankstown's population is predicted to grow by about 50 per cent in the next 10 years. So the fight to upgrade the hospital goes on. We've had a victory, but this is just the beginning.
While I'm talking about Bankstown and the New South Wales budget, I can't believe there was no money in the budget to upgrade Stacey Street. I have said before in this place that Stacey Street is the most congested and the slowest road in Sydney outside the CBD. It is one of the roads that take you from the south of Sydney to the Olympic stadium. There is money in the budget, apparently, to demolish the Olympic stadium and to rebuild it, but there is no money in the budget to upgrade the road that takes you to the Olympic stadium. It's appalling. I can't believe that the state government have failed to allocate money for this. The good news is that Luke Foley announced last week that, if Labor win the next state election, they will fix Stacey Street once and for all. So, if you want Stacey Street fixed, vote Labor at the next state election.
I rise to advise the Federation Chamber of the proposed scuttling of HMAS Tobruk in the coming weeks. This is a project which has taken more than five years to come to fruition, but we are nearly there. Unfortunately, the planned scuttling this week has been delayed by the weather, but we are taking the utmost care in the sinking of this ship around Hervey Bay and Bundaberg. Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service have extended the first window until Thursday, 28 June. If the weather is not favourable, they will move to a second window, between Tuesday, 3 July, and Tuesday, 10 July. Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan, I know you're very passionate about our coastal regions. If you're available, the scuttling will occur approximately 22 nautical miles from Bundaberg and 25 nautical miles from Hervey Bay, in around 29 metres of water.
I was lucky enough to attend a farewell service for the HMAS Tobruk this month, on 5 June. Those who attended and organised the event believe it is the first time that a ceremony of this type has been held to farewell or commemorate the service of a ship. It was organised by the HMAS Anzac/Tobruk Association, which is a volunteer, community based, ex-service group. Their aim is to help reduce social isolation by encouraging ex-service colleagues to get together in a safe, friendly and supportive environment with comfortable facilities. They are very passionate, they are very proud of their country and they are incredibly proud of this ship. My thanks go to President Bert Boyd and Secretary Jim Cunningham for organising the service. It was organised and run by Rear Admiral retired Kenneth Doolan, the original commissioning Commanding Officer of HMAS Tobruk L50, who spoke at the service. I was absolutely humbled to have in attendance Mr Gordon Wallace, one of our last living Rats of Tobruk from World War II. What began as an idea way back in 2012-13 has almost come to fruition. HMAS Tobruk served this nation for many years; it will continue to serve the people of Australia, albeit in a different role.
I thank the people of the electorate, and I thank all of those who were involved in the work that was necessary not only to prepare the ship but also to get a commitment of funding to get the ship committed to the project, including of course the advisory group, which did a lot of the background work. In particular, I thank Scott Rowe; the state MP for Hervey Bay, Ted Sorensen; the member for Burnett, Stephen Bennett; Senator James McGrath; the former Labor MP for Bundaberg, Leanne Donaldson; councillors Rolf Light and Darren Everard; the mayors of Bundaberg and Fraser Coast; and all of those members of the advisory committee who actually put their hard earned on the table to do ground-level surveys, so we knew what the bottom looked like, and we could put up a real submission to demonstrate that this would work.
HMAS Tobruk will begin its next life of service in just weeks. There are already hundreds of people who have registered to dive HMAS Tobruk when it is available. I congratulate all of those involved, and can I say that we will treat it with the utmost respect. The prep crew wouldn't even put their names on the wall; they put them on a chalkboard to respect the ship.
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with pensioners across the Bendigo electorate, first in Bendigo and in Kyneton. They are horrified that this Liberal-National Party government, again are trying to cut pensions. It may not sound like a lot to those opposite, who now talk about aspiration. They think that an aged-care worker can aspire to go into banking at the age of 60—how deluded are they! Do they have the same view about pensioners who are going to be hit with a cut to their pension? How can they aspire even to survive? This government is trying to cut $14.10 per fortnight from their pension by axing the clean energy supplement. Whether it's a supplement or the pension itself, it is still a cut from their pension and from their income. That cut means that single pensioners will be around $365 a year worse off. For couples, the government is trying to cut $21.20 per fortnight—they will be about $550 a year worse off.
Energy bills have never been higher than they are today under the Liberal-National government. Therefore, the pensioners in my part of the world, which is quite cold at the moment, are wondering what they will do. Will they eat or keep the heating on? When I was in Kyneton last week, Brian said to me: 'I would rather starve than turn the heating off. Kyneton is a cold place.' Maggie spoke to me about the fact that on Friday, which was three days before pension day, she literally only had about 30 bucks left in her wallet. She went to Coles and bought one capsicum, one cucumber, one carrot, one potato. She said to the group when we were talking about this: 'When was the last time you ever bought just one potato? I can tell you how much that cost—$1.04.' This is the life of our pensioners; this is what is happening to them right now. This government is doing little to lower the cost of living because it's literally out of touch with how tough it has become, particularly in areas like Bendigo and regional Australia.
To make it worse, in the budget this government is also proposing to lift the retirement age, the pension age, to 70. How can you be a bricklayer, how can you be a nurse, how can you be someone working in a physical profession until you're 70? It's another example of just how out of touch the government is. There are thousands upon thousands of pensioners who will be worse off if this government gets its their way and cuts the pension. I call on the Senate crossbench to join with Labor to vote down these pension cuts. Think of Maggie; think of Brian. People should not have to choose between heating and eating.
On 7 June I visited Tuross Head. Deciding to really meet and talk to as many people as possible, I accepted an invitation to meet the members of the Tuross Head Men's Shed. They have converted the old golf club, with the help of a grant of $5,000 from the federal government's Stronger Communities Program, pouring a concrete floor section to join the clubhouse to the outdoor storage and covered barbecue area, under the proud eyes of the president, Leo Demchy. The gentlemen at the Tuross Head Men's Shed showed me all the projects, the work area, the machines and, surprisingly, a pool table. Clearly, this men's shed is catering for so many, including a photography club. They were very welcoming, and I thank them for taking the time to chat and talk about topics important to them, especially the shed activities.
Following that, I went to my scheduled village visit, meeting some great local residents who had just completed their regular walk and were rewarding themselves with a coffee. It was great to talk to Mary, Colleen and Anne about issues important to them, such as local roads and some connecting pathways. The Boatshed was the village visit stop where we enjoyed amazing fish and chips and met the owners, Casey and Shawn. The next highlight in Tuross Head was meeting with the residents of the Tuross Head Progress Association. President Gary Cooper and Secretary John Tilbrook have been in regular contact, especially with the most significant project for the community—the intersection of the Princes Highway and Hector McWilliam Drive. Fitzroy and Mylene Boulting have been long-term advocates for this intersection over many years. During the process of getting to know the Eurobodalla residents in 2016 after the boundary redistribution, this intersection became very important to me to advocate on their behalf. The original commitment to the Eurobodalla Shire Council included three new roundabouts to be constructed. However, before the contracts were signed, one was already completed. As a consequence, there was allocated funding available. There was only one destination for this funding, and it was the intersection, to help the residents of Tuross Head.
I take this opportunity to thank the Tuross Head community for their feedback and their tireless advocacy on this infrastructure, where they have a T-intersection with the highway which is incredibly dangerous. Particularly for the many fishing people who go there with their boat trailers, there's very limited visibility and it's extremely difficult to get back out onto the highway when they're doing 100 kays an hour. It is an accident waiting to happen, as every resident knows. Their advocacy enabled me to consistently appeal to the minister to reallocate the funds on their behalf. This has been achieved. So $1.4 million has been moved to that intersection instead of just having an upgrade of stop signs. I look forward to delivering the work on the ground following the commitment of these funds. Shortly, we will be surveying the community on projects they believe are a priority for the Princes Highway, and particularly in Eurobodalla. I look forward to getting their feedback throughout the community of Gilmore.
Last week in Melbourne, Eurydice Dixon lost her life. Eurydice was walking home from work. The last message she sent to her friend was still on her phone: 'I'm almost home safe.' To Eurydice's family, friends, and loved ones, I extend my deepest condolences and sorrow. My thoughts, and Melbourne's thoughts, are with you. Eurydice lived in my electorate. She grew up, went to school, worked and was walking home through a park in the electorate of Melbourne. She was well known and much loved amongst her neighbours in Princes Hill and in Melbourne's performing arts community.
On Monday, over 10,000 Melburnians came together for a silent vigil by candlelight at Princes Park to mourn Eurydice. So many people in our community have walked or run or visited Princes Park so many times. So many of us feel grief. And, with grief, we feel anger. Eurydice's death is now before the courts, and we shouldn't comment on that. More broadly, women are being raped and murdered because we are failing to get serious about changing men's behaviour. How many women must die before we get serious about challenging men's violence and realising the right of everyone—everyone—to walk home in safety?
So far in 2018 around Australia, men have killed at least 30 women. Last year, Destroy The Joint counted 51 women who were killed by men. Most of these murders did not happen in a park and were not committed by strangers. They were at home, at the hands of violent partners. Last week in Sydney, 28-year-old Qi Yu went missing, and her housemate has been charged with her murder. Vastly more women are killed by men in family violence than the number of Australians who have lost their lives to terrorism, and yet our shelters and family violence lawyers are stretched thin and women are returning to violent partners because we fail to ensure that they have secure housing if they leave.
To address violence against women, we must address gender inequality. We must change the old, patriarchal modes of masculinity that see men as entitled—entitled to control, entitled to power and even entitled to blame women for men's violence. Following Eurydice's death, initial police comments urged women to take responsibility for their safety in the local area and to have 'situational awareness'. Well, my experience is that women are very aware of the situation. Men facing violence when out at night are never told to stay home or to have situational awareness.
Let me be very clear: there is nothing that we should ask women to do differently; it's men's actions that must change. Until men start respecting women more, we will see more devastating violence. We must change the way our boys think about women, and every boy should leave primary school and secondary school with respect for women ingrained in them. We must end violence against women, and the sexism and gender inequality that drive it. Men must start being accountable, and change our actions and the actions of other men.
Earlier this year, I was very pleased to have the opportunity to officially launch construction of the new state-of-the-art multisports complex and netball stadium at HE Parker Reserve in Heathmont. This new complex is being built to cater for a large number of sports, including volleyball, badminton, table tennis and, importantly, netball, and will provide world-class facilities for some of the up-and-coming athletes in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. Importantly for our local netballers, it will include four new indoor and four new outdoor netball courts, with connectivity between the indoor and outdoor courts. Other new facilities will include a tournament office, a large multipurpose room, a meeting room, a gym, office space, a kiosk, storage, amenities, change facilities and a first-aid room.
Most significantly, the new indoor courts will mean an end to an unfair situation that has been in place for many years, where netballers, predominantly women, are forced to play their games outdoors, often in cold, wet and slippery conditions, while local basketballers, just a kilometre up the road, get to play indoors. Given the growing participation rate that all the above-mentioned sports, particularly netball, are currently experiencing, I'm so pleased to have been able to have helped make this project a reality, through a $10½ million funding contribution from the federal government.
In the eastern region of Melbourne alone, there are around 20,000 registered netballers, who will now have access to some of the best competition facilities not just in our state but in the entire country. We'll finally have a centre that is fit for purpose for all of our brilliant local clubs and their volunteers, who do an outstanding job. These clubs include Bayswater Uniting Netball Club, Blackburn Lake Netball Club, Heathmont United Netball Club, Holy Spirit Netball Club, Mullum Netball Club, Norwood Heights Netball Club, Nunawading Netball Club, Our Lady's Netball Club, Park Orchards Netball Club, Rangeview Rangers Netball Club, Ringwood North Netball Club, Southwood Netball Club, St James Netball Club and, finally, Trinity Netball Club. My hope is that this new state-of-the-art centre will allow each of these clubs to continue to grow and to go from strength to strength, attracting new players and launching, hopefully, the future careers of many Australian netball stars.
In the Maroondah City Council area there are two netball associations—Melbourne East Netball Association and Ariels Victorian Churches Netball Association. I'd like to thank them for their advocacy in making this project a reality. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the work of Councillor Kylie Spears, from the Maroondah City Council, who is also the president of Melbourne East Netball Association, who has worked with me from day one to make this new netball stadium a reality for the people of Deakin.
I rise yet again to highlight the mismanagement by the New South Wales Liberal-Nationals government when it comes to their bungled announcement about the site selection for the new Tweed Hospital. The process has been to date a complete debacle. It's been cloaked in secrecy, it's lacked proper community consultation and it's lacked transparency. Since the bungled announcement by the Tweed Nationals MP, Geoff Provest, and the New South Wales Minister for Health, Brad Hazzard, their incompetent and arrogant government have tried to shut down community discussions and silence any critics. The current Tweed Hospital is under enormous pressure due to the Nationals' funding cuts over the past eight years, and everyone in our community knows that better hospital services are needed. But locals also know that they have not been consulted, and the site decision was just dropped on the community without giving them proper input at all.
Recently the New South Wales government announced that the new hospital would be built on a protected 23-hectare farmland site of state significance at Cudgen. The fact is there were more than 30 other potential sites. Since the announcement there has been widespread community concern about the chosen location, especially as this piece of protected prime agricultural land is in an area that is one of the largest producers of sweet potatoes in New South Wales.
It's important to note that in 2002 the land was designated and classified as land of state significance due to its rich, red volcanic soil. Many in the community have raised concerns that property developers have been seeking its rezoning for decades. Due to the widespread community concern, a meeting attended by hundreds of locals was held. Under this pressure the government reopened the submission period and actually invited community feedback. The period for submissions closed last week, and just this week the government was dragged into having a community meeting in which it was forced to acknowledge three other potential sites. But there's a strong feeling that this is just a smokescreen and that the decision has already been made.
The government is also now trying to cobble together two consultative groups, one from the Tweed Shire Council and one from the community. Yet for council or community members to be on these groups they are forced to sign confidentiality agreements so extreme and stringent it means they are legally prohibited from publicly discussing the hospital. That is unfair and undemocratic. The community is also very concerned that this National Party decision to build on protected farmland is a backdoor means of allowing overdevelopment. We know what the National Party agenda is. They want the land at Cudgen rezoned and there to be Gold Coast style high-rise overdevelopment at Kingscliff. That is the National Party agenda. There is also major concern in our community that some prominent National Party identities own land adjacent to the hospital and would greatly benefit from any rezoning. This is a point that is constantly raised by locals, who bring it up with me all the time.
The fact is the North Coast has been neglected by the Nationals, and we do need better health services to respond to our population, which is growing and ageing. The demand is there. But we need those decisions made with proper consultation and proper transparency for the benefit of the whole community, rather than just National Party benefactors. The community has to be consulted. We deserve so much better than what we currently have from the North Coast Nationals and their mismanagement, particularly, of the site selection of the hospital.
Our government's first priority is always to keep Australians safe. The Safer Communities Fund, a $40 million initiative, is just one way we are making this happen. A further $30 million in this year's budget will fund another round of the safer communities program. It's a popular program with the public, and rightly so. As we head towards another funding round, I encourage anyone listening or watching from a council or community group to take a good look at how the application process works and to apply. The program is simple and practical and can be used to fund infrastructure like CCTV cameras and new streetlighting and car park lighting, things designed to ensure that communities can tackle street crime and antisocial behaviour. These visible, practical solutions really work.
In Picton, in my electorate, there is a newly funded project where smart streetlighting will be installed in the local car park. The sensors on the lights detect movement nearby and allow the lights to intensify. Combined with CCTV cameras, it's proving to be an effective strategy to scare off troublemakers. Councils right across Australia are installing exactly this type of technology with funding support through the Smart Cities and Suburbs Program, another great initiative promoting community safety, amongst other things. The predecessor to the Safer Communities Fund was the Safer Streets Program. It had a similar idea, but in its case we deliberately unlocked $50 million from the proceeds of crime, money that the previous Labor government had frozen to prop up its bottom line. Under the coalition, proceeds of crime are being invested as they should be, in local communities to prevent crime.
As the Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security I can assure the public that the government is putting in place unprecedented measures to keep Australians safe in their homes, in their streets and online. In my electorate, under the current safer communities funding round, I'm delighted we have practical funding for safety measures for three local communities: Camden Council, for lighting and safety works at Narellan; Wollondilly Shire Council, for lighting in the new car park at Picton; and Goulburn-Mulwaree Council, which will receive funding for lighting and CCTV cameras in its CBD's Belmore Park. Combined, these projects total well over half a million dollars in safety measures for Hume. I'm looking forward to hearing more detail about these projects at the end of the week, when I'll be joined by the Assistant Minister for Home Affairs, who has responsibility for these projects, in Picton and Narellan. The coalition government is getting on with the job of prioritising safety for our communities.
The Australian public have been listening to us over this week; they're listening to us argue about tax. I have a couple of things to say about the government's tax package, which they've got on the table, and compare it to the policy that Labor put on the table this week. What those opposite don't want Australians to know is that in six years time people earning $200,000 will pay the same tax rate as someone earning $40,000 under this government's plan. Our progressive tax system has been our social compact for decades. This is the week that this government are showing their true colours. They vote to privatise the ABC, then they say they won't privatise the ABC and then their members are seen on television saying, 'It's a valid debate.' The same goes for tax. They are this week dressing up wealth redistribution as aspiration. I've known since I got here that those opposite want to entrench existing inequality. We've seen it in education, and we've seen it in health. They want to entrench that. Now with this tax plan that they have on the table they're showing their true colours. We are looking at largesse for millionaires at the expense of average Australians.
I've got some figures in front of me. In contrast to the government, Labor's tax plan, which we could bring into this parliament and vote on today, would see 10 million Australians better off. There would be 10 million Australians better off under Labor's tax plan, and we could do that today. Under Labor, people on an income of $30,000 would be $900 better off than under the Liberal plan. Someone on $50,000 would be $2,358 better off a year under Labor. We need to look at where those income earners live and who they are. I've got some data here that tells me that, no surprise, in Lalor, the electorate I represent, we have 127,000 taxpayers, and 77 per cent of them will be better off under Labor. That's 98,000 people. The most interesting stat here is that in Lalor only one per cent of our workers earn over $180,000. It's not a surprise when you look down the list of communities like mine where you have one per cent earning over $180,000, but then you look at Wentworth you see that you've got 13 per cent earning over $180,000, no surprise there; North Sydney, 12 per cent; Warringah, 12 per cent; and Kooyong, 10 per cent. This is a battle all right. It's about protecting the average—(Time expired)
It's always a pleasure to stand in this space and talk about the great work being done at some of our fabulous local schools. Today, I'd like to focus on what is occurring at Bethania Lutheran School, just one of the many great primary schools in my electorate of Forde. I'd like to take this opportunity to mention the great work of their teachers who are working together to develop a culture of innovation, motivation, collegiality and trust, because the school has identified its students as contemporary learners and understands it needs teachers who embrace the importance of aligning effective learning spaces with relevant high-quality learning to promote positive outcomes for students. The school achieves this by incorporating agile learning spaces with experiences that use a variety of digital technologies and progressive approaches to teaching to transform the way students learn.
Every year I make the effort to catch up with the schools and the principals around my electorate to keep in touch with what they're doing and how we can provide support. Visiting Bethania Lutheran School, it was great to see how the teachers are engaging with students and how they are open to new ways of learning. If we want our next generation to be creative thinkers, risk-takers and problem solvers we need teachers who are prepared to give them the tools, the resources and the environment to do that. Bethania Lutheran School has successfully created a culture of collaboration, collegiality and continuous professional growth for its teachers. The teachers have become role models for their students as they demonstrate how they themselves never stop learning. With a shared vision of learning and growing as professionals, the students are always winners.
At Bethania Lutheran School, the kids are free in certain classrooms to not sit at desks. They are free to sit around in classrooms and work on various pieces of technology, to get used to the idea of working together in groups. They can even go and sit outside and work together in a group. What is so valuable to these kids is that they have the opportunity to learn in an environment that they are comfortable in, because it doesn't always need to be sitting at a desk in a row, like many of us did when we were at school. The opportunities now for children to learn in different ways are so much greater than ever before.
Equally, there are schools like Hume Anglican Grammar, with the new pod that was recently opened—that interactive visual experience, including the drone-flying room for kids to learn how to fly drones. And there is the work being done at some of our high schools with trade and technology hubs to improve the students' learning capacity in those areas before they go on to university or to work.
I thank the member. In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
It's an honour to talk today about the most recent budget and the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-19. In the last six weeks it's fair to say that I have travelled the length and breadth of this country talking to small and family business operators in their home patches about the recent budget. It is also fair to say that this fifth budget I've seen, I think, in my time here has been extremely well received—and, I would argue, the best received so far. The word at the coalface, on the front lines, is that people are happy with the overall planned stewardship of the Turnbull coalition government.
We often talk about the results at a macro level, such as the one million jobs that have been created in the past 4½ years since coming to government, 420,000-odd of those in the last 12 months, and 80 per cent of those full-time positions. What you don't hear a lot about is the comparison and contrast in terms of business confidence out there. It's fair to say there is a cautious optimism; in my travels, that is what I'm hearing from small and family businesses. That is reflected, I think, in the numbers. In the last financial year in this country, there has been a net increase of 65,000 in the number of small and family businesses operating—65,000 new businesses in the construction. You might be thinking, 'A million jobs—how has that happened; what does it actually look like at the coalface?' In the past 4½ years, in the construction sector alone, 37,400-odd small and family businesses have opened, employing an additional 200. That's 20 per cent of those one million jobs, in the construction sector alone. These are the coalface results.
Whether it's in Cairns, from talking with Warren Entsch up there and his small business operators; in Hinkler, with Keith Pitt and many of his local business operators; over in WA, with Christian Porter; or in regional South Australia, with Tony Pasin, there is a problem they're starting to have. Mark Coulton's electorate—I know his electorate is close to yours, Mr Deputy Speaker—is a classic example, with unemployment sitting at 2.3 or 2.4 per cent. The business operators in his area are saying loud and clear that they've got both unskilled and skilled worker shortages starting to emerge. These are problems for the region, but they are a demonstration, if you like, of the fact that there are businesses opening and employing people. That is happening on the front lines.
How does that compare with the stewardship of the previous, Labor government? In the last financial year of the Labor government, in 2012-13, there was a net decrease in the number of businesses across the board, irrespective of size, of 61,000—a net decrease of 61,000 businesses. There were 87,000 jobs created in those last two to three years under Labor, versus our one million in 4½ years.
This budget is not a new position; it's the latest in our economic plan. What are the operators of small and family businesses saying to me on the front lines? They want the tax cuts so they can reinvest in their businesses and employ more people. That's how these figures are achieved. They are also saying to me loudly and clearly that they are big fans of personal income tax cuts as well. Why? Because of the stimulus they will provide, with increased pay in people's pockets. Again, there is an ideological difference with Labor. Business operators get this, when you pitch it to them. Their profit is theirs. It's not ours. If we decrease their tax and allow them to keep more of their profit, that is not a handout. They actually get 'the dirts' if that is what is reflected—that, in some way, that is characterised by the Labor Party as a handout. These people work hard. They put their homes on the line. They back themselves. They employ people. Their staff are a quasi-part of the family. They also take umbrage at—hate—the fact that the Labor Party would have you believe that the thing business operators think of when they wake up in the morning is how to rob their staff. It's not true. Their staff are their most trusted and valuable asset. I get it, because I've done it. You're the same. That's what we're hearing on the front lines.
This is the latest budget in our economic plan. It is a clear plan to lower personal and private tax to keep the economy moving. They're the best conditions for business confidence that we've seen since the GFC, and it's no surprise.
There's a noticeable pattern with the Turnbull government's job programs, and success has nothing to do with it. There are loud announcements up-front, and mumbles and fudging about results later. The best examples revolves around the government's intern program, known as PaTH. It was announced in a blaze of glory in the 2016 budget. We were told that $840 million had been pledged over four years to help up to 120,000 young Australians. At the time, Minister Cash said the Youth Jobs PaTH was the core of the government's youth employment package.
Early on, we learnt that roughly 30,000 young Australians would be forced to do the mandatory part of PaTH, the 'Prepare' section, as it was known. They'd then be offered the chance to become interns. Apparently, up to 20,000 businesses would be signed up to take on an intern. We had a series of stage-managed announcements with industry associations, pledging to take on PaTH interns. In a June 2016 media release, Minister Cash said the government had 'received the backing of another major Australian industry group', the Australian Hotels Association, 'who today pledged to use the scheme to give at least 5,000 young Australians the opportunity to get into jobs and apprenticeships'. In that release, the public was told that just one agreement with the AHA would see 5,000 jobs created in accommodation hotels, resorts, pubs, bars and restaurants. These 20,000 businesses would be paid an up-front incentive to take on an intern, and a wage subsidy if they actually took the interns on. That was the hype.
Here is the reality that emerged in the course of 2017. The government boasted:
The results achieved to date demonstrate that PaTH is working—we've seen 6,654 individuals commence a training course—
that they're forced to commence—
1,015 internship placements begin and 7,539 Youth Bonus wage subsidy agreements signed.
But, six months into the program, only 1,000 young people had been placed as interns, at a rate of 200 a month, bearing in mind they needed to hit at least 2,500 per month to hit the yearly target. Concerns about job exploitation were realised. One young person was forced to work up to 58 hours in one week, despite the government pledging that no young person would be forced to work more than 50 hours a fortnight.
What did we learn at estimates, just recently? It was loudly announced that we'd see 30,000 interns a year under PaTH. In estimates, the true figure was 5,473. What they should have reached in two months took them 12 months to reach. It was loudly proclaimed we'd see 18,000 to 20,000 businesses sign up to help take on these interns. In estimates, the true figure revealed was 2,694, not 18,000. In terms of the training component—again, mandatory—30,000 a year should have gone through. In estimates, the true figure was 26,205. They couldn't even meet their target to get young unemployed people into the mandatory training component of PaTH. When this was announced in 2016 we were told boldly: PaTH would help 120,000 young people. Two years later at estimates, when asked if they'd reached that target of 120,000, the minister said, 'That was the upper end of what we were looking at.' We never had that fine print included in any Turnbull government media release announcing PaTH. You can understand why we're getting the qualifier now, because, at the current rate, the government might support 20,000 interns at the end of the program, not the 120,000 promised. Even if you accept their 50 per cent job-conversion rate, the best we'll see is 10,000 young people getting jobs under what is now a $974 million program—not $840 million, $974 million.
They might not be smart enough to get young Australians a job, but they're sneaky enough to fiddle with the figures to save their own jobs. When you test them on the results, they've worked out all sorts of ways to pump up the stats. Mandatory training? You're counted as a stat. If your business is paid a wage subsidy, that gets counted too. Mind you, these subsidies already existed well before PaTH came along. It's time to cut the hype and get some answers.
Is the woeful performance of yet another failing jobs program going to improve? Why is it that the Turnbull government said 30,000 Australians a year would participate as interns under PaTH and only 5,500 have? Why is it that the Turnbull government said 20,000 businesses would host interns and only 2,600 have? Are you going to be up-front about what's actually happening with the program? What concrete steps are going to be taken to fix another failing jobs program under the Turnbull government?
It's always a pleasure to rise in this chamber and speak about the importance of small business and the way that this government is supporting small business not only across my community but also the country. As I look across my community and meet regularly with small to medium business owners, I reflect on the fact that every one of them each and every day puts everything on the line to generate wealth for their family; however, they are also building businesses to create job opportunities for others in our community and help them build their wealth and family finances. Small business is such an important component of our economy because they are prepared to take those risks.
Generally, they will be the businesses that are being innovative and looking to change things and for better ways to do things. We know that, once you get big corporates and their big bureaucracies, their ability to change and adapt is much more difficult. But small businesses need to be nimble, flexible and adaptable to changing market conditions because they don't have the financial and other resources the big end of town has. Small to medium businesses always have limitations that the big end of town doesn't have. Their cost of capital is higher and the cost of regulation for small to medium business is always far higher than it is for big business because they have the resources to cope with and adapt to it.
This is why it is so important in my view that we, as a government, seek to support small business throughout our community to ensure they can grow and prosper. Each and every day, businesses like Swagman motorhomes, Lumini, Noonan race engineering or CGI manufacturing take the opportunity to provide services for Australians. Increasingly, they're looking to export and are taking advantage of the export opportunities created by this government through our free trade agreements. They're also able to take advantage of things like the instant asset write-off which makes it easier for them to manage their finances and accounts.
There are other things that we're doing. The Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation is here, and I know he and I regularly talk about the importance of small business and the things we're doing practically to help small business—whether it's cutting the amount of tax they have to pay or, importantly, as I touched on before, cutting the amount of red tape they have to deal with. We have succeeded in reducing some $6 billion worth of red tape out of the system, which is incredibly important to our small to medium businesses. That is something this government has achieved. We've also, as I touched on, implemented the free trade agreements. We've changed section 46 of the competition act to provide a fairer, more level playing field for small to medium-sized businesses. We've implemented an unfair-contract arrangement. The reason we're doing all of these things is to try to create an ecosystem that creates the encouragement and the opportunity for small businesses to grow and prosper, because they are the majority employer in this country.
We're also looking to work out how we can provide the opportunity for people who leave the workforce as employees to become business owners in their later years. Those opportunities ensure that people have the ability to continue to build wealth and contribute to this society as they change jobs. We all know now that staying in one job for your whole life is highly unlikely and that you're going to have a number of different jobs, so it is important that we create the opportunity for those who are of mature age. If they want to leave the workforce as an employee, they should have the opportunity to start their own business. My question to the minister is: how is the government encouraging those mature-age Australians to start a small business should they choose to do so?
'Vulnerable workers' is a term that's bandied around a lot. In fact, there was a bill called the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017. But what has the government done to really address this growing area? We have had ombudsman's report after ombudsman's report and we have had media story after media story exposing worker exploitation and the extent of it in this country. Just to name one, we had the Fair Work Ombudsman report Inquiry into the procurement of cleaners in Tasmanian supermarkets, which found:
… the rates of pay … being offered by sub-contractors to supermarket cleaners were in some cases up to $26 below the applicable hourly rate.
This is happening on your watch, Minister. What we want to know is: what are you actually doing to help increase the resources to the Fair Work Ombudsman to make sure that all of these issues are being investigated? While those cleaners' horrible experience of worker exploitation was exposed, what is the government doing to ensure that all supermarket cleaners are not being exploited in the same way? What is the government doing to ensure that big names like Spotless are not sub-subcontracting?
Here we have another example of worker exploitation—Myer's contract cleaners at Bourke Street Mall. I know quite a few people have probably visited the Myer shopping centre. The lowest paid workers in that particular establishment are the cleaners. Myer subcontracted to Spotless. Spotless then subcontracted to another subcontractor, and that subcontractor made those cleaners get ABNs. What is the government doing to ensure that those workers are not being forced to take out ABNs? This government spruiks a lot about the growth in small businesses. Just how many of those small businesses are cleaners or workers who've been forced to get ABNs to become their own 'small business'? It's not something to be proud of if, within your figures about the number of small businesses in this country, there are employees who have been forced to get ABNs: 'Take out an ABN or you don't get the job.' That is the reality for so many of these vulnerable workers, particularly in contract industries like cleaning.
The cleaning industry is a really good example to use. Eighty per cent of the cost of cleaning is labour. Therefore, if you can force your workers to take out an ABN and become their own 'small business', guess what? You save a lot of money, and you have the ability to undercut your competitors. We've heard boo from this government. We've not seen them actually stand up to companies like Spotless and Myer and say, 'What are you doing to address these issues?'
It is not just happening in cleaning, as I said. We continue to have huge problems when it comes to agriculture and our farming sector. Last week I had the opportunity to meet with some strawberry growers who directly employ their staff, and they talked about their frustration with strawberry growers in their region who deliberately underpay their workers and therefore can sell their products to Coles more cheaply.
Mr Laundy interjecting—
Yes, they have. I'll take the interjection from the minister. When these strawberry farmers ring the Fair Work Ombudsman, they get the busy signal. Then they hear: 'You can't make a complaint. The worker needs to make a complaint.' This is a worker who gets threatened with deportation if they raise the issues. And the minister says: 'Just give us a call. Bring these workers here.' This is a strawberry farmer who is saying: 'My competitor down the road is ripping people off. I tried to contact the government, and nothing happens.'
Honourable members interjecting—
Order, please! The minister will get a chance to respond.
There is a lot to raise on this issue of worker exploitation. The questions that I have for the minister are not just about resources to the Fair Work Ombudsman. What is this government doing about labour hire? Yesterday we had the state Labor government in Victoria pass labour hire legislation to stop worker exploitation. What is this government going to do? Are you going to introduce labour hire legislation to stop worker exploitation at a federal level? What are you going to do as a government to complement what's been done in Victoria? Do you agree with what the Victorian government has done? When will this government get serious about cracking down on worker exploitation and addressing these issues?
I believe in giving people a second chance. From time to time, we all make mistakes. When someone makes a bad choice, when they regret that choice and ask for forgiveness, I hope that we'd all generally believe in giving that person the opportunity to redeem themselves. But, when that same person, or organisation, makes the same bad choice again and again and yet again, you know what? Our patience gets a little bit stretched. When those choices involve lawlessness and criminal activity, our patience should run dry very quickly. When an organisation racks up $15 million worth of fines, when its officials have committed 106 separate contraventions of the law and when it has 80 more officials still facing the courts, we can't tolerate any more. This is the situation that we find ourselves facing in the form of that most lawless of rogue unions, the CFMMEU—and those opposite think it's funny, because they know that they are lock, stock and barrel owned by the CFMMEU.
Would the minister, therefore, first please advise the House of what consequences for workers and ordinary taxpayers the government has identified that would flow from allowing the CFMMEU to continue along its path of lawlessness unchecked? It's been noticeable that the unions have been in the newspapers a lot recently, calling for various changes to the law. I suppose that they can see the weakness of this Leader of the Opposition as clearly as the member for Grayndler can, but it's surprising that the unions are so keen to change the law, when they show no interest whatsoever in obeying it.
Just last week we saw the latest manifestation of the CFMMEU's culture of criminality. The Federal Court fined the WA CFMMEU and its official Brad Upton a combined $51,300 for a threatening and abusive rant against employees at the Gorgon LNG plant in 2015. Mr Upton called the ordinary workers he claims to stand up for 'dogs', among a number of other unsavoury things. He threatened to display a list of non-union members on the site, implicitly encouraging retaliatory action against them. He also informed workers that Gorgon was a union site and that further union sites would be opening soon, at which non-union members would not be welcome. I'm sure those workers knew exactly what he meant.
Like the CFMMEU, Mr Upton has a long track record of this sort of behaviour. In October 2012, he was found by the Federal Court to have used 'racially tainted, obscene and offensive language' on a Bechtel site when the union's accommodations were not up to the standards he had apparently become accustomed to.
Honourable members interjecting—
Those opposite can make fun of this. They can make a joke of this, but we actually think this is very, very serious. This continual lawlessness, which is being perpetrated by the CFMMEU on building sites right across the country, impacts not only on big businesses but also on mum-and-dad businesses. It is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a week every time the union black-bans a site or a small business. It's an absolute disgrace. Minister, individuals like this cannot be allowed to continue to terrorise and abuse ordinary working Australians. Would the minister therefore please outline for the House what the government is doing to ensure that individual union officials are held to account for their unlawful actions? In the case of the CFMMEU, however, it is far from a few bad apples like Mr Upton who are the problem. The CFMMEU has proved time and time again that it is fundamentally, systematically, even gleefully supported by its parliamentary wing—lawlessness at an institutional level. Justice Geoffrey Flick said of it:
It is difficult, if not impossible, to envisage any worse conduct than that pursued by the CFMEU.
Justice Rangiah stated that its conduct was 'deliberate, flagrant and systematic', while Justice Vasta suggested:
It is no understatement to describe the CFMEU as the most recidivist corporate offender in Australian history.
As many of us in this place know, employment is a big issue for older Australians. A big cause for concern, in particular, is holding on to work and being able to get work again if they should find themselves in the unfortunate position of losing their job. People aged 55 years and over make up 25 per cent of the population but only 16 per cent of the workforce. Some of the stats show that you might get 74 per cent of Australians aged 55 to 59 in the labour force, but, by the time they reach the 60- to 64-year-old cohort, that drops to 56½ per cent, and only 12 per cent of those aged 65 and above are still in the labour force. So workforce participation is a big issue.
Also, people are finding, as they get older, that the amount of time taken to find work again is extraordinary. On the stats, we're led to believe that, in some cases, it takes up to 73 weeks for a person in an older age bracket to find work again. And part of the problem is that a lot of older workers believe they're being actively discriminated against on the basis of their age. This has been backed up by survey findings that have been released previously by the Australian Human Rights Commission. Some of the survey work indicated that 27 per cent of people over the age of 50 had recently experienced discrimination in the workplace, and one-third of the recent episodes of discrimination apparently occurred when applying for a job. So it's a big issue.
Last year, the federal government announced in their 2017-18 budget that they would put in place a career transition assistance program. We were told there'd be some trials undertaken. We were told at the time that the program itself would commence in 2020. Part of that program was to do things that you would imagine jobactive should be doing right now—assess the skills and capabilities of older workers, see what can be done to address any training or skills gaps and help with preparation of resumes or job interview skills. This is the stuff that should happen right now, but, apparently, a new scheme had to be put in place to deal with that. In this year's budget, we find out the funding has been brought forward. The trial sites that have been selected will be overrun by the program actually beginning before the trials even end. The two-year trial has been reduced to a one-year trial commencing in 2018 in five regions chosen by the minister, who will not disclose how they came to this decision. We don't know if they're targeting particular Liberal seats or if they're targeting unemployment. Who knows? We don't have the info. Each trial site had a two-year contract to run the trial. That has now been reduced. The department and government haven't worked out how to manage the fact they're cutting the trial time in half. The department made a two-year contract with these businesses but doesn't have a plan to manage this. And the government says this is good for business.
In addition, just three months into the reduced one-year trial, the government will then begin the procurement process for the national rollout, just a quarter of the way through an already reduced trial. How can the national rollout possibly be based on the findings of the trial when the trial has barely got off the ground? The answer is that it will not be. This is just another prop for another media release and another let-down for those who are in need of support. The program was brought forward from 2020 to 2019 because consultation told the government that there was a sense the program was needed now. What a surprise! Older people are wanting help to find jobs already, and we find out that the government has discovered it's needed now. It's an indicator of how out of touch the government is that it didn't realise older jobseekers have a unique challenge when searching for work. But it seems the government did realise older Australians needed help when looking for work, and they saw an opportunity for yet another hollow announcement dressed up as options for older Australians. Let's look at those options.
There is $19.3 million for a skills and training incentive, relying heavily on a skills checkpoint managed by another department. There has been no formal negotiation on how they'll work with the Department of Jobs and Innovation. The government doesn't know how the program will be measured. When asked how it would measure the successful uptake of future employment, the answer was, 'This will be a difficult measure.' If the government's programs for older jobseekers aren't measured on getting them jobs, what's going on? There's a $15.2 million Job Change initiative, another program with no success measures developed and no review set. The $17.7 million entrepreneurship facilitators program has been expanded without an evaluation as to whether it was a success. It is a program where there is no set number of places and again no success measures. The collaborative partnership initiative is another program with no set number of places and no success measures. The program has no review process established to evaluate whether it's actually helped the older Australians it promised to assist. There is the Regional Employment Trials Program, costing $18.4 million, set to be rolled out over 10 'disadvantaged regions', a phrase the government is not able to define when asked for a definition. It is another program that has been announced, but it is not clear where in Australia it will be targeted and it has no success measures and no set evaluation point.
The point is that the government is telling older Australians that it understands what they're facing in the job market and that it will help them. But the truth is that assigning millions of dollars to program titles without even understanding what success will look like isn't going to help those in need. Would the minister agree that, in the world of business, with which we are told he is very familiar, knowing which side of the ledger success sits on would be important and not knowing it would be ruinous? How can he justify that the government is willing to put so many millions of dollars into programs desperately needed by older Australians without having a measure of success? Why, when there are so many failing jobs programs already on the government's books, would they again promise so much and plan so little when it comes to older jobseekers? When is the government going to provide detail of the programs, like what we can actually expect to see, or is it that the government are afraid to put out more figures when the ones they have set out to date have been so completely underachieved?
Obviously, there is a lot of territory to cover, so I will do my best to cover it as quickly as I can. To the member for Bendigo, my first response—if she did, and I take her at her word, send that strawberry business, as I think it was, to the Fair Work Ombudsman—is that I was in Perth last week on the phones, and there are four categories of calls and not one of them had an on-hold time of more than three minutes. I think the term was 'busy'; they got the busy signal. I don't know what that actually means, but my advice to her is to go back to that business and tell them to ring and dob in who it is they're talking about.
In terms of the Victorian bill and what we're doing about vulnerable workers, the vulnerable workers act—it's not a bill anymore; it's now an act; it's passed the Senate—
Ms Chesters interjecting—
I'll get to that in a minute, Member for Bendigo. The vulnerable workers act was an additional $20.1 million that was resourced to the Fair Work Ombudsman to attack this sort of behaviour—a job that is being done Australia-wide as we speak. In the Senate, those opposite actually voted against the act, they're so concerned about vulnerable workers! In terms of resourcing the Fair Work Ombudsman, in the opposition leader's time as the minister responsible for the Fair Work Ombudsman he cut resources. He cut their budget and their staff levels. There was no vulnerable workers act in his time. If those opposite are so concerned about it, why didn't they do something when they were in charge? We are doing something. We have done something—resourcing and empowering the Fair Work Ombudsman.
I am asked whether I support the Victorian legislation on labour hire. It will fail for exactly the reasons the member for Bendigo said—the sub-sub-subcontracting, the gangmaster behaviour. I'm investigating this right now. I'm a much bigger fan of the UK legislation in this space. We are looking at this right now. Why? Because gangmaster operatives will bypass both the Victorian and the Queensland legislation. It will fail for the exact reason that she has pointed out: it won't get the sub-sub-subcontractor. Where do I stand, and where does the Turnbull government stand, on people being underpaid and ripped off? I am personally offended by it and will do everything in my power to stop it. I can assure the member that I'm looking at this right now. In terms of labour hire as a general rule, the industry gets a dud rap. Don't forget that the overwhelming majority of employers who operate in this country do so absolutely within the law. Are there rogues? Yes. Should we catch them? Yes. Should we nail them the wall? Absolutely. If we need to change legislation to do it, we should do so, and we're looking at it right now.
I was asked about Youth Jobs PaTH. The 'prepare' section, employability skills training, has already helped 21,000 people. This is a tough space. That space of long-term unemployed 15- to 24-year-olds is a tough space. Are we prepared to try things in it? Yes, we are. Why? Because we're not prepared to let them become long-term, often intergenerationally, welfare dependent people. The 'prepare' section, employability skills, has trained 21,473 people, and 7,029 of those, or 32.7 per cent, have commenced jobs off the back of that trial. That's that section of it. Internships have helped 2,245 young interns to build their work experience. The 'hire' or youth bonus component of it has led to 24,653 jobs.
I was asked about what we are doing about the CFMEU. Obviously the ABCC and the Registered Organisations Commission have a lot on their plates. The member for Fisher very eloquently ran through some of the most recent behaviour we have seen from them.
I was asked about what we are doing for older Australians. The member for Chifley asked about that. In the budget we announced $189.7 million for the More Choices for a Longer Life package, which has a raft of measures that are again aimed at older Australians and acknowledge the employment journey for some of them, as the latest statistics for kids leaving school today are that they'll have 16 different jobs in five different industries over that journey. We need to be cognisant of that fact. We're trying things. If it doesn't work we'll tailor it, but we won't stop trying things. Why? Because, whether it's the long-term unemployed or people losing their jobs after the age of 50 or 55, we have to do the right thing by them. Do we have to measure and report back? Yes, we do. We'll do that as quickly and efficiently as we possibly can.
The Seasonal Worker Program is about aid. It's about giving workers in our Pacific region an opportunity to come to this country to help us in the agricultural space—to fill gaps in labour, particularly seasonal ones—and to earn some money under good working conditions and take it home. Unfortunately, the program, which is a Commonwealth employment program, has had a number of tragic deaths. A media report at the end of last year revealed that 13 people in the Seasonal Worker Program had tragically died while being here. Since then, there have been further deaths. This is a Commonwealth government program, and there has been report after report of worker exploitation, of workers not being paid or being paid as little as $8 or $6 an hour.
The first question has to be: how can this occur in a government employment program? What is the government doing in-country to ensure these workers (1) know what their rights are, and (2) are coming here and living in decent conditions? We know, through reports from the community, that many of these people live in squalid conditions, are underpaid and have dreadfully long working hours. This is a program that had so much potential, yet it has been plagued by constant exploitation, and it has been left up to the media and the unions to expose those problems. How has the government addressed all of these issues? Quite frankly, they have been very quiet on the issue.
Another area where the government have completely failed is the gig economy. Under the government's watch, we are now seeing people being paid as little as $5 or $6 an hour because of unfair employment conditions. The government talk so much about small business, but what are the government doing about unfair contracts for cafe and restaurant owners? Some of them have been forced by Uber Eats into contracts taking 35 per cent! If the government are so dead keen on supporting small business, just what are they doing to crack down on this kind of behaviour? The gig economy has promised so much opportunity. What we have seen through Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Uber and the gig economy is exploitation of the workers, and the Fair Work Ombudsman says, 'We are struggling to see how we can actually enforce rights here.' At the same time, we are seeing exploitation of small businesses, with cafe owners saying that they are being forced into unfair contracts, taking 35 per cent of the price. What are the government doing to address the growing problem that we have with the gig economy and how it is exploiting both workers and businesses?
Australia is one of the best countries in the world in which to live, work and raise a family, and Dunkley is one of the best places in Australia to do the same. However, we face global uncertainty and cannot take our prosperity and security for granted. Australia faces ongoing challenges, and we must work to keep our economy strong, to generate the jobs Australians need today and tomorrow, and to help hardworking Australian families get ahead. This is why the coalition government has a plan that is building a stronger economy by creating more and better-paid jobs; backing small business; boosting exports; delivering reliable and affordable electricity; building roads, rail and other infrastructure; and much more. I know the Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation and indeed members like my colleague the member for Fisher are doing a terrific job across Australia and in their own electorates in this regard.
In Dunkley, 71,471 people were in the labour force on census night in 2016—with hospitals, supermarkets and grocery stores, as well as aged-care services, being the top industries of employment. But only 31 per cent of those residents work in Dunkley. So there is a huge potential for local jobs growth. This is why the coalition government is investing within Dunkley to create jobs and retain local employment. For example, the Frankston to Baxter rail extension, which we announced $225 million towards in the recent federal budget, will create 4,000 jobs in our local area, not to mention its ongoing positive impacts and further job growth.
On the back of that, I am particularly supporting the investment in the Dunkley health and education precinct, which will increase employment, education and innovation on the Mornington Peninsula. This project will link in with the Baxter rail extension, due to a new station that will link the university and the hospital via a metro station, resulting in a potential increase of over 20 per cent enrolment in Monash University's Peninsula campus, and linking the university and the hospital, with health care being the major employer in our region.
These projects also help to grow small businesses in Dunkley, of which there are about 16,000. They are businesses like Eliza Doolittles in Frankston, which is run by Natalie; MicMacs in Frankston, run by Christine; Langwarrin Service Centre in Langwarrin, run by Paul; and Temptation Corner party shop run by Armajit in Carrum Downs. These are the businesses we need to help.
So what is the coalition doing for small business? We are continuing to reduce red tape across the SME sector. We are reducing tax rates down to 25 per cent over time, and we are continuing the $20,000 instant asset write-off for businesses to buy crucial assets like fridges, storage and more. It is an initiative, I note, whose concept was originated in Dunkley, by our former small business minister, and my predecessor, the Hon. Bruce Billson. I note that we are continuing to support businesses over time through these measures. I want to ask my first question, which is: Minister, how is the government working to achieve employment solutions in the regions and to help small businesses, especially in Dunkley?
I further note that we are also investing $20 million to help SMEs form local and regional business hubs so entities can work together and access new export markets and global supply chains. I've noted previously in this place the entrepreneurship in centres in Frankston like the Frankston Foundry, the Garden, the Loft and other hubs for innovation and local entrepreneurship. I note that we are providing $17.7 million to support entrepreneurs, including with mentoring and support, with a focus on those aged over 45 years. I note the national media coverage that was given to a local business that I mentioned in parliament recently and that the minister for small business knows well, Passel, which has a very innovative delivery service that started in my electorate of Dunkley and is now going across Australia and across the world. We have a huge potential for not only for entrepreneurship but, in a way, we are fast becoming the Silicon Valley of our area in Melbourne.
We are continuing to invest in entrepreneurship, and if we continue to invest in giving people a go, giving people opportunities and allowing for aspiration, which those opposite continue to oppose, then we can continue to see jobs growth in my electorate and across the country. My final question is: what are we doing to help entrepreneurs to promote innovation, particularly in small businesses in my electorate and across the country?
Minister, we're currently seeing the lowest wage growth in more than 20 years, under your watch. We've got underemployment being a serious concern, and we sadly see employment growth slowing. There are now 714,000 people unemployed, which is nearly 20,000 more than when the Abbott-Turnbull wrecking ball swung into office. That is on your watch. We see a coalition government in its fifth year that's, basically, been failing hard-working Australian families. In fact, you've done everything to undermine working Australians while sucking up to the top end of town. You've overseen the cutting of penalty rates, and you would know, Minister, how that affects people, particularly in the retail sector. We've seen our lowest paid workers suffering. We'll be seeing penalty rates cut again on 1 July, and then again on 1 July 2019, yet your government has done nothing about it.
We've seen your government bring back the ABCC, making it more difficult and less safe for workers in the construction industry. We've have seen the consequences of the ABCC interfering with the union's legitimate role of assisting workers with safety on construction sites. Minister, I have three brothers who work in the construction industry and quite a few nephews also who work in the construction industry. My younger brother, Timothy, sadly had two of his friends killed right beside him at the Twin Towns site back in 1988, something that he almost never recovered from, physically or mentally. So I know the important work that unions do in keeping workers safe, I've been a union organiser myself, but not in a dangerous industry like the construction sector.
We know, and you know, Minister, that unions must be able to access worksites to inspect safety concerns that are legitimately raised with them by their members. They must be able to do that without interference from the ABCC, and without misinformation being provided by the ABCC. In Queensland we have seen situations where the CFMEU have been refused legitimate right of entry to worksites when their members have requested their assistance. For example, the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing project has a well-documented history of health and safety incidents—you can see the newspaper reports on it—including some very serious plant rollovers at a dangerous worksite. There have been 17 accidents in a period of 18 months. Workers on that Toowoomba rail crossing site have a right to be safe at work and to go home to their families each night. But accidents are happening and workers are being seriously injured, and they are fearful.
The ABCC, rather than making workplaces safer, seems to be only concerned about stopping unions, such as the CFMEU, from talking to their members. Bad advice from the ABCC is allowing rogue builders to hide behind the organisation and not address the legitimate safety concerns of workers. It's just another part of the coalition government's unfair and anti-worker ideological agenda. As a former employer, Minister, you know that bad or rogue employers undercut good bosses, including good builders, who do the right thing. In their desperation to get their unfair and anti-worker ABCC legislation through the parliament, the coalition did a deal with Senator Xenophon. The pay-off to Senator Xenophon was that the government would commission a review into subcontractor payments in the construction industry. The Murray review was completed late last year.
We know there is an urgent need for a nationally consistent approach to security-of-payment laws. Your government received the Murray report more than five months ago. You've had time to consider the recommendations, but we haven't even heard whether or not you, Minister, accept these recommendations. We hope that you will not be deserting the associated small businesses that miss out on these payments. That can destroy families and businesses. Pacific Highway subcontractors in New South Wales are owed $7.3 million because the head contractor engaged by the New South Wales Liberal government has gone into liquidation. This is the exact problem that the Murray review recommendations address.
Senator Xenophon and the other crossbenchers that supported his amendments to the ABCC legislation were promised, by Minister Cash, 'meaningful reform' to improve compliance with security-of-payment laws. The coalition government took their votes on the back of those promises. And now, with firm recommendations from the Murray review in your office, you are sitting on your hands. The Turnbull government only looks after the top end of town. Whether it's workers or subcontractors relying on payments from building companies, this Turnbull government has done nothing to protect their wages, to protect their payments or to protect their safety.
Minister, when is this government going to stand up for Australian workers by stopping cuts to penalty rates and making building sites safer? (Time expired)
Again, that's a lot of territory to cover. To answer the member for Moreton's questions first, yes, we do have the Murray report. It has been released. It has been passed to the Building Ministers' Forum. In security payments, there is a duplication and we have federal and state considerations to make. I note that some states, like the member's home state of Queensland, have moved ahead with deemed bank accounts for the prime contractor. I have a personal view that this won't fix tier 2, tier 3, tier 4 or tier 5 subs. It doesn't address the problem, I know. Minister de Brenni pushed it back today, in a thinly veiled attempt to blame the former LNP government.
Because it won't work!
It won't work is the real reason, as my colleague here can well attest to. The member for Bendigo quoted the Fair Work Ombudsman as saying, 'We are struggling to see how we can enforce rights in the gig economy.' Obviously, that's just made up. The Fair Work Ombudsman only last week commenced action against foodora, which is a delivery service. This is an area of the gig economy she was waxing lyrical about. It's a pity the member for Chifley's not here, because, in 2015, Ed Husic accused Prime Minister Turnbull of not being nimble and agile. He said:
If start-ups come up with ways to transport people in a better and cheaper way than before then it makes no sense whatsoever for us to be stuck in old world thinking that says you can only use a traditional way to get around …
He thought that we should adopt Uber for the Public Service. The opposition and the Transport Workers Union want to rail against the gig economy, and this is the frustrating thing. The gig economy will be detailed and worked out by the Fair Work Ombudsman and by the Fair Work Commission, as cases are brought to it.
Already, Uber has had a case brought against it in the Fair Work Commission which questioned the nature of the employment, which the member for Bendigo was waxing lyrical about. She demonstrated only one thing: her complete ignorance of Labor's own Fair Work Act, their own Fair Work Commission and their own Fair Work Ombudsman, which I now have the privilege of overseeing, that are doing exactly what it is they were set up to do—that is, define the ongoing as innovation occurs in the employment space.
I note the member for Moreton raised the ABCC in terms of actions, and, in fact, it's completely the opposite to what he stated. In fact, 40 per cent of the cases that the ABCC have on their books are against employers. It isn't the fact that they are out there, day in, day out, bashing unions, and unions only. Again, under the Fair Work Act, the right of entry to a construction site is very clearly defined, and if the union members comply with the act they should be let on. If they're not, they can raise their concerns with the ABCC or the Fair Work Commission. This is how the law is being enforced.
Whilst those opposite want to make thinly veiled attacks on the personal integrity of Fair Work commissioners, as high as the Chief Justice himself, who was put in place by the Labor Party, not by me, I am in the politically ironic position of standing up for the integrity of their laws, their appointments and their system as they take an axe to it. And the only reason they're taking an axe to it—let's be very clear here—is the union business model is broken. There is no value-offering there. That's why they're down to less than 10 per cent of the private sector in employment. 'Change the rules' is about one thing and one thing only: the exploitation of a weak Labor leader, in Bill Shorten, who is completely reliant on union support for his leadership. He has done secret deals with them to ensure that's he's safe so that the member for Grayndler doesn't take him out.
What's going to happen at the end of it? Think of something like industry-wide bargaining. That is seriously being contemplated. We have not seen that in this country since the 1970s, when the rates of industrial disputation ran at 400 times what they do today. These are nut-job left-wing union policies. Sally McManus says it one day and Brendan O'Connor parrots it the next, and within six months it finds its way into the official policy platform of the Labor Party.
We are talking about compulsory casual conversion. How does a business operate when it needs flexibility? When it doesn't know when its trade's coming or whether it's going to rain or shine, and it has to cut its costs to fit, how's it going to do it? It can't. I get on well with the member for Moreton; he's a good mate of mine. I would beg him to go and look inside, to dig for—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
that's the kiss of death, isn't it, Graham!—the actual facts of the matter. (Time expired)
I think we're all very pleased to hear that's there's some friendship across the aisle. In that spirit, I'll call the member for Moreton again.
Since we won't have time for a response, I'm actually going to say something a little bit different to the minister. This is just to give a slightly personal story. As I said, three members of my family work in the construction industry. I'm going to mention a family tragedy that occurred three weeks ago. This is about my nephew Joel Perrett, who works in the construction industry as a crane operator. Unfortunately, he reversed over his daughter, Eloise, and killed her. Joel and Chevorn—it's the worst thing that can happen to a parent, the worst time you could have. Poor little Eloise, who was not quite two years old, was killed.
The CFMMEU, particularly Michael Ravbar and Jade from the Queensland branch, were incredible—just so you know—as were his employers, I'd point out, Minister. I'm sorry I can't say the name of the company off the top of my head. The employers were brilliant, and the CFMMEU members. I know you hear horror stories; I just want to tell you another story where they stepped up and were incredibly supportive. They put the hat around at building sites all around Queensland to help out. Obviously, nothing will change the tragedy, and poor Eloise is gone. But, for Joel and Chevorn, the CFMMEU members stepped up, supported them and put the hat around, and I think their employers matched it—just so you know, Minister, that I'm giving both sides of the story, for my colleague from the Sunshine Coast. A good employer will always look after their workers, and that's why I'm particularly against any rogue employers who make it harder for a good employer to do their job, because a good employer always knows that investing in your employees is a good thing. Thank you, Minister.
The Federation Chamber will now consider the industry, innovation and science, and the resources and northern Australia segments of the Jobs and Innovation portfolio, in accordance with the agreed order of consideration.
I am very pleased to speak about the budget for resources and northern Australia. The government is investing in a global positioning system technology that will create jobs and support Australian industry. It is investing over $261.8 million to develop satellite technology. Under this package, $160.9 million will deliver a satellite based augmentation system, or SBAS. This technology underpins GPS to improve the reliability and accuracy of positioning data from five metres to 10 centimetres across Australia and its maritime zone. This improved positioning will ensure safer navigation, for example, of ships into and out of Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay; enable real-time behavioural modelling for early disease detection for the livestock industry; and improve the safety of the aviation sector in remote and rural Australia.
The government will invest $64 million in the National Positioning Infrastructure Capability, NPIC, which will complement SBAS to improve GPS to an accuracy as precise as three centimetres in areas of Australia with access to mobile coverage. NPIC will establish a network of ground stations to create a coordinated, national infrastructure for positioning, navigation and timing data. The numerous applications will all have economy-wide benefits, quite obviously. Examples include location on smartphones; timing in energy and financial networks; logistics across transport systems; and self-steering machinery on farms, in mines and on construction sites.
A further $36.9 million is for Digital Earth Australia, a world-class technology which will provide Australian businesses greater access to reliable standardised satellite data that identifies physical changes to the entire Australian environment. This data can be used to develop new applications and information services for sectors throughout the economy, such as soil monitoring, coastal erosion, crop growth, water availability and, of course, water quality. DEA will make it more affordable for Australian businesses, researchers and individuals to access satellite data, which can then be used to develop new applications and information services for sectors right across the economy, right across the country.
The government will invest additional funds in 2018-19 for the completion of a detailed business case for a national facility to address Australia's radioactive waste management requirements. The continuation of site engineering investigations and significant community consultation will ensure that decisions on a preferred site can be progressed without delay.
The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a $5 billion investment made in the 2016-17 budget by this government, continues to implement loan payments to encourage and complement private sector investment in economic infrastructure that, very importantly, benefits the future development of northern Australia. I also note that expenditure supporting northern Australia in Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-19 continues to be discussed by a wide range of ministers at the same time. I commend the bill to the chamber.
The minister just mentioned the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, and I want to ask him a question about it. The NAIF was announced by the government more than three years ago. In fact, it was three years and 40 days ago that this government announced the NAIF. Not much has happened since. I've called it the most constipated organisation that this government has ever created. Finally we're starting to see some movement. We've had one announcement of a project in Western Australia, one in the Northern Territory and I see today that the government has just made an announcement of a project in Queensland, the Genex project in Kidston, west of Townsville. I welcome that. It's a good project. I've been calling on the government to fund this project now for almost 12 months. So I say it's about time that this project was funded. But, even with that, the NAIF has still now only funded three projects in three years. It could do a lot better than that.
Minister, I draw your attention to the fact that, whilst the NAIF has announced funding for three projects, it still hasn't allocated any funding to any of those projects. As a result, the NAIF still hasn't done what it's supposed to do, which is to help build infrastructure, to create jobs in northern Australia. It has, however, spent a lot of money on a lot of other things. It has spent about $1 million on executive salaries and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel. It has spent millions of dollars on wages, for a lot of staff who don't even live in northern Australia. Most of the staff who work for the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility live in Sydney or Melbourne.
Let me make it clear to the chamber: the Labor Party opposition wants the NAIF to succeed. It is a big and important opportunity that this parliament needs to get right—$5 billion of funding to help drive investment in infrastructure that's going to help the north grow and help to create jobs in the north, in places like Townsville, which the member for Herbert represents, and where, as she knows better than most, people are desperate for work. The NAIF can help to fix that, but it can't do that if it's not investing in projects to create the jobs. Three projects in three years is not good enough, and announcing three projects and not allocating funding to them is not good enough.
I want to draw the minister's attention to the NAIF's corporate plan, because it sets a benchmark of what the NAIF will achieve. It says that, by the end of this financial year, it will have completed transactions worth $300 million to $1 billion. That's the target—that the NAIF will have completed transactions to the value of $300 million to $1 billion. As I just said before, as at two weeks ago, when we asked this question in estimates, it still hasn't allocated a dollar to any project. The end of the financial year is coming. It's next Saturday. It's only 10 days away. So my question to the minister is directly on this. You've announced three projects. You haven't completed transactions on any of them, to the best of our knowledge. Will the NAIF complete the transactions on these three projects by next Saturday? Most particularly, will it complete the transaction on this Genex deal that's been announced today, as promised in the corporate plan, within 10 days time, by next Saturday?
My electorate of Fisher has benefited significantly from the coalition government's Stronger Communities Program. The program has been a huge success in delivering on the coalition's commitment to supporting social benefits in communities all over Australia. Just in rounds 2 and 3 in my electorate, the program has funded 45 separate community projects, with grants of between $2,600 and $20,000. As the minister well knows, sporting clubs can be a particularly valuable way of bringing the community together. Young people, parents, volunteers and older-life members—sporting clubs often attract local residents from all walks of life in a common cause.
For many people a sports club provides the heart of their social activities. As such, sporting clubs in Fisher have benefitted especially from previous rounds of the Stronger Communities Program. Caloundra Junior Rugby Union Club received $6,000 towards a PA system, while the Caloundra City Boxing received $5,000 support for new equipment. Ten thousand dollars went to Kawana Park Junior Australian Football Club for new undercover areas, and Caloundra Mallet Sports Club got $4,000 to renovate their clubhouse. Maleny District Sports and Recreation Club won a grant of $12,000 to improve their fencing, while Kawana Waters Swimming Club, Maleny Golf Club, Caloundra Cricket Club, Suncoast Hinterland BMX Club and Outrigger Caloundra Canoe Club have also benefitted from grants. Would the minister please outline for the House what benefits sporting clubs in Australia can expect to see from round 4 of the Stronger Communities Program?
Personally, one of the communities that has been most important in my own life is surf lifesaving, in particular the club where I'm a patrol captain, Alexandra Headland. Surf clubs engender the spirit of volunteerism. They provide young people with important life skills and make beaches safer for all of us. In Fisher, our surf clubs have also been beneficiaries of the Stronger Communities Program. Kawana Waters Surf Life Saving Club received $10,000 for a new IRB and an upgrade to their patrol shed, while Surf Life Saving Queensland in Mooloolaba got $5,000 for equipment for their little nippers challenged youth program. Alongside the surf clubs, our coast guard volunteers do a tremendous amount to keep our boaties safe. The Australian Volunteer Coast Guard in Caloundra have a new trailer for a search and rescue vessel as a result of the Stronger Communities Program. Would the minister please outline for the House how surf clubs, our local coastguards and other community organisations throughout Australia will be able to get involved and apply for a grant under round 4 of this program?
A strong community depends on its volunteers, Mr Deputy Speaker Gee, as you well know. It depends on the people who are willing to give up their time to help those less fortunate than themselves, to provide much needed facilities or to preserve a community's heritage. In Fisher, many of these groups have also received grants under the Stronger Communities Program. Caloundra Woodworking Club, which brings local seniors together to socialise and work with their hands, has received two grants under this program to replace an important lathe and refurbish its kitchen facilities. Our vital Rotary clubs in Alexandra Headland, Maleny and Caloundra got more than $30,000 worth of support in total for new storage, storage containers and a cover for a netball court. The CCSA Hall, a much loved local landmark in Caloundra, was provided with the $5,000 it needed to get curtains to keep the midsummer Queensland sun off the young dancers who use that space. Peachester Community Hall will be better able to preserve our local heritage with their new archive room, supported by a $15,000 grant, while, nearby, the Maleny Cultural & Historical Society received $2,600 towards the refurbishment of Lawley House. Celebrate Glasshouse Country upgraded their park facilities. Diggers Rest in Beerwah, which operates a 22-acre place of respite for former and currently serving members of the ADF, used its grant of $2,500 towards the construction of a children's playground. Minister, would you update the chamber about how round 4 of the Stronger Communities Program will work and benefit all Australians?
My question to the minister revolves around the fact that in this year's budget you have not funded one cent for vital infrastructure in Townsville. You have not committed one cent for long-term water security infrastructure. You have not committed one cent for energy infrastructure. You have not committed one cent for the Townsville Port Expansion Project. The people in my electorate can very clearly see that the Turnbull government is not committed to the electorate of Herbert. Townsville's unemployment crisis falls squarely on the LNP's shoulders.
Under the Abbott-Turnbull governments, Townsville has become the capital in the nation for two things. We were the jobless capital and now we are the insolvency capital of the nation. Townsville's unemployment rate has almost doubled under the Abbott-Turnbull governments. When Labor left federal government in 2013, Townsville's unemployment rate was lower than both the state and national averages. Now Townsville's unemployment rate is higher than the state average and almost double the national average. Under the previous Labor government, manufacturing in Townsville was soaring. When Labor left the federal government in 2013, more than 8,400 people were employed in the manufacturing industry. But, under the Abbott-Turnbull governments, manufacturing has nosedived, with job losses of over 3,000. There were 442 fewer construction industry business registrations last year compared with 2012, and 153 fewer retail business registrations in the same period. Yet, in this year's federal budget, Labor got nothing but cut after cut after cut.
Minister, allow me to explain what your lack of investment in infrastructure is doing to the people of Herbert. Allow me to explain the detrimental effects of your government's cuts to my community. And then, after I have asked my question, can you please tell me how you think completely ignoring my community is a good idea. Your decision not to fund vital long-term water infrastructure in my community will result in Townsville eventually being declared in drought again. With our dam less than 15 per cent full again, the community will be forced back to level 3 water restrictions again, costing the council in excess of $34,000 a day in pumping costs—again. Your decision not to fund energy infrastructure in Townsville will further drive up the cost of electricity bills, which have already doubled under the LNP. The continual skyrocketing of power bills will force local businesses to shut their doors, and workers, pensioners and families will struggle to pay their electricity bills. Your decision not to fund the port expansion project will result in dual-hull ships carrying our fuel to bypass Townsville Port and go directly to Brisbane. That fuel will then be trucked back to Townville, causing more maintenance on the Bruce Highway, but, more importantly, exponentially driving up the cost of fuel for Townsville residents. Your decision not to fund infrastructure will ensure that not one new infrastructure job will be created in our community, where, on your watch, unemployment has almost doubled. Townsville now has the fourth worst unemployment rate in regional Queensland.
Your $14.8 million in cuts to Townsville schools will ensure that around one in three teachers will lose their jobs. Your $9 million in cuts to Townsville health and hospital services will ensure that doctors, nurses and staff will lose their jobs. Your $36 million cuts to James Cook University and $38 million cuts to Central Queensland University will ensure that degrees are cancelled and jobs are lost, and students in North Queensland will not be able to access some higher education courses in Townsville. In fact, that is already happening with James Cook University, as they are being forced to cancel their creative arts degrees. Your cuts to aged care have ensured that, right now in my community, 323 people in North Queensland are sitting on a waiting list to access a home care package and won't be able to do so any time soon. Your cuts to the ABC will ensure that we lose our local ABC presence. Townsville ABC suffered under your last round of cuts, and we know we are going to suffer again. Your cuts to the National Partnership on Remote Housing will ensure that seven apprenticeships are lost on Palm Island. Your cuts to Project Booyah will ensure that teens at risk will not get the help they need.
You seem very happy with this long list of cuts for the people of Herbert, whilst at the same time you are very happy to fund an $80 billion tax handout to big business and the banks. My question to the minister is very simple: why are you refusing to fund Townsville's long-term water security infrastructure, why are you refusing to fund our energy infrastructure and why are you refusing to fund our vital port expansion project?
The $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility is a game changer for northern Australia. The NAIF is partnering with the private sector and governments of northern jurisdictions to provide concessional loans to encourage and complement private sector investment in infrastructure that benefits northern Australia. I have to concede there have been some teething problems. However, to iron out these problems and to increase the flexibility of the NAIF and improve its potential to support projects in northern Australia, the government recently removed the debt cap, redefined eligibility of infrastructure proposals, removed the requirement to comprehensively test the market gap for finance and broadened the definition of 'economic infrastructure' in the investment mandate. These have all been very, very positively received in the market.
However, the biggest impediment to the NAIF funding is the Queensland Labor government. The Queensland government certainly has form in not wanting to engage with the federal government for the betterment of the state and its residents. They are hell-bent on ensuring that projects in Queensland, including in my electorate, never get off the ground. They're more interested, unfortunately, in playing politics. Essentially, they have made a conscious decision to put their own self-interest and that of their candidates ahead of every single Queenslander. All you have to do is have a look at their decisions to veto the Adani loan to win votes in the south-east corner during the state election campaign. The question that must be asked is: is the Queensland government actually engaged with the NAIF? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
There are currently about 61 Queensland projects in the NAIF pipeline, including the Nullinga Dam project that would provide water security for generations to come. Eight of these projects are in the due diligence stage. However, not a single Queensland government owned or controlled corporation has put forward a single project for consideration, and I think this is very disappointing. In fact, NAIF has identified 14 infrastructure project opportunities where there may be a potential for NAIF to consider co-funding assets procured by Queensland government owned corporations. NAIF has previously written to Queensland Deputy Premier and Treasurer Jackie Trad and previous state Treasurer Curtis Pitt regarding these opportunities. Unfortunately, neither has bothered to reply.
To date, no proponents of these 14 identified projects have formally requested NAIF finance or provided detailed business case and financial information. NAIF continues to express its interest in working with the Queensland government owned corporations and other relevant stakeholders. Put simply, the Queensland Labor government doesn't want to engage with NAIF. The question is: why doesn't it want to? I suggest to you that it is not because the government is flush with money and does not need financial assistance. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, the state certainly has significant debt which is tipped to soar to about $83 billion in the next few years.
I do have a few questions I'd like to ask about projects in my area. I mentioned the Nullinga Dam, but there are others as well, including the dredging of the Cairns inlet. Could the minister advise the programs and funding that were being made available for water projects in the north? How much money has the coalition government provided for water feasibility studies? How many water feasibility studies are there? How many have commenced and how many have been completed? When are the remaining feasibility studies due to be completed? How will water security assist us in the north? And what will the building of the Rookwood Weir mean for the people of Central Queensland?
I start by pointing out that the minister's not here. I don't know how I'm going to get any answers to any of my questions. Are you going to do that? But it's typical of the lack of respect for northern Australia that the minister can't even be here. I also bring to the attention of the chamber the fact that it's been 285 days since the Prime Minister has set foot in the Northern Territory. Quite frankly, it should not have taken a scathing article in the NT News for him to communicate with the Far North of Australia. He got one of his staff to pen what can only be described as a pretty dry and impersonal piece, where he said he'll always back Territorians to the hilt. What a crock! I wish the member for Leichhardt was still here, because he knows about crocodiles and he knows a croc when he sees it. The article was titled 'Meet Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister for the South.' If that did not make them uncomfortable then the next day's front page certainly did, and I quote: 'Simply does not care'. The Prime Minister simply does not care about northern Australia, and deep down, in places they don't talk about at harbour-side cocktail parties, they know it's true. That's why it's a bit uncomfortable.
Please, I don't want to hear from those opposite about how the $260 million GST top-up to the NT government was evidence of caring. I mean, that's a crock! We're talking about giving with one hand and taking with the other; it's not extra money. This is after billions of dollars have been ripped away from the coffers of the Northern Territory. They're just some crumbs to placate Territorians, but let's be honest about the situation as it pans out for the Northern Territory. There has been around $70 million ripped out of our schools—not helpful—and $30 million ripped out of Charles Darwin University. That's not very agile. And there has been $16 million ripped out of our public hospitals. That's not smart; that's just dumb.
Minister, or the person standing in for one of the ministers in this portfolio, you don't need much of a bulldust radar to realise that the Turnbull government's not backing the Territory. What I think we need—we've had more evidence this morning with Minister McVeigh not even being here—is this government to show the people of the Northern Territory some respect.
Our economy is facing some headwinds, so what we need is federal government investment now, not when it's politically convenient for the Prime Minister to visit, and not when he's received a shellacking in the NT News, but now. Territory companies are telling me they're having to let people go. The City Deal is a great example where investment needs to occur. We need that City Deal signed now, because Territory businesses are closing their doors now. Those opposite can do something to help that situation. They can get off their collective dates and finalise the Darwin City Deal now. We've heard a lot about the NAIF, that up until recently has done naifing, but now we have just one project in each jurisdiction that's been funded. The funding for the Humpty Doo Barramundi Farm is good, but we need those projects within the NAIF expedited. There are very real, here and now implications for Territorians from the Turnbull government's neglect of the Territory. As I said, Territory businesses are closing their doors, now. Territorians are losing their jobs, now. Territorians are having to move south, now. Those opposite have the power to change that, yet you don't. That's my question, why? Why can't the City Deal be signed now? Territorians need this support now. So expedite the NAIF funding for Territory projects, reverse the damaging cuts to our education and health systems, and above all, start showing some respect for the Territory and the capital of the north, now.
My comments are directed to Minister McVeigh, but I thank the Minister for Small Business for being here today in his stead. While we can always do better, infrastructure spending in my electorate has been very pleasing. Since the last budget, we've seen the completion of the Albany tourist bureau redevelopment project, where there was a $997,000 contribution from the Commonwealth government. I was at the opening of the Manjimup wellness centre with over 250 people just the other week, where there was another $350,000 contribution from the Commonwealth government, leveraging about $1.5 million of investment.
The Yeerakine Lodge in Kondinin, a wonderful little facility caring for aged people in that area, has received $600,000 from the Commonwealth government, and that project is moving towards completion. The Pingelly recreation centre, which has received $3.5 million from the Commonwealth government, is a very unique project—a rec centre built completely out of wood; no steel whatsoever. It's going to be a remarkable piece of architecture, and I congratulate the Pingelly shire and the community on the work that they've done.
A particular favourite project of mine is the Nyabing community hub—I know they've pulled down the old hotel in Nyabing, which they will replace with a new licensed venue that will also have coffee shops, and offices for visiting specialists and businesspeople. That's a contribution from the Commonwealth government of $825,000, but the other 50 per cent has been contributed by funds raised by the community.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 11:46 to 11:57
The big infrastructure project across my electorate that's got me and the people of the northern goldfields very excited about is the Outback Way. This road links Laverton in the goldfields of Western Australia to Winton in western Queensland. It's 2,700 kilometres long. It's referred to as Australia's longest short cut. There are about 1,200 kilometres of bitumen and 1,600 kilometres that still need sealing. When that road's sealed it will link Perth and Cairns and will become a new inland freight route. It will also be very much used by tourists and the increasing numbers of grey nomads who spend the winter months on the road.
On top of the $38 million that the Commonwealth government invested in the Outback Way in the 2016 budget we've announced $160 million in the 2018 budget. I know that the shire president of Laverton, my dear friend Patrick Hill, is very excited about that. And they're doing their bit. They're laying blacktop at the rate of about $270,000 a kilometre, which is an extraordinary effort in a very remote region. They're doing a fantastic job of getting that road sealed as quickly as possible.
My electorate of O'Connor is predominantly a mining and agriculture one. The mining industry contributes over $11 billion to the economy, mainly based on gold but increasingly nickel, lithium and cobalt, the products that are riding the new battery-technology wave. It's been an incredibly rich area. We celebrated the 125th anniversary of the discovery of gold on the weekend, but we still need to explore for new resources. That's where the GPS technology that I'm about to ask the minister about comes into play. Automated vehicles, increasingly technological prospecting and surveying, and mapping rehabilitation are all very important issues for the mining industry, in relation to GPS. Agriculture, which is my industry, my first love, produces about $4.7 billion worth of product out of my electorate. They're mainly broadacre crops—wheat, barley and canola. As technology is improving, GPS technology is becoming absolutely crucial for the industry.
Minister, I have three questions for you. Firstly, in the recent budget, the government committed $260 million to developing satellite technology for GPS, or global positioning system, technology. Where is this money going to be spent? Can you please tell me more about the Satellite-Based Augmentation System and the National Positioning Infrastructure Capability and what their benefits are? Finally, can you please tell me how the $37 million that the government has committed to Digital Earth Australia will be spent?
Townsville is the largest city in northern Australia. As such, we have a huge role to play in the development of northern Australia. That is why the lack of funding coming through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility—or, as we like to call it, the 'No Australia Infrastructure Facility'—has had a dreadful impact on our community in terms of infrastructure projects. Townsville has the largest Defence population in the nation; therefore, we have the largest population of veterans, ex-serving personnel and their families. We desperately need investment in infrastructure that will create jobs for veterans and ex-serving personnel as they transition from the services to civilian life. This is an incredibly challenging time for veterans and their families. The No. 1 priority that veterans talk to me about is the need for a job. It is also a massive issue for their partners and spouses and, in some cases, children who have left school. We need to see infrastructure funding coming into our community, to ensure jobs for these people who have given of their lives so selflessly to ensure that we can live in a country with the freedoms that we experience here.
We also have a desperate need to see ongoing funding into veterans' mental health and health services. Minister, it is a very interesting situation that we find. The budget saw a $40.7 million cut to veterans' dental and allied health services. Why has this occurred?
We also have seen savage cuts and the devastation of our TAFE system. This has created a huge problem for the building of the skills that we need as we move into the future. We have significant skill shortages in our community, across nearly all trades.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 12:03 to 12:15
TAFE is an essential component in the building of skills into the future for our young people and mature-aged people transitioning into jobs of the new economies.
One of the issues I would also like to raise with the minister is why we are cutting university funding to James Cook University to the tune of $36 million and Central Queensland University to the tune of $38 million when we know that only half the number of students are transitioning to university in regional centres. Cutting the funds to the universities in the electorate of Herbert will have a devastating impact on the young people in my community who wish to attend university.
The other issue of huge significance where we need to see significant funding is that of aged care. We are seeing medical wards and the subacute unit at the Townsville Hospital and Health Service overburdened with elderly people who should have access to residential aged-care beds or assistance in their home. That is simply not happening. It is incredibly distressing for those elderly citizens, their families and the communities that they belong to. It also means that we cannot bring people who need admission to hospital into medical wards, because the beds are taken by people who need a bed in a residential aged-care facility.
Finally, the infrastructure that we need in our community, which will also create jobs, is the NBN. It is an absolute disaster in my community. For example, in the suburb of Douglas, where a lot of university students live and where the university is located, the NBN is so poor students are moving away from that area to live in other parts of the city because they cannot get good quality internet access. So my question to the minister is: why won't this government invest in vital infrastructure projects in the electorate of Herbert?
It's my great pleasure to rise and ask the excellent minister a question in relation to his portfolio. As the member for Corangamite—I'm very pleased to say that I will continue to be the member for Corangamite after the redistribution boundaries were announced today, but I'll have more to say about that a little later in the afternoon—I'm absolutely delighted to rise and speak about the incredible way in which our government is backing small business and jobs.
Let's not forget that this Leader of the Opposition has declared a war on business. They were his words—a war on business. The 90 per cent of Australians who work in the private sector for a small, medium or large business know they have no friend in the Leader of the Opposition and in this disgraceful Labor Party, which has deserted business in droves. We now know that they are going to reverse some very important company tax deductions that we have delivered already to small business. Our aim is to drive company tax rates down to 25 per cent to make us competitive, to ensure we are not going to drive jobs offshore, to make us globally competitive, and to drive investment, jobs and opportunity, but what the Labor Party wants to do is drive those jobs offshore. The Labor Party is so unprincipled, so removed from the Labor Party of old, that it doesn't even have the courage to stand up for coalmine workers. That's what this Labor Party is all about now.
I'm incredibly pleased about our plan to cut taxes for small and medium-sized enterprises, and large companies, to 25 per cent and to increase the unincorporated business discount to 16 per cent. These policies include the instant asset tax write-off, where every single item can be written off to the tune of up to $20,000. That's made an enormous difference to business. I'm so proud of what we're doing in the Corangamite electorate and of the way in which our investments in small and medium-sized businesses are resonating. Look at some of the wonderful announcements we've made under the Regional Jobs and Investment Packages—$20 million investing in 21 businesses. They include $5 million for LeMond Composites, which will be Australia's very first carbon fibre manufacturing facility. There are many other wonderful investments. In fact, last week I was at Austeng and declared open the Barton engine, which is being supported under the RJIP fund. That also has the potential to turn waste heat into electricity, with incredible applications. It's a very exciting innovation and a really good example of how we on the ground in Geelong are making a real difference. The Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund and recent manufacturing announcements show our support for really important businesses like Carbon Revolution and Boundary Bend Limited.
There are wonderful announcements in our budget. There is $50 million more for rail as we grow. As we are now the fastest-growing region in Australia, we desperately need that infrastructure. In total, $150 million has been announced by the Commonwealth for the rail duplication project in Southern Geelong. There's only a paltry $10 million from state Labor, which is really pathetic. As part of our growth, as part of our future, there are other wonderful investments, like $20 million in our new international terminal. This is why our economy is transitioning as it is and why there is such excitement. Victoria is about to receive its second international airport, at Avalon, and we are so proud.
Right across the economy we are making a huge difference, led by this minister, to small and medium-sized businesses. I ask the minister how the Australian government is encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to innovate and create jobs, including in my electorate of Corangamite, which has been going absolutely gangbusters since the Turnbull government was elected in 2013.
In this process there is a lot of ground to cover. I've listened to a lot of people ask a lot of questions, so I'll attempt as best I can to cover a broad range here. The member for Blaxland asked if money for the Onslow Marine Support Base project would 'get out the door', I think his term was, by the end of the financial year. He claimed there had been no money out the door yet on that. I'm guessing that means 'spent'. The answer is: on 15 June, the first loan drawdown for $3.4 million was released as part of that $16.8 million.
In terms of NAIF, broadly, and questions relating to it, as of May 2018 NAIF had received 216 inquiries, of which 97 are currently active. There are 18 projects in the due diligence stage, encompassing a broad range of sectors, and they are spread across three different jurisdictions. The member for Herbert claimed that we have deserted 'the workers', I think her term was, of Herbert. Instead of turning up at Clive Palmer's press conferences and yelling abuse at him, we've taken a somewhat different approach. It's not big on theatrics but it's big on results. We have paid out $66.78 million to the 759 employees affected by the closure of Queensland Nickel under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Act. We are pursuing those monies in court. I do note that a couple of weeks ago the Queensland Supreme Court made a freezing order in the amount of approximately $205 million against the assets of Mr Palmer. We welcome that announcement, and we'll let the case take its journey through the courts.
The member for Herbert claimed that infrastructure is not being supported in Townsville. Here's a summary of some expenditure—Bruce Highway, Townsville, northern access intersections upgrade, $57,600,000; the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program for Townsville City Council, which is an upgrade of three intersections and lanes on Ingham Road, some $5.9 million; under the Building Better Regions Fund, the Bwgcolman Retail and Business Precinct stage 2, $9.994 million; under the Bridges Renewal Program, Townsville City Council, Heatleys Parade bridge upgrade, 248 grand; the community development grant, between 2013 and 2016 election commitments, Illich sports park, $5 million; and the construction of a driver education and motor sport precinct, $5 million. If the member for Townsville wants to be a help, I would suggest she talks to her mates at the CFMEU in town and get them to cease blowing out the Townsville city stadium project, which we're now hearing could move from $250 million to $300 million—a some 30 per cent increase.
The answer to the member for Leichhardt's question about water infrastructure is that the government has invested $2.6 billion in water infrastructure. It comes in two main ways: $580 million through the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund and $2 billion through the National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility Fund through northern Australia.
I note that the member for Solomon is here. He raised a question about a city deal—or lambasted the minister for not being here and then asked a question that wasn't in the minister's portfolio. I'm pleased to announce that in the most recent division I spoke to the minister responsible, Minister Fletcher. He has met with your Lord Mayor there, as late as last night. It is in what he hopes to be the later stages of due diligence. But I note the member for Herbert completely excluded from her—I do note the member for Solomon pursuing the city deal. He could maybe ask the member for Herbert what it's like to land one, because there's been one landed by Townsville through no hard work of hers.
Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor, asked about the $261 million for the world-class satellite and positioning. The better GPS for regional Australia accounts for $160.9 million of that. He asked about the world class satellite imagery. There's going to be $36.9 million for Digital Earth Australia to provide satellite imaging, which is, as he said, a crucial game-breaker for regional and rural Australia.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
It's great to be able to speak in relation to this bill today, which encapsulates the budget as outlined by the Treasurer on budget night. The centrepiece and theme of this year's budget and the appropriation bill we're speaking about today, in essence, is about unleashing every individual, every small business, every company and, indeed, every Australian to aspire to be their very best and do more to, in the end, create prosperity for themselves, prosperity for our community and prosperity, ultimately, for our country.
The centrepiece of this bill is, of course, the Personal Income Tax Plan—much spoken about in this place over the last couple of weeks. In the end, this is a Personal Income Tax Plan consistent with our values that will make taxes lower—importantly lower—fairer and simpler. This seven-year plan will improve incentives to strive for success. Firstly, it will provide relief to over 10 million low- and middle-income earners. It's very important that the government ensure that the first beneficiaries of personal income taxes will be those low- and middle-income earners. Secondly, the government will also ensure that Australians are protected from the effects of bracket creep. Bracket creep, which is a technical term used far too often in this place, is in essence just an erosion of your salary and wages by ever-higher taxes. By tackling bracket creep, we ensure that those millions of Australians who are moving into ever-higher tax brackets ultimately get to keep more of their own money, ensuring that in essence and in effect they're not paying a higher rate of tax on the effective power of their dollar.
Thirdly, we want to simplify and flatten our entire personal income tax system. We have a very progressive tax system, a tax system where the top 23 per cent of taxpayers pay 65 per cent of all income tax. We've got a tax system where, in essence, 70 per cent of taxpayers carry almost the entire system. And, in our view, those individuals deserve some tax relief just as much as low- and middle-income earners do, too. So, whilst they're not eligible for that tax relief as early as those on low and middle incomes, we think that, in step 3 of the plan, by flattening the personal income tax system, we will be assisting them in a way that is tangible and in a way that in the end will fuel aspiration and entrepreneurialism and, again, ensure that people get to keep more of their own money. Much will be said about that. The Personal Income Tax Plan is the centrepiece of this appropriation bill. We think it's very important to ensure we meet the dual measures of providing that relief and fuelling further economic growth by improving confidence in the economy.
On the revenue side, we're better targeting the research and development tax incentive to ensure that it's fit for purpose, to ensure that it is there to provide genuine R&D activities in Australia with a tax concession. We have a package of measures to tackle the black economy, to expand the taxable payments reporting system, to ensure that we're limiting the amount of illicit tobacco from an excise perspective. We've got payment limits to ensure that the black economy is dampened to the greatest extent possible, and we've established a multiagency standing Black Economy Taskforce. There are a range of other tax integrity and compliance measures to address gaps in the tax rules, to ensure foreigners and multinational companies are paying an appropriate amount of tax, to promote fairness in the system and to ensure the ATO have the tools they need to enforce the integrity of our tax system.
We're also protecting Australians' super. There's a huge pool of money and we have taken a range of measures to ensure that individuals are not paying for insurance they don't need and to ensure that individuals are not paying fees on multiple accounts which are of no benefit to them. We are banning exit fees and reuniting small and inactive accounts. Those things are all part of this appropriation bill.
Over a year ago, Labor called on the government to act on the problem that's facing independent mechanics who aren't getting access to the software updates they need to fix modern cars. Modern cars are computers on wheels, with 20 to 50 onboard computers. Without access to those data, independent mechanics can't fix cars. Independent mechanics account for about four in five mechanics in Australia. In the course of last year, Labor's call for a mandatory code of conduct—not the ineffective voluntary code of conduct but a mandatory code—has been backed by independent mechanics, automotive clubs, insurance firms and consumer groups. A mandatory code is the sort of approach that's worked in the United States and the European Union. It recognises that, if you're somebody who is in a remote or regional area, you may have access only to independent mechanics.
I was recently on Bribie Island with Susan Lamb, Labor's terrific candidate for Longman, and we were talking to an independent mechanic who made the point that some of the older residents on Bribie Island are reluctant to drive their cars off Bribie Island. They're getting on in years and, while they're comfortable driving on the island, they don't want to drive on the mainland. And yet there is not a single authorised dealer on Bribie Island. That means that, if someone buys a modern car that requires software updates or reinitialisation codes, the manufacturers' current reluctance to share those data with independent mechanics means that that resident of Bribie Island is faced with either not getting their car fixed or else taking a drive off the island that they regard as risky.
Labor's policy is pro-choice, pro-consumer and pro-independent mechanics. It will support jobs and apprenticeships in the independent mechanics sector. No-one tells you what car to buy, and no-one should tell you where to get it fixed. But the government has failed to follow Labor's lead. It has an ACCC report that was handed down at the end of last year that lays down a pathway as to what can be done. But, while Labor is committed to a mandatory data-sharing code, all we have is giggles from the minister opposite. Frankly, giggles aren't good enough for the independent mechanics who are going to the wall. Giggles aren't good enough for the independent mechanics who are currently struggling to fix modern cars. They know that Labor will support them with a mandatory data-sharing code. We hope that the government will ultimately pick up this idea, as it has done with so many other good Labor ideas over the course of government, from the bond aggregator to closing superannuation loopholes. Once they've tried all the other options, sometimes the Liberals do the right thing.
Then we have the Liberals' approach to banking misconduct. Following the Storm Financial collapse in 2009, Labor's Bernie Ripoll convened a parliamentary joint committee inquiry into the role of the financial services sector, spending nearly a year examining the industry and producing an important report. But, instead of supporting the subsequent Future of Financial Advice reforms, the Liberals tried to thwart them in 2012 and tried to reverse them in 2013, with Senator Sinodinos attempting to sneak out a FOFA repeal in the shadows of Christmas 2013. In the 2014 budget, the Abbott government slashed $120 million from ASIC's budget—around 12 per cent of its budget and around 200 staff. We've seen the government supporting the old, risky model and trying such tricks as removing the best-interest test from the legislation. As Bernard Keane in Crikey put it:
At every stage, the Liberals have gone to the mat for the big banks and financial planners, prepared to remove regulations, cripple the regulator, attack their competitors — and prevent scrutiny via a royal commission.
The fact is: the Turnbull government only supported a banking royal commission after the banks called for it. It took the Australian Banking Association to call for a banking royal commission before the Turnbull government would support it. We've seen since then the scandals that have made clear that Labor was right to call for a royal commission. If we'd had one when Labor first called for it, then we would now be acting on the recommendations of that royal commission rather than being nearly two years late in dealing with the issue of banking misconduct.
Normally we get the dorothy dixers from this side of the chamber, but I will happily accept this one from the member for Fenner. I welcome his late conversion to the issue of access to information for independent repairers. As I said in a speech on 4 May, a number of weeks before the member for Fenner belatedly made a non-news announcement, the government has announced that we are progressing a package to ensure that there is mandatory access to information for independent repairers. Why is it important to put the politics aside? It's important because we know that, as a consumer, as an owner of a vehicle, if you have a mechanic or a repairer that you know and you trust—someone perhaps who has repaired your cars for a number of years, someone who you implicitly know is going to do a good job, treat you fairly and do the job in a way that you're happy with—you want to be able to continue having your cars and future vehicles (perhaps new vehicles that you purchase) serviced or repaired by that individual. We know the issue at present is that, particularly with technological advances in the automotive industry, often there are barriers to those independent repairers being able to repair those cars due to the lack of information that is now often provided by overseas manufacturers. So the government has been working very closely with the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association, and it was at their conference on 4 May in front of many hundreds of individuals that I announced the government's view on this. We've had a working group working towards this mandatory scheme for some time.
I must say, when the member for Fenner made his announcement some weeks later, I was getting perplexed text messages from a number of the many hundreds of people that were in that audience saying: didn't the government announce this a number of weeks ago? Of course, they were correct. However, we very much welcome the member for Fenner's late conversion on this issue. I'm very pleased that, when the government progresses this package, he will enthusiastically support it—for that, I'm very grateful. This is going to be another initiative of this government that, sadly, the member for Fenner, while he was a member of a former government, was unable to address in six years. We're very pleased that we're on the same page on that.
Throughout the space of not only the independent repairers but automotive dealers, this government is working on a number of ways to ensure that Australians who are involved in sales or distribution—particularly overseas manufactured vehicles—Australians and businesses that employ Australians, and businesses who support the sale of those vehicles in Australia are treated fairly by overseas manufacturers. In the end, it's those businesses—those dealers, those repairers, those mechanics and those panelbeaters—who are the Australian small business owners who are paying taxes and employing Australians. They deserve to have a level playing field and to be able to service their customers in a way that's most advantageous for customers. That is consistent with this government's approach of putting consumers first and, of course, ensuring that our plan for a stronger economy, more economic growth and increased jobs and increased wages is supported in every single decision we make. Whether it is in the space that the member for Fenner raised in relation to independent repairers, small business taxes or personal income taxes, it is about: how do we ensure the strength of our economy? How do we ensure opportunities are created for young Australians to get ahead? In the end we know that, if we create that environment, Australians have the ingenuity, the entrepreneurialism, the capacity and, dare I say, the aspiration to do that. When they do, as a government, we have everything we need resources-wise to provide them with the services they've rightly come to expect—and not just to give them the services that they expect but to go above and beyond and provide even more to make our country the best possible place to live.
We've seen yesterday that Apple Australia is receiving $9 million in fines as a result of misleading consumers about their rights under Australian Consumer Law to get their products repaired. This is another slap-on-the-wrist penalty, following penalties in the Nurofen case which were noted by a number of experts and jurists to be inadequate.
When big business sees consumer penalties as a mere cost of doing business, they are not deterred from ripping off consumers. That's why Labor went to the 2016 election calling on the government to increase penalties and saying that a Labor government would increase penalties for ripping off consumers from $1.1 million to $10 million.
We were delighted again when the government photocopied our policies. It is always a good day for Australia when Liberals photocopy Labor policies, as they did in last year's budget. But, although they photocopied it, they forgot to hand it in, so we have a nominal commitment by the Turnbull government to raising the penalties for ripping off Australian consumers—from $1.1 million to $10 million—but the bill languishes in the House. Labor is ready to pass that bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 3) Bill 2018. The provisions in that bill that increase the penalties for ripping off consumers have bipartisan support. So you've got to ask what's holding them up. Why are the Liberals so quick to act when it comes to beating up on vulnerable social security recipients but so slow to act when it comes to the critical issue of getting right the penalties on the big end of town?
Labor wants to see the right penalties imposed on those who do the wrong thing. Indeed, we think that we ought to also increase the penalties for anticompetitive conduct. We went to the last election calling for a new penalty system for anticompetitive conduct based on 30 per cent of the annual sales of the relevant product or service multiplied by the number of years the infringement took place, capped to 10 per cent in annual turnover. The benefit of this raising of penalties would be that we could beef up the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's litigation budget so we could get them to chase down more wrongdoers and ensure that we have fairer markets. We would also amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 to give a market studies power to the commission. The need for the government to act is absolutely urgent. The government needs to press the go button and get on with doing this.
Another critical issue that the government is failing to act on is the GST distribution report. The Productivity Commission handed its report on GST distribution to the government on 15 May. The government has to table the report in parliament 25 sitting days after receipt. There will be only 15 sitting days between receiving the report and the by-elections in Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia that will occur during the winter break. So the question that Labor has for the Turnbull government is: will the Turnbull government release the report and assure all those in those states that they won't be worse off under a Turnbull government?
Tasmanians have a right to get an assurance that their fair share of the GST is safe. Without that assurance, $367 million of the state's revenue is at risk. The Prime Minister has been called on to make an unequivocal assurance that Tasmania's fair share of the GST is safe. The fact is that, if Tasmanians want to ensure that their state's share of the GST is safe, the only way of guaranteeing that is to vote for Justine Keay in Braddon. Justine is a strong defender of the interests of Tasmanians. Labor's policy doesn't change the GST formula.
The Prime Minister, when he visited Burnie, used weasel words and bleated all about the Liberal Party. Saul Eslake has warned that Tasmania could lose $367 million in just one year, based on the Prime Minister's previous comments. If Tasmanians have nothing to worry about, then the Prime Minister should release the report, commit to the principle of horizontal fiscal equalisation and guarantee Tasmania its fair share of GST.
Thank you to my wonderful Victorian colleague the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer, who has been doing fantastic work with the Treasurer and, indeed, with the whole parliamentary team to return Australia to a surplus by 2020, for the first time since 2007. We have worked hard over six years, undoing the mess of six years of Labor in government, a party that last delivered a surplus when I was just five years old.
We on this side of the chamber are the responsible economic managers. Australians expect that from a coalition government. They expect that from the Treasury and Finance team in the cabinet of a coalition government, and we have indeed exceeded their expectations and given a solid and clear path back to surplus and then to paying down our debt. While we were fortunate not to be hit quite as hard as a number of other countries in the 2008 GFC, we would not have been able to weather the storm without the savings of the Howard government, demonstrating the vital importance of making savings during good times. A government that prioritises strong economic management is a government that shows respect for its citizens and residents, as the money the government spends is ultimately taxpayers' money. It also allows us to spend more on essential services and vital infrastructure, such as the Frankston to Baxter electrification and duplication in my electorate of Dunkley, for which we've contributed $225 million in the federal budget.
Many of the government's reforms in the 2018-19 budget are about handing control of people's hard earned money back to them, such as the personal income tax reform; reforms to lower tax, particularly for small businesses; and the measures we have introduced to protect my constituents' superannuation. I believe that Dunkley residents and indeed all Australians are entitled to the dignity and personal responsibility of being able to support themselves wherever possible, and our superannuation system is a big part of that.
I would like to ask the minister if he can address the chamber not only on what we are doing to return the budget to surplus but on what the benefits from that will be. I'd also ask the minister to address what are the opportunities under our superannuation system reforms, in terms of the coalition government giving constituents in my electorate and elsewhere in Australia the ability to pursue their own interests and manage their own money to a greater extent. Further, the reason I ask this question is that, given that we have a compulsory superannuation system in Australia, the government has an obligation to ensure that the superannuation system works to the benefit of Australians, including those in Dunkley. I'm proud to advocate for my constituents and to support their right to take their future into their own hands. Superannuation belongs to the individual and no-one else—not the government and not the superannuation funds. The action that the government has taken includes empowering the ATO to reunite people's lost or low and inactive accounts with their active superannuation accounts wherever possible, capping certain fees for low-balance accounts at three per cent annually and banning exit fees on all accounts. These reforms are all made with the objective of improving the superannuation regulatory system to protect Australians from excessive fees, unnecessary insurance premiums and the inefficiencies which result from inadvertently holding multiple accounts. This is especially the case where, in some cases, individuals are forced to hold multiple counts as a result of restrictions on superannuation choices, restrictions which we propose to lift. I would also hope and ask that all MPs support these measures to ensure my constituents in Dunkley have access to more of their hard earned money. My next question is: Minister, what are we doing to ensure that my constituents and constituents across Australia have the support to have additional autonomy over their own funds and to manage what is essentially their own money?
Lastly, I know that residents in Dunkley, be they in Frankston, Langwarrin, Skye, Mount Eliza, Seaford or elsewhere, appreciate being treated as responsible and capable individuals. I know these fair reforms and consumer protections that we are supporting will empower them to work towards their retirement with confidence. In addition to my previous question, I would ask the minister: is the minister aware of any alternative policy discussions that are predicted to hurt people in retirement? I note that it is our responsibility as a government to ensure that we govern and legislate in the best interests of Australians and I look forward to the minister's answer.
In May 2017 Labor announced that a Shorten Labor government would take significant action to tackle illegal phoenix activity. We said, in particular, that we would put in place a director identification number, dealing with the problem that, right now, it is tougher to open a bank account than to register as a company director. One of the consequences of this was brought home through media reports which noted that a member of this House was registered multiple times as a director. That, I assume, was inadvertent, but the fact that it could occur at all illustrates the problem in our current system. The government eventually—as in other issues I've highlighted—said that it would do the right thing; it said that it would put in place a director identification number. But while it said that belatedly in September of last year, it's been nearly a year now and we're yet to see real action. Indeed, the government hasn't even clarified whether its commitment to a director identification number requires a 100-point ID check, which is a fundamental aspect of the policy announced by Labor in May 2017. Extraordinarily, Minister Kelly O'Dwyer has even suggested that a director identification number might be based on the use of biometric data.
The government is clearly failing to do its homework, and while it keeps on missing deadlines to tackle illegal phoenix activities we see more and more damage being done to honest businesses, to workers and to taxpayers. How much does this cost? It's an interesting question to ask, because the Turnbull government currently uses figures from six years ago about the cost of dodgy directors. They're using an estimate from 2012 which put the cost of phoenix activity at $3 billion a year. In 2015, the government received updated costs from PwC about the cost of illegal phoenix activities. We've attempted to get that information in the public domain through freedom of information requests, but the freedom of information emails reveal correspondence saying the draft report—a 2015 report—'is not yet finalised and won't be ready to be published in the near future'. It is extraordinary that the government still fails to release information on the cost of illegal phoenix activity.
Let's remember who supports a director identification number. The Australian Labor Party, of course, as well as: the Australian Institute of Company Directors; the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman; the Productivity Commission; the Tax Justice Network; the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Master Builders Australia; the Australian Council of Trade Unions; the Australian Restructuring Insolvency and Turnaround Association; the phoenix project, comprising experts from the University of Melbourne Law School and Monash University Business School; and the Australian Institute of Credit Management.
Australians need action—not announcements—on dodgy phoenix activity. I ask the minister whether or not Treasury has in fact drafted legislation to implement the director identification number, and, if they have, when are we going to see the exposure draft legislation to introduce the director identification number? Additional to that, when are we going to see estimates of the cost of illegal phoenix activity to the Australian economy? Is that report close to release? When will it be released?
We know that the vast majority of Australian businesses are honest businesses who hate nothing more than being burned when someone they're doing business with trashes the company, takes the assets out and deliberately puts the firm into liquidation, leaving employees, taxpayers, creditors and other businesses in the lurch. If this government were serious about cracking down on dodgy directors, we'd have exposure draft legislation tomorrow. This is a government that can get very tough with welfare recipients very quickly, but it is as slow as a wet week when it comes to dealing with dodgy phoenix directors. The government needs to get with Labor, which said in May last year we would act on dodgy phoenix directors. It's nearly a year since the government said it would follow suit.
The ideological dichotomy that exists in this building right now is probably at its greatest point in the time that I've been here—since September 2013. I, like many of my colleagues, came to this place to fight for smaller government. Why? Not because I'm enamoured with all things small—although my stature might say something about that!—but rather because I know small government means lower taxes.
I spoke about the ideological dichotomy. Those on the other side are not here to fight for small government. They're here enamoured with big government.
An opposition member: Good government!
And, by big government, I mean higher taxes. I'll take the interjection. My friend opposite says, 'Good government.' I'm not sure that the residents of his electorate would love the idea of good government representing big, fat taxes, but that seems to be their approach. And, when I say 'big, fat taxes', I mean—and I say to those opposite: you've have got a plan for more than $200 billion in additional taxes on the Australian economy. That's big and that's fat, and it's heavy, and what it means is it's hard for the Australian economy to grow. But, worse than raising taxes in that big, heavy and hard way, you've got a plan to spend money you haven't even earned yet. I appreciate you've got a long history of that, but I would have thought that, if you learnt anything through the mining tax debacle, you'd wait until you'd received the revenue before you spent it. What we know from the mining tax debacle is that those opposite managed to develop a system which delivered revenues which represented, effectively, a peanut of income, but they've spent, if you like, an elephant's meal of peanuts, and, obviously, we then end up in a situation where we have a shortfall.
Minister, I spent a lot of time playing cricket both in my younger years and as I grew older, and you might not be surprised to learn that I was a pretty good sledger. I often directed barbs at the opposition. They were often very negative and they were pretty pointed. But there were times when I'd have to rally my own team, and I would turn my comments to the positive. I would always remind my team that there's no reward without effort, and I would say it ball after ball, encouraging those slim, energetic fast bowlers to go a bit harder for me to get another wicket. If there's no reward without effort, by dint of that, the greatest reward should go to those who work the hardest. That was the inference for these young fast bowlers to draw: 'Work hard for me, boys, and work harder and harder because I want the rewards.' And the rewards in that game were wickets.
In this place, it's no different. We want to energise the Australian people. We want them rewarded for their hard work and their effort, and the best way, Minister, for us to do that is to take the personal income tax burden off them. I was very pleased to see, in the recent budget, that we're providing tax relief to encourage and reward working Australians and to reduce the cost pressures on households. It's a seven-year proposal for fairer, lower and simpler taxes. The plan will result in more working Australians paying lower tax, and, importantly, it will be enshrined in legislation—at least, that's our commitment. It has three parts. The first arm is tax relief for middle- and low-income earners now; the second arm, protecting from bracket creep what Australians earn; and the third arm, ensuring more Australians pay less tax by making personal taxes simpler. Under our proposal, Minister, 94 per cent of Australians will benefit and will pay no more than 32.5 cents in the dollar. This compares to 63 per cent if we don't make these changes. Minister, if it's about reward for effort, what can I say to those young men I played cricket with who are now in business about rewarding their effort?
In 2012, the coalition voted in the House and Senate against laws to close a multinational tax avoidance loophole. Last year, we saw that very same law being used to secure a $340 million judgement against Chevron. But, extraordinarily, we didn't see the Turnbull government saying: 'Mea culpa. We got it wrong in 2012. If we'd had our way back then, the budget would now be hundreds of millions of dollars worse off, net debt would be rising even faster than it is today'—hard to believe, given that net debt is rising faster than it did even in the global financial crisis. We saw none of that apology. Instead, we saw the government patting themselves on the back for the Chevron decision, patting themselves on the back for a court decision based on a law they had voted against.
Labor's record on closing multinational tax loopholes is an extraordinarily strong one. In government we tightened debt deduction loopholes, and we would do so even further under a Shorten government. We've said that we would move to a worldwide gearing ratio rather than the arm's length test and the arbitrary thin-cap thresholds, and that we would deliver more tax transparency by restoring the $100 million threshold for reporting to the public of total income, taxable income and tax paid. We said we'd appoint a community sector representative to the Board of Taxation, introduce public reporting of country-by-country reports, provide protection for whistleblowers who report on entities evading tax to the Australian Tax Office and introduce mandatory shareholder reporting of tax haven exposure, requiring firms to disclose to shareholders as a material tax risk if a company is doing business in a tax haven. We've said we'd require government tenderers to disclose their country of tax domicile if they're tendering for contracts worth more than $200,000.
The impact of tax havens on the Australian tax system was brought home by a recent paper from Gabriel Zucman and co-authors, which suggests that up to $16 billion could be flowing offshore from Australia to tax havens. The point the paper makes is that around 40 per cent of multinational tax profits are shifted to low-tax or no-tax jurisdictions and that, when that shifting occurs, for every dollar of tax which is raised in such jurisdictions $5 is lost in jurisdictions with regular company tax rates. Labor would develop guidelines for tax haven investments by superannuation funds, introduce a publicly accessible registry of the beneficial ownership of Australian listed companies and require that the Australian Taxation Office's annual report provides information on the number and size of tax settlements.
Yet from the coalition we have simply mistruths about Labor's stance. We have repeatedly heard in question time the mistruth that Labor voted against the multinational anti-avoidance law. I can say this is categorically false. Labor voted against an amendment put together by the Greens and the Liberals that would have raised the tax transparency threshold and that took two-thirds of private companies out of the tax transparency net. We supported the multinational anti-avoidance law. I said as much in parliament and the votes reflect that, but what we didn't support was weakening our system of tax transparency.
Extraordinarily, on 23 August 2017, freedom of information documents reveal, the offices of the Treasurer and the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services requested the ATO media unit to urgently check a joint media release, allegedly about closing Labor's loopholes with a focus on the 'highlighted bit in particular'. I can table the documents if the House wishes. One of the highlighted claims was that Labor voted against the multinational anti-avoidance law. As I've said, this is absolutely false. The question is: is it normal for the government to request that the ATO fact-check partisan political claims? We know that the government has a track record of using the Public Service for its own partisan ends. We've seen the use of Treasury in order to come up with concocted claims about Labor's dividend imputation reform policy. (Time expired)
I want to address a few of the issues raised by my good friends the member for Dunkley and the member for Barker, and I'll also address, immediately, some of the comments from the member for Fenner. It's very interesting in this place to see when people have a bit of a guilty conscience. Clearly, the member for Fenner and the Labor Party have a very, very guilty conscience as it relates to multinational tax avoidance. We all remember that very extraordinary night and those extraordinary scenes in the parliament in 2015 when economic responsibility in supporting our multinational tax avoidance changes came from the Greens of all people, who supported the government's package, with only the Labor Party voting against it.
What have we seen since then? We have seen literally billions of additional dollars being caught within the Australian tax net as a result of those multinational anti-avoidance laws, the diverted profits tax and others, which are ensuring that every single company that does business in this country pays an appropriate share of tax. The Labor Party voted against it. It's on the record, it's on video, it's in Hansardit is clear to the world that they voted against these changes, which have seen billions of additional dollars caught in our Australian tax net.
The member for Dunkley is absolutely correct in his observations around our superannuation package. The government is empowering the ATO to reunite people's lost, low or inactive accounts with their active super accounts. We're capping certain fees to ensure that you don't have your balance eroded by never-ending fees and insurances. We're banning all exit fees on accounts, because we think it's your money and you should be able, if you choose, to transfer those amounts. We're also ensuring that insurance is fit for purpose. No longer will people, particularly young people, with small balances be paying for insurance they don't need. The member for Dunkley also referred to the retirees tax. It will be clear to all that Labor's retirees tax is absent from this appropriation bill, and we will fight them every day until the next election to make sure that hardworking Australians who have been law-abiding, who have paid taxes their whole life, who might have a modest amount of assets, including Australian shares which pay a franked dividend, are not going to have up to a quarter of their income taken away by the Labor Party.
The member for Barker referred to Labor's $220 billion of new taxes. It's very interesting. For two years we saw the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and the member for Fenner running around the country talking about how they were going after these very, very nasty millionaires and billionaires and large multinational corporates—the Apples and Googles of the world—and they were very hairy-chested about it. Now what do we see? We see that the two largest measures of their $220 billion of additional taxes are not going after those supposed terrible rich people; they're going after the most vulnerable in our society. They're going after retirees. The biggest single contributor to their cash splash is a raid on the savings of retirees with their retirees tax. Further, they're going after small and family businesses with a range of additional taxes including, presumably—although it is very unclear—reversing our tax cuts for small and medium businesses. Instead of going after the so-called top end of town that we've heard about incessantly from these class warfare warriors, the two groups who, in the end, are going to fund Labor's uncontrolled spending around the country are retirees on low incomes, retirees and in many cases pensioners with a self-managed super fund—so pensioners and retirees—and also small family businesses. No longer will this faux class warfare campaign work when we know the people they're going after—the people who are funding the proposed reckless spending of those opposite—are people who are working hard, who are by no means wealthy, who need every dollar they can get and who shouldn't be the ones that the Labor Party go after just because they're an easy target, just because they don't have a strong voice. I say to the member for Barker: that is absent from this appropriation bill and we will fight the Labor Party each and every day until the next election on the retirees tax.
The assistant minister claims that Labor raises most of its revenue from small businesses and retirees, but it's obvious that he's not aware of the plans that Labor has to ensure that the budget is in a better fiscal position than that managed by the government. The fundamental difference between Labor's approach to managing the budget and that of the government is that we're not offering an $80 billion tax handout to the big end of town. We're not offering a massive multinational tax cut to the likes of Australia's biggest businesses, including, I might add, Australia's big four banks—and don't we all know how wonderful those big four banks have been in Australia over the course of the last decade, how they've looked after their customers, how they've put their customers first on every occasion when it comes to the management of their businesses, and how they deserve a tax cut because they've worked so hard on behalf of the people of Australia! We all know that is a complete lie, because the evidence that's coming out of the royal commission at the moment completely uncovers just how unjust, sneaky and underhanded the banks have been in this country over the course of the last decade and how millions of Australians have been brought into schemes that weren't in their best interests and have lost money—in many cases millions of dollars and life savings—because of the actions of the banks. For 600 days Labor argued that we should hold a royal commission, and it was the Turnbull government that opposed that argument for a royal commission.
Because we're taking tough decisions around capital gains tax and negative gearing, because we are tackling the cash handouts that exist for self-managed super funds around dividend imputation cash payments—the most generous in the world; no other country provides a cash refund when you have no income and pay no tax. You know what? We'll give you $2½ million. There you go: you might not have any income or tax, but there's a $2½ million handout from the government. They want to come in here and talk about being irresponsible with the management of the budget. It's because Labor has taken those tough decisions that we're able to be in a position where we will pay down more debt and bring the budget back into surplus, but we won't cut funding for health or education, we'll continue to invest in our TAFE colleges and ensure that people can get a good education and, importantly, we'll tackle climate change.
In terms of the budget papers the government released the Black Economy Taskforce report parallel to this budget, which contains recommendations to target various activities used to avoid tax. One of those was the announcement in the 2018-19 budget about combating illicit tobacco. The government still hasn't been able to explain why the revenue in 2019-20 is $3.2 billion while the following years are less than 10 per cent of that figure. In other words, why is the revenue so front-loaded—$3.2 billion and then dropping to 10 per cent in the forward years? We know that, when you do increase tobacco excise, there is an effect on smoking but not to the extent that there is a 90 per cent reduction in one year.
Perhaps more curious is the point that was raised by UNSW Professor of Economics Richard Holden. Mr Holden noted in the budget analysis that taxing tobacco 12 weeks earlier upon entry into Australia rather than presently when it leaves the warehouse will boost tax receipts once and once only. I think most reasonable people would characterise the majority of the revenue as an accounting change. It's an accounting trick by this government to look like we're moving into a surplus earlier than we would otherwise.
What would be the incentive for such a trick? Let's have a look at budget paper No. 1—it's all revealed there where, amazingly, the government has projected a $2.2 billion surplus in the underlying cash balance. Deidre Chambers would be proud! What a coincidence that they happened to move this revenue all into the first year to ensure that that particular year's revenue is bolstered and they get to a surplus. My question to the minister is: would the 2019-20 budget be in projected surplus without the 12-week change in collecting tobacco excise?
It's my great pleasure to rise and speak on this consideration in detail and ask the assistant treasurer some very important questions about the very positive way in which the Turnbull government is managing the economy. In reference to the member for Kingsford Smith's contribution, let's not forget that Labor has declared a war on business. Ninety per cent of all Australians are employed by businesses across this country—small, medium and large. Half of all Australians are employed by large companies. That's why we are adamant that all Australian companies deserve a company tax cut down to 25 per cent. We are seeing from Labor the most reckless plan to destroy the Australian economy that we perhaps have ever seen in the country's history. Perhaps the biggest and best example of that is Labor's attack on retirees. The biggest single gouge is $57 billion—we now know they got their numbers wrong, out by $10 billion—$5 billion a year gouged from retirees and some pensioners, a grossly unfair tax on some of Australia's most vulnerable citizens. 900,000 of the most vulnerable Australians are under attack by Labor, including many in my electorate of Corangamite. These people are not high-income earners. They are in many cases grandparents, self-funded retirees, simply wanting to have certainty and control over their savings. In contrast, we're very proud of the way in which we have worked hard as a government to protect self-funded retirees and their life savings. This is an absolutely terrible policy. This is a shocking policy, which attacks the most vulnerable Australians.
We hear about the grand plan of Labor to run the economy. No-one in this country will ever forget the four surpluses which the member for Lilley announced which were never delivered. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years were the worst example of a Labor government managing the economy in recent history—four surpluses which were never delivered. How is Labor going to pay for this? It is more than $200 billion, not just attacking retirees—attacking small businesses, attacking homeowners. There is now concern and some very reliable reports which indicate that because of Labor's plan to abolish negative gearing house prices in regional Australia, including in my electorate, will go down by nine per cent. We're already seeing some adjustment in Melbourne and Sydney. They now have a plan to smash house prices. It's house prices, it's investment, it's small business, medium businesses, it's the war on business and of course it's our retirees.
This Labor opposition is the most dangerous opposition we have ever seen. It is summed up well and truly by the Leader of the Opposition's plan to declare a war on business. If we have a look at the implications of raising these taxes on hardworking Australians, if we have a look at the impact that this is going to have, we've already seen how retirees all across Australia are screaming out, saying, 'This is our hard-earned savings, this is our plan for the future, this is how we have determined to make sure that we have a secure life for the rest of our retirement, and all of those plans have been utterly destroyed if Labor were ever to be elected.' It is a horrendous attack on older Australians. So I propose the question to the assistant Treasurer: does the government have a different approach which supports retirees, and what are the risks of Labor's policies?
Once again it's clear that a member of the government has not read Labor's policies and doesn't comprehend what Labor is proposing. The member for Corangamite—who is no less than the chair of the Standing Committee on Economics as well—said that Labor is proposing to abolish negative gearing. That's not true at all. If you had read the policy, you would know that is not the case. What Labor is proposing is to cut back negative gearing, to restrict it in relation to new investment properties only. So anyone who is currently in the system who negative-gears will still be able to in the future. But we'll cut back for new investment properties, and that will take a bit of the heat out of the housing market. The member for Corangamite says that she thinks that house prices in her electorate will fall by over 10 per cent. She's got a different view to the minister for revenue, who thinks that house prices are going to go up as a result of Labor's policy. So, once again, there is utter confusion, chaos and division from this government, particularly on economics policy. One would think that the chair of the economics committee would know better and would have read Labor's policy before coming in and commenting on it.
They raise the issue of cash dividends for self-managed super funds. It's clear that they don't understand the policy history behind this as well, because when dividend imputation was originally introduced, by Paul Keating as the Treasurer back in the 1980s, the cash refund was never part of the policy. It was never part of the policy to give people a cash payment from the government at the end of the year when they had no income in that year and they had paid no tax. This was another great example of pork-barrelling that introduced by the Howard government in the early 2000s. When they introduced the cash refund for unused dividend imputation, it cost the budget about $600 million. Like many of the policies that were introduced by the Howard government, it was unfunded. It was unfunded, just like the 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax, which was unfunded in the budget when they introduced that.
Have a guess who's paying for all the profligacy of the Howard government in those years when we were running big budget surpluses because of the mining boom. We're paying for it now. The Australian public are paying for it now. This was another one of those policies that was introduced that was unfunded. It now costs the budget $6 billion, growing to $8 billion in future years. It's unsustainable.
If you're going to talk about properly managing a budget and ensuring that our government lives within its means, one area that you would look at is an area where no other government throughout the world provides a cash refund, a tax rebate if you like, and that's dividend imputation, but Australia continues to do so in years when we've got rising debt and we've had a big budget surplus. The responsible thing to do, and that is what Labor is doing in planning this, would be to cut back on that.
I want to raise some questions regarding taxation of the digital economy. Reading between the lines, it appears that the government is considering a digital-firm equalisation levy, or something similar to what's proposed in the European Union, with a six per cent withholding tax in India. Media reports suggest that the government is using the levy as a bargaining chip with crossbench senators, particularly as they seek to win support for their corporate tax giveaway to the banks and multinationals. The Treasury indicated on budget night that it would release a discussion paper on taxation in the digital economy. We're still waiting for that, and we have no idea when it will be released. We don't know if the paper canvasses options for digital, such as an equalisation levy, withholding taxes or turnover tax. We don't know the names, locations and dates of the Treasurer's meeting with US digital firms in the past 12 months, despite the fact that he was boasting that he met with Amazon in Seattle. We don't know how long Treasury has been considering and consulting with stakeholders on a digital tax or levy or which stakeholders they've met with in the last 12 months. We don't know what issues, such as loopholes or potential tax avoidance strategies, Treasury and the ATO have identified in the digital sector as a risk in this economy. While we know that the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law and, particularly, the diverted profits tax were colloquially known as the Google tax, we don't know why the multinational anti-avoidance levy and the DPT are insufficient to collect a fair share of tax from digital firms. We know that in the last year the government and the ATO have modified their language. My simple question to the minister is: does the ATO or Treasury have concern that digital firms may use contrived arrangements to make deductions to avoid paying tax on extra sales booked in Australia? (Time expired)
The member for Kingsford Smith has asked a range of questions, and he genuinely asked the question: how did we get back to budget surplus early? He completely lost me when he then started to talk about how we need to be less like the Howard government and, presumably, more like the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government and their wonderful budget management. He lost me at that point.
I can tell the member for Kingsford Smith how you get back to budget surplus early. You take decisions that are prudent, that are in the interests of our economy, that seek to grow the economy and that seek to ensure that businesses and individuals invest more and can take on those extra hours, and that is exactly what this budget has done. So, no, to the member for Kingsford Smith. We don't want to be more like the budget management of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years and, contrary to his advice of not trying to emulate the Howard government, like the Howard government we are committed to ensuring we get our budget back into surplus. We've done it early, or we are in the process of doing it early, and now we have to tackle the massive debt trap that Labor has left behind. We're going to do that assiduously. We're going to do that because the Australian people are entrepreneurial and, dare I say, aspirational, and they are the people who in the end are going to fuel the investment and the work to ensure that the prosperity is available for our country to ensure that the government can again live within our means within the context of providing all of the services that Australians rightly expect from government. And you can only do that with a strong economy where those people, those individuals and those businesses are supported.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 13:31 to 16:00
Thank you for your attendance here, Minister. As you well know, I represent the seat of Grey in our home state of South Australia, and we watch the expansion of the shipbuilding industry in Adelaide with great interest. You would be well aware that one of my communities, in particular Whyalla, has been to the edge and back in the last couple of years, it must be said. We are very pleased in Whyalla at the moment that we have a new owner of the steelworks, a new owner of the mines, a new owner of what was formerly Arrium Australia-wide, and Mr Sanjeev Gupta is showing an intent to invest in a number of products and projects in Australia. We're very keen to keep working with Mr Gupta on his expansion plans for the Whyalla steelworks. In fact, tomorrow morning I will be in Whyalla meeting with his people again.
One of the most important things for keeping the steel industry in Whyalla working in a profitable mode is to have the blast furnace full. Like many other pieces of fixed infrastructure, blast furnaces don't cost much less to run when they're running at half speed than they do when they're running at full speed. Having that blast furnace full is a very important factor in making Liberty OneSteel operations in Whyalla profitable. That is why I have been very pleased with a number of things the government has done. One of them was bringing forward the Adelaide-Tarcoola re-railing by approximately five years—something that would have to be done, something that will increase the productive capacity of that railway line, lifting axle loads by two tonnes, so eight tonnes a truck. This is a good investment: 80,000 tonnes of rail out of Whyalla. A further 14,000 tonnes has been ordered for the Inland Rail, and this is just the very first small order for that very large build, which will, once again, be coming Whyalla's way. This is the important factor about building up the order books, keeping the blast furnace full, making a profit on the ground. The government has worked hard, and certainly I've worked hard, to get a commitment from Adani, so when their project goes ahead in Queensland it will be using Whyalla steel, produced by people in my electorate, with iron ore coming out of the Middleback Range being made into steel in the Whyalla blast furnace.
These are good things, but in Whyalla and in the rest of the electorate we are very interested in what the prospects are for us to provide steel into the new shipbuilding program in South Australia. I understand there will be a large building of infrastructure there. Minister, my question to you is: could you give us a rundown, firstly, on how that shipbuilding program is going and, secondly, on how we are likely to be able to benefit from that by producing steel?
My second question is around the Naval Shipbuilding College, a $62 million investment. I, for one, was very pleased to hear that that would be going ahead. We will be looking for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people to work on this new project in South Australia. At the time the minister announced it there was a reference to regional pathways—how people right across Australia, including right across Grey, right across the Upper Spencer Gulf, in places like Whyalla, but also in Ceduna, Port Lincoln and Port Pirie, might be able to access that naval shipbuilding college and get the skills to work in this industry, which will be operating in South Australia and in Australia, to benefit for the very long term future.
So I'd be very pleased if you could inform us, firstly, how the establishment of the college is going; and, secondly, how establishing those regional pathways is going, bearing in mind that, as I'm sure you're aware, we've just had a $20 million Regional Jobs and Investment Package announced for the Upper Spencer Gulf, and one of the projects that gained funding of $1 million was the community owned tertiary education campus, or COTEC, that we have in Geraldton. We are in the embryonic stages of putting that project together, and we are taking a particular interest in how we might interact with the Naval Shipbuilding College.
There is a happy bipartisanship at the moment in Australian politics around seeking to build an Australian defence industry in this country. Certainly, I acknowledge the minister spends a lot of his time, as he should, spruiking this, and the government's achievements in seeking to build an Australian defence industry. One of the prisms through which one can look, in trying to foster an Australian defence industry, is the attributes of successful defence industry companies around the world and the extent to which they are replicated in any Australian companies today.
If you look at big defence industry companies like BAE Systems; companies out of Israel, such as Elbit Systems and Rafael; and companies out of Sweden, such as Saab, you see companies which are largely export based—not deriving the majority of their business from their home defence force, if you like—and which employ thousands of people. These are big companies. When you think about what companies in Australia meet that set of criteria, there's one that particularly stands out and is a remarkable Australian story. It's Austal. Austal employs thousands of people around the world. Most of what it does is based on exports, particularly to the US Navy. It's responsible for designing and building 27 ships for the US Navy, including the littoral combat ship and a number of troop transport carriers. It's also built ships for the Omani navy and, I think, the Maltese navy, although I stand to be corrected on that, as well as doing a lot of civil construction. Right now, it's building a very large civil ferry for Denmark.
Austal has, at its base in Henderson, a very significant design capability—more than 100 naval designers, which would be the most significant naval design capability in Australia today. But it has not done particularly well in terms of being able to win work from the government. To be fair, it has won a contract to design the Pacific patrol vessel, but, most recently, in relation to the offshore patrol vessels, it was overlooked in relation to contributing to the design of that platform, notwithstanding that that platform is perhaps the best opportunity that we have in Australia today to have an export-based naval construction business. It leaves Austal in something of a quandary, because they are able to design and build ships—and very significant ships—for navies around the world, including the United States Navy, yet, in terms of winning work on our own Defence Force, it has not achieved a lot of success.
The most significant decision that the government's about to make in relation to naval shipbuilding is the announcement of the designer in the frigate program. The designers who are left in the competition are three overseas companies: BAE Systems, Fincantieri and Navantia. In addition to the design, there will need to be a solution around the build of this vessel, which will need to be arrived at by the government during the remainder of this year.
A few weeks ago I called on the government to ensure that the builder working with whoever is the successful designer is a truly Australian company—a company which has its design capability here, which has its intellectual property here, which represents a projection of Australia. It's absolutely essential, if we are to build a defence industry in this country, that surface shipbuilding is at the heart of it and that we have Australian companies right at the centre of that work.
There has been failure in this respect since 2013 under this coalition government. You only need to look at the supply ship being sent to Spain. Former defence minister Johnston said, in respect of the ASC, that they couldn't be trusted to build a canoe. We need to see a decision by this government that provides a platform for an Australian company to participate in the building of ships, and this frigate decision is going to be fundamental. My question is: can the minister absolutely assure us all here that there will be a truly Australian company involved in that shipbuilding?
When my constituents ask me what I believe my most important tasks are as their member for Fisher, the three most critical ones that come to mind are: to help build a strong economy for our community, to secure the infrastructure and create the jobs that we need on the Sunshine Coast, and to play my part in ensuring that all Australians are protected by a strong and capable Defence Force.
Today I want to concentrate on the third of these important tasks—namely, the defence of Australia. I'm working hard to drive the Fisher Defence Industry Initiative and to encourage a high-technology manufacturing and defence industry hub in the southern and central parts of the Sunshine Coast. This initiative will not only help to ensure that our economy is robust and offers our young people the career opportunities they need but also encourage skilled people on the Sunshine Coast to innovate and create new products, which will increase our nation's defence capability.
I know that the Minister for Defence Industry shares those priorities for his own constituents and for our country. In pursuit of those twin objectives, he is delivering on a $200 billion investment by the Turnbull government in building our sovereign capability. As a core part of that investment strategy, the minister and his department are very actively engaging with small and medium sized businesses all over Australia. Would the minister please outline how Defence's engagement with SMEs is enabling the government to build sovereign capability and a strong Defence Force? The benefits of this investment for our defence are vital, but the benefits for local economies are every bit as important. Since winning a contract to supply wet decks for 14 Romeo Navy helicopters as well as a federal government commercialisation grant of a million dollars to develop their new lifesaving stretcher technology, Fisher business HeliMods has taken on new employees on the Sunshine Coast. These contracts have provided HeliMods with more work and the chance to develop a new commercial product and have brought the company and its dynamic founder, Will Shrapnel, increased local profile and greater international credibility to grow this business even further.
Last week I was grateful for the opportunity to represent the minister in announcing a further contract from the federal government for $2 million to a local business, Praesidium Global. This contract, which follows our investment with Praesidium of $1.3 million, will pay for the delivery of four more of the Caloundra company's MAPS, unmanned ground vehicles. These new vehicles will be extensively tested during a 12-month trial in Townsville and at Shoalwater Bay. If they prove equal to the trials, as I'm sure they will, these vehicles will provide our soldiers with a cutting-edge new technology to move heavy equipment, keep troops out of harm's way, recover injured service men and women, and deliver logistical support to the front line. Just as importantly for my community, this contract is already creating new high-tech manufacturing jobs for people in Fisher. In order to deliver these additional four units, Praesidium are intending to double their workforce to 20. However, if the trial is successful and Praesidium win a contract to supply many more of these vehicles, the implications for my community will be significant. Would the minister please outline how Defence's engagement with SMEs is enabling the government to help grow regional economies and create more jobs for more Australians?
The economic benefits of the government's defence industry investment go far beyond the value of the ADF's own procurement. I recently travelled to Washington to take part in the Sea-Air-Space expo, the largest maritime expo in the United States. I was there with HeliMods, working to promote the defence businesses we have in Fisher, and their products, to the many global prime contractors and US defence representatives taking part. HeliMods and the University of the Sunshine Coast also recently attended the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris.
There are already SMEs in Fisher which are part of my Fisher Defence Industry Initiative and which are exporting defence and high-tech manufacturing projects. Eniquest in Bells Creek export portable generators to the Singaporean military, while Caloundra SME APAC Infrastructure are exporting their portable telecommunications platform through a partnership with Boeing. So I ask the minister to outline how Defence's engagement with SMEs is enabling the government to help grow Australia's exports and promote our products overseas. (Time expired)
Recently, the Australian National Audit Office released its report on the government's naval construction programs, and it made very sobering reading indeed. Across a range of findings, it raised serious concerns about the way in which the shipbuilding program is being undertaken. It said, for example, that workforce shortage was a risk that Defence was aware of but that the workforce plan due in February 2017 had not been completed by February 2018—an entire year's delay. It noted that the cost of the first phase of the shipbuilding college had blown out from $25 million to $63 million without any explanation and had no ongoing funding. Let's be clear: making sure that there is a workforce that has the appropriate skills for this project is going to be absolutely essential if the much-heralded shipbuilding enterprise that the government speaks of actually comes to fruition.
The report talked about the government's promise to retain 200 workers at Osborne by moving them onto the frigate, offshore patrol vessel and submarine programs. Defence has said it would not be funding those workers from the budgets for those programs. Exactly how that works is a question whose answer remains at large. The report went on to describe a Defence internal review warning about time-line compression in the Future Frigate Program:
extreme risk—
that cost and schedule over-run was likely, and that to proceed on the current schedule had the potential for severe reputational damage to Defence and the Government.
They are extraordinary words coming from the ANAO report. I would have thought that, for any minister, reading those words and hearing that there is an internal defence review warning that the program of government action involved extreme risk would be a moment when you would pause for thought and actually think about whether or not the direction being pursued was the right one. There are few reports that I have read which actually use that phrase. The review went on to offer two solutions to manage that risk; none were accepted, according to the ANAO report.
Other key findings of the report were as follows:
Defence has advised the Government of its assessment that the naval construction programs carry high to extreme risk. Key risks relate to the delivery of expected capability, program cost, ability to meet program schedules, and management of the industrial base. The Naval Shipbuilding Plan did not address the management of these risks in any detail.
That is comprehensive in terms of the review of basically the entirety of the government's naval construction program. In almost every respect, it raises serious questions about how that is proceeding and the way in which it is being managed, and particularly about the way the risk is being managed in terms of the costs of these projects, the time lines of the projects, whether or not the projects will experience an overrun and indeed, as mentioned with the shipbuilding college, whether or not there will be the appropriate workforce, with the appropriate skills, able to deliver on this government's promises—and in fact not just this government's promises but successive governments' commitments to building a surface ship fleet and a new generation of submarines for our Navy, which it most certainly needs. As I said earlier, these commitments very much enjoy bipartisan support. But with that bipartisan support comes, from the opposition, deep concern in reading this report about what it means and what is going on. That ultimately is my question to the minister: given all of these reports and assessments by the ANAO, what on earth is actually going on?
Before some of these contributions get too long in the tooth, I might respond to my colleagues the member for Grey and the member for Fisher on the issues that they raised and then return to the member for Corio, since we do have a full hour to do this consideration in detail.
I thank the member for Grey for his contribution and his questions about the government's defence industry and defence projects. I was actually the minister for industry when the Adelaide to Tarcoola rail line was brought forward five years, ensuring that the steelworks at Whyalla had a $70 million to $75 million contract on their books, which really assisted them a great deal to stay open. I was also the minister who put extra tariffs on Taiwanese, South Korean and Chinese steel businesses that were deemed to be dumping steel in Australia, in order to protect and assist the Whyalla steelworks. I'm delighted that Sanjeev Gupta and Liberty OneSteel have taken over that steelworks. It means there is a real future for the Whyalla steelworks. I think Mr Gupta is going to invest very considerably in Whyalla, not just in the steelworks. His Liberty House Group, I think, will do quite a lot of really important energy production in that part of South Australia as well, which will assist the whole economy of that region.
The member for Grey asked about a couple of important issues for him, including about the steel that is going to be used in the naval shipbuilding projects. I can assure him that the steel for the Pacific patrol boats, the offshore patrol vessels and the future frigates can quite readily be provided by the Whyalla steelworks. They have provided steel before for this kind of activity and they will be able to take part in that contract. Of course, BlueScope Steel in Wollongong also has capabilities around steel production, and it too would want to be taking part, I'm sure, in the competition to provide steel for the Pacific patrol boats, offshore patrol vessels and future frigates.
With regard to the steel for the 12 submarines, which is much more complicated—it is a different kind of steel, because obviously it has to exist well below the surface of the water and therefore requires certain kinds of specifications—I can tell the member for Grey that Naval Group have entered into a contract with Bisalloy steel in Wollongong, to see if they can provide the very important and difficult steel for submarines. So we are doing everything in our capabilities to ensure that the steel in these ships is sourced in Australia.
None of that, of course, would have happened if the Labor government had remained in power. The last ship that would have been built in Australia would have been the air warfare destroyer HMAS Sydney. I was present at its commissioning by the Navy only a month or so ago. That would have been the last ship built in an Australian shipyard for the Navy. Happily, because of the government's naval shipbuilding project, we will be building 54 vessels: 21 for our Pacific neighbours, 12 offshore patrol vessels for the Navy, nine future frigates—we'll be deciding very soon who the successful tenderer will be—and the 12 submarines as well.
In terms of progress for Whyalla and for Wollongong, in terms of steel for the ships and potentially for the submarines, that is very much on track. The member for Grey also asked about the Naval Shipbuilding College. We have awarded the successful tender for the Naval Shipbuilding College to Huntington Ingalls Industries and Kellogg Brown & Root. They are the head of the consortium that is right now working to create the Naval Shipbuilding College. It is made up of TAFEs, like TAFE SA and South Metropolitan TAFE in Henderson in Perth, and universities like the University of New South Wales, RMIT University in Melbourne, Curtin University in Perth, the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and Flinders University. There's a large consortium that is providing the services. It's a hub-and-spoke approach. It is on schedule, and it will mean that the Naval Shipbuilding College, in its first iteration, will source students in those institutions, which will then become part of the naval ship building project.
It's not a speech from the minister if it's without his famed reference to the single-handed commissioning of ships by this government. It's as if the entire shipbuilding program began the day the minister was sworn in to his job as Minister for Defence Industry. There is something very impressive about the front that is shown by such a claim.
Of course, we all know that when it comes to defence procurement, we're talking about programs which are initiated over successive governments over many years. So the claim that the minister has just made, that there would be no ships built under a Labor government, is complete and total rubbish. Indeed, if you look at the two really big procurement projects which are on foot, the Future Submarine Program and the frigates, which are about to be announced, both of them predate not only this minister but this government, in terms of being initiated. If you look at this government's record, in terms of building ships in Australia, this is a government which made a decision to send the supply ship offshore to be built in Spain. The supply ship was intended to be built in Australia, had Labor been elected in 2013 and been able to continue what it was doing. It was actually that, as an example, which gave rise to the valley of death, in terms of shipbuilding, which has seen thousands of ship workers lose their jobs as a result of the policies of this government, such that Williamstown is no longer a place where ships are being built, nor is Newcastle, and hundreds, bordering on thousands, of jobs have been lost in Adelaide as well. This government does not actually have a particularly impressive record when it comes to the reality of putting in place the building of ships in Australia, but it should be noted that all of these programs have existed over successive governments and didn't begin after the last election. Indeed, the former defence minister in the coalition government, the original defence minister after 2013, Minister David Johnston—his claim to fame, as I mentioned earlier, was announcing that you could not trust ASC to build a canoe. What we saw during Minister Johnston's term as the minister was not only the building of the supply ship being given to Spain, but we saw—
Mr Pyne interjecting—
I have an important question to ask you in respect of former Minister Johnston—but we also saw, during his time, an attempt to put the submarine build into free trade agreements with Japan, in an attempt to try and close them. There was a point when you were trying to actually have the submarines built in Japan. Given that is the record of former defence minister Johnston, it is remarkable that this minister has now sought to appoint former defence minister Johnston as this government's Defence Export Advocate. This is the man who actually said of our defence industry that you couldn't trust it to build a canoe and who did everything he could while he was the defence minister to have defence industries around the world build material for our Defence Force. He is now the government's hand-picked person to go out there and sell Australian defence industry. That is an astounding decision—astounding in its irony—that this government has made.
We asked a question about exactly what former Minister Johnston will be paid to do this work. To begin with we were told that he wouldn't be paid anything. But, of course, that turned out not to be right.
A government member interjecting—
We'll go and check the record for who actually said he wasn't going to be paid anything. When we pushed this question in Senate estimates, we were not given a specific answer—and that's my question of you now, Minister. The department did say that he's being paid anywhere between $2½ thousand to $4½ thousand a day, but we don't know the exact amount because that would breach commercial-in-confidence and get in the way of former Minister Johnston applying for other work. So, Minister, exactly how much is former Minister Johnston being paid to be Australia's Defence Export Advocate?
I'm delighted to be here in this chamber today because, at long last, after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era, we have a government that is providing leadership in the area of defence and we have a minister who is providing the leadership that we require in defence industry in this country. Of course, we all know that under the government's leadership we have a Defence white paper, a Defence Industry Capability Plan and a Defence Export Strategy. These three pillars, if you like, have established a very clear framework under which we now have, under the lead of the minister, the greatest and largest recapitalisation program in the history of the Australian Defence Force.
This is an enormous set of activities not just for our Defence Force but, of course, for the Australian economy—and thus the importance of this portfolio. Those pillars of the framework all lead to a strategic objective, which is to ensure we have the capability, the posture and the resilience to meet our defence needs as a nation moving into the future.
In order to deliver on that objective, I've had the privilege, together with my Team Queensland LNP colleagues, of coming to understand the Land 400 project in great detail, because Team Queensland put its shoulder to the wheel in support of a bid that would see the manufacturing of 211 combat reconnaissance vehicles in Queensland. That was a $5.2 billion project, and that will see this new fleet of CRVs roll out.
Deputy Speaker Buchholz, as you know, my background is in the commercial sphere, and where I see this Land 400 project delivering on the government strategy is in a few areas. Firstly, Rheinmetall, who are the government's preferred tenderers, plan to create a military vehicle centre of excellence that will look to design and manufacture combat vehicles well into the future. The company is also establishing a national R&D program, establishing links with CSIRO as well as universities to ensure that the best and brightest put their shoulders to the wheel to create new intellectual property. With intellectual property we've also seen, as part of the proposition of that company to become the preferred tenderer for Land 400 phase 2, the idea of transferring intellectual property from Germany to Australia, of seeing that intellectual property domiciled in Australia. We also see a pipeline of export worth $60 billion. That's just for that priming business. It doesn't account for the hundreds of small and medium businesses—not just throughout Queensland, it must be said, but right throughout Australia—who are going to be part of their supply chain.
This is an opportunity not just for the larger players—they are using Australian steel, Bisalloy—but also for small and medium businesses who have never played in the defence space. For me, the Land 400 phase 2 project is a case study that brings to life the strategy of this government, a strategy that says we need to have a sovereign capability, that we need to ensure that our businesses are owning the intellectual property, that we are investing in that moving forward and that the Australian defence industry will build its own capability to service the needs of our nation.
My question to the minister today is: with that in mind, will the minister inform the chamber of the benefits of the Land 400 project to Australian industry, and will he provide some insight into how that is a case study and example of the government's approach to defence industry?
I'd like to ask the minister a question in his capacity of representing the Minister for Defence. As of 1 November last year the Department of Defence had 18,112 full-time-equivalent APS employees. Whilst the representation of women across the APS workforce, generally, is in excess of 50 per cent, those figures show that the representation of women in the workforce of the Department of Defence was then at 42.1 per cent. In executive positions—that is, EL1 and above—this data shows that women made up only one in four of those positions. Defence prides itself on being an employer of choice, but it is clear from those numbers and, indeed, numbers that you will see across the ADF, that the ability to attract women and promote them to senior positions within the Department of Defence and the ADF still has a long way to go.
The Australian Public Service Commission made the point that agencies must assess the gender balance of their leadership cohorts and make sure that they put in place tailored measures to address imbalances. On the data, it would appear that this is important work still to be done within the Department of Defence. While the Department of Defence continues to work towards improving women's workforce participation in the ADF, it is important to understand what barriers are still in place which are preventing women being employed within the department itself, but particularly progressing through to the senior ranks.
I'd be keen to hear from the minister about what actions the department is taking to encourage more women to join the Department of Defence and what actions are being taking to encourage the promotion of women within the Department of Defence to its most senior levels. In doing that, I want to ask: Is the minister aware of any discrimination on the basis of gender? Have there been any instances of discrimination in respect of employees who are pregnant? And what measures are in place to support women during maternity leave? It is important to know whether there have been any instances where women in the department have been unable to access maternity leave on the terms to which they are entitled.
I'm be keen to understand from the minister: exactly how many women are in leadership positions, as of today, at a level of EL1 and above? It is absolutely essential that in order to deal with the kind of cultural change that will enable ultimate gender balance within the Department of Defence and the ADF women occupy senior positions within the Department of Defence. I would appreciate if the minister was able to inform us exactly how many women are in leadership positions at EL1 and above.
I'd also ask the minister to advise us as to what Defence is doing to encourage women to join the department. What programs exist to encourage women to join the Department of Defence; and, as I said earlier, what measures are being taken to facilitate promotion up to executive levels? In addition to that, it would be important to hear from the minister about what steps the Department of Defence is taking in its ongoing endeavour to encourage more women to join the ADF itself. The ADF should be a reflection of our nation, and it will only be that when we have gender equality within it.
I will get to the questions from my honourable friend the shadow minister, but I would like to first deal with the contributions from the members for Fisher and Fairfax, as they've been good enough to ask specific questions. I must say that the 'Team Queensland' approach to defence industry has been very refreshing. The members from Queensland have really embraced the opportunities that are presented by this the biggest build-up of our military capability in our peacetime history—$200 billion over the next 10 years. However, the difference between this build-up and past build-ups is that we are investing so much of that money and those resources here in Australia, building Australian businesses, a sophisticated workshop—the advanced manufacturing that Australia can do. However, in many cases those who wanted to work in the defence industry were never given the opportunity because they weren't supported by our own government. This government has a very different attitude.
In the member for Fisher's electorate on the Sunshine Coast, I attended, as the Minister for Defence Industry, one of the first defence industry forums that has been held in the last couple of years in this government. I think about 170 businesses were present, and it got a tremendous reception from businesses in the Sunshine Coast and the media. If I remember rightly, there was a rather stunning front page in the Sunshine Coast Daily'Coast's $200 billion defence bonanza,' and that's just for the Sunshine Coast. If only that were possible!
In the member for Fisher's electorate, there are some outstanding examples of businesses that are competing for and winning contracts on their merits. He mentioned Praesidium Global, which has just won a new contract for $2 million for unmanned ground vehicles from the Department of Defence to support that particular business. They're undergoing a 12-month user evaluation, which could lead to even more work.
He mentioned HeliMods, which I visited on the Sunshine Coast—it's in Caloundra. In fact I saw Will Shrapnel recently in Paris at the Eurosatory trade expo where he was pushing HeliMods, as he was in Malaysia when I was there not that long ago. They have won a small contract for $154,000 to deliver wet decks for the Romeo helicopters, but small contracts, when they are delivered and delivered well, can lead to much greater contracts down the track. HeliMods employs 25 skilled people in Caloundra. I have great belief they will succeed, especially in exports. There is also Eniquest, which builds military-grade DC and AC power generators and auxiliary power units, which are used in our Bushmaster vehicles and have already been exported to our friends in Singapore. So the Sunshine Coast is a wellspring of these kinds of activities and I think it will be in the future.
If I can turn to the combat reconnaissance vehicles. The member for Fairfax was really the spear point in Team Queensland for promoting the Rheinmetall bid. Rheinmetall won the right to build 211 combat reconnaissance vehicles. Their competitor was BAE, which had chosen Victoria as their base. The decision was made entirely on the capability of the vehicles. But I should say this: at the beginning of that tender process, neither of the bidders were asked to have any Australian industry content; they were asked to provide value for money and their best product. Both came up with five per cent Australian industry content out of a $5.2 billion project. By the time we got to the end of the tender process, because of the change of government, because of the Turnbull government, that figure had moved to 55 per cent Australian industry content out of a $5.2 billion acquisition and 65 per cent out of the $15.7 billion, which is the sustainment and maintenance and life of the project. That could have been five per cent. Instead it was 55 per cent, and 70 per cent for the whole of the project. That is the difference that government policy makes, driving Australian businesses, Australian jobs. The capability that the Army wanted and needed has not been diminished at all, but we are driving the jobs and the advanced manufacturing that is spread right around Australia, not just in Queensland. Victoria is the other big winner from the CRV contract. Businesses like AME, AW Bell, CAS, Cablex, Supercat, Tectonica are all in Victoria. They will also benefit, as will the other states.
Noting that we are nearing the end of the hour, I would like to ask two questions in this block which are quite different in nature, so I will seek to separate them as I go along. The first is a question to the minister in his capacity as the Minister for Defence Industry and it relates to the answer he just gave in respect of the successful Rheinmetall tender for the Land 400 program. I'm not sure that people in Victoria would regard themselves as winners in respect of that. Ultimately, it leads to the observation that, particularly in respect of Land 400, there was a high degree of state-on-state competition, which struck me as being counterproductive from the point of view of the national interest. Indeed, that has been reflected in a range of other programs that have been tendered in recent years.
First and foremost—I'm sure the minister would agree; indeed, it was in his answer—the basis on which procurement should be done and tenders should be awarded is what serves the need of the ADF, the capability for Australia as a nation. It ought not to be based on state considerations. Yet there is intense competition between the states in respect of this. It is something that we read and see a lot of in relation to the United States, but it's a much bigger economy, a much bigger defence buy. It strikes me that we can't afford the luxury of having that kind of competition play out in Australia, where, as we got to in the situation with Land 400, there was a definite winner and a definite loser on a state basis. In effect it became a competition, in part at least, between the Victorian government and the Queensland government. So the question is: what is being done by the federal government to seek to reduce that, to calm those waters, if you like?
It's only through leadership from the federal government that we're going to see an end to that practice.
In a completely different vein and with a change of gears, I'd like to ask the minister a question in his role today representing the Minister for Defence. On 24 May, an article that was released as the result of an FOI application indicated that, within the ADF, there have been 265 reports of sexual misconduct in the last year, which is the highest level in five years. I ask this in a very sober way and don't seek to make any political gain out of it, because I would acknowledge that this has been a difficult issue that the ADF has faced over many years—indeed, the ADF has put in place a whole lot of measures to try and deal with this over the journey. But it is concerning that a graph, if you like, of bad behaviour, which had been trending in the right direction, has now had an uptick, as has been reported and as is borne out by that FOI request.
In those 265 reports of sexual misconduct in the last year, 50 included sexual assaults and 28 included aggravated sexual assaults where the perpetrator was violent, had a weapon or committed the act in front of others. Overwhelmingly, the men and women of our Defence forces behave entirely appropriately and represent our nation in the most superb and excellent way. I know you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, saw that firsthand as we experienced Exercise Talisman Sabre last year. I think, in a sense, all of those people who had their professionalism on show would want to know that these issues are being dealt with in the most thorough, transparent and, within reason, expeditious way possible. I'm sure the minister will provide a confirmation that the government obviously has a zero tolerance when it comes to sexual misconduct within the ADF. I would like to hear from the minister his sense of whether or not the cultural change which has been pursued within the ADF, with quite a degree of intent, as I said earlier, has gone to the extent necessary. Finally, does he have any explanation for this increase in cases of sexual misconduct? If not, can he take that on notice?
We in Australia take great pride in our military history. Words like Gallipoli, Pozieres, Long Tan and Kokoda do not simply refer to locations around the globe where Australian gallantry was at its most memorable. They refer to locations that are etched into the collective psyche of the nation. They are words that elicit emotion, memory and gratitude. It's not a unique thing for a nation to honour their servicemen. Australians certainly hold theirs dear. Not only has our military played a central role as a source of national pride, it has, for some time, been a significant source of wealth for individuals, families and their communities. As a Central Queenslander, I have seen firsthand the economic benefit a local community can reap from military operations. In my electorate of Capricornia, the Shoalwater Bay Training Area, probably the best training base in the country, plays host to Australian, Singaporean and US troops, all providing their share of economic stimulus. This influx each year helps local businesses to thrive, with businesses often having to employ extra workers for the busy period.
The story of the economic benefit of defence doesn't stop there. Developing Australia into a nation with not just a great military but a strong defence industry opens so many opportunities both for the nation and for each and every Australian. The government is investing $200 billion in defence capability across the decade to 2026-27, a significant proportion of which will be spent in Australia, creating jobs in Australian defence industry and growing the economy in a way that maximises our investment and opportunities for industry. The government's investment in defence capability delivers a more capable, technologically sophisticated, adaptable and responsive military that is more active and engaged in protecting and promoting Australia's strategic interests.
Australian industry is critical in developing and maintaining the Australian Defence Force. It is fundamental to our defence capability. The government is determined to build a closer, more strategic relationship with industry to deliver better capability outcomes for defence. The government recognises that the Australian Defence Force is effective because it is ably supported by a broad industry base, from infrastructure and estate management to information and communications technology and health services. Approximately 25 per cent—$49 billion of our investment over the decade—was to be spent on enabling capabilities. I look forward to the benefits of this investment being seen in my electorate of Capricornia and I thank the minister for the recent announcement that Queensland will be the home of Rheinmetall's Boxer, Australia's next combat reconnaissance vehicle. This will create around 1,450 jobs across the country, most if them in my home state of Queensland. Queenslanders have shown that they are not only competitive on the Rugby League field—they're looking forward to seeing New South Wales go down on Sunday—but also attract real job-creating industry projects.
This is clearly a government that cares about outcomes, especially employment outcomes, for everyday Aussies. Over one million jobs have been created since the coalition came to power. It is with pride that I stand here today to ask the minister how this coalition government will continue its mission to deliver jobs and growth and deliver a stronger, more capable military, one that we can continue to take great pride in and one that can continue to keep us as safe as ever. Can the minister update the chamber on the benefits to the local Capricornia economy of the government's defence industry investment?
I thank the member for Capricornia. Speakers in this debate have alternated between the parties, but the member for Corio has indicated that he will give way for the minister to sum up. I call the Minister for Defence Industry.
I thank the member for Corio for giving me the opportunity to respond to some of his specific questions. I won't respond necessarily to his rhetoric—I don't want to embarrass the opposition any more than I already have—but he asked some serious questions and they deserve serious answers.
In terms of women in the Defence Force and the APS, I can tell him that, as at 1 March 2018, 10,190 of ADF members, or 17.5 per cent—up from 16.2 per cent in March 2017—are women, which is good news. So the number of women in the ADF has increased. In terms of the Australian Public Service and the Department of Defence, for the same period, 7,772, or 42.1 per cent—up from 41.6 per cent in March 2017—are women, which is a small increase of 143. I would make the general observation that I agree with him that there need to be a lot more women across defence industry.
The member for Corio and I have been at many conferences and events over the last couple of years where it's very apparent that the workforce behind the Defence Force is very top heavy with men. One of the important contributions we can all make is to keep encouraging women to take up roles in the Defence Force, the Public Service, which is not tracking too badly, and, importantly, the defence industry. One of the purposes of the 'Workforce Behind the Defence Force' campaign, which the government will conclude at the end of June, is to encourage women, and young people generally, to see a career in the defence industry as a worthwhile pursuit in which to use their talents and skills. There was a weighting towards supporting women, through the type of campaign we ran, in order to encourage them to believe that it should be part of their career planning.
The issue of sexual misconduct in the ADF is a very significant one that the member for Corio has raised. There have been stories recently about an increase in sexual misconduct in the ADF. It's a vexed issue for any government. It's not a partisan issue. In order to ensure that the member for Corio has a comprehensive response, I will take that question on notice and undertake to write to him and outline what the government has been doing, particularly in the Minister for Defence Personnel's and the Minister for Defence's part of the portfolio. I will undertake to respond to him with the assurance that it will be treated seriously.
Another question the member for Corio raised was about the offshore patrol vessels contract and Austal's role in it. As he would know, Austal teamed with Fassmer in that tender and provided a vessel that was not deemed to be superior to the Luerssen-Civmec-ASC tender. Even though that was the case, the government, in its NSC decision, in awarding the contract to Luerssen, ASC and Civmec asked that Austal be included, if possible, on commercial terms in the delivery of that contract. As it happens, despite the government's best intentions, that wasn't able to be brought about on commercial terms, and the parties have gone their own way.
Luerssen and Civmec have formed a consortium called AMSEG, the Australian Maritime Shipbuilding and Export Group—not exactly catchily named, but nevertheless it certainly conveys its role—and that will help with the ASC build of the first two offshore patrol vessels in Osborne and then the next 10 in Henderson. Of course, we will be working, as I am working very hard right now, to try and secure export contracts for the offshore patrol vessels project in order to extend that even further and support the workforce at Osborne, in particular, but also at Henderson.
The member for Corio asked about the Defence Export Advocate. I think David Johnston is an excellent choice as the Defence Export Advocate. He was my choice, of course, so I would say that. He's being paid as an eminent Australian because he is an eminent Australian, having spent two decades in the Senate as a cabinet minister and minister in two governments—the Howard government and the Abbott government. He knows the area extremely well, and I'm sure the member for Corio knows that. I can tell the member for Corio that there is a band in which he could be paid, and he elected to be paid at the lowest level possible. That only confirms my sensible choice and the fact that he is doing this job obviously for remuneration but also because he believes in the government's Defence Export Strategy.
The Federation Chamber will now consider the Veterans' Affairs segment of the Defence portfolio in accordance with the agreed order of consideration.
I welcome the opportunity to consider in detail the Veterans' Affairs budget and note at the outset the shadow minister, the member for Kingston, is not here with us this evening. She's been unwell, and I wish her well in her recovery. It's important to note that the Veterans' Affairs portfolio does enjoy largely bipartisan support, and I recognise that the shadow minister, just like me, wants to make sure we're putting our veterans first and putting our veterans' families first.
In this year's budget, the government is continuing to invest in veterans and in their families to make sure we are providing the essential services they require. There's in the vicinity of $11.2 billion worth of expenditure committed to the Veterans' Affairs portfolio. I would note we've secured around $100 million in additional funding in this year's budget to continue our work on the DVA reform agenda, upgrading our internal IT systems, and ensuring better and faster delivery of services to veterans and their families.
I'll talk briefly on a couple of key points from this year's budget before allowing more time for questions from both our side and those opposite. I would note that the transformation of DVA is ongoing, and we are continuing to see further investment to provide more timely and easier access to services for our veterans and their families. By the end of the next financial year, veterans will benefit from easier access to services through the online door MyService. There will also be expanded access to information to reach out to veterans who may not be aware of the DVA services and programs which do exist and of the improved income support systems put in place.
We'll see as a result of this year's budget the removal of the stepdown for incapacity payments. We're investing $10.8 million over the forward estimates to support former members of the ADF with incapacity payments at 100 per cent of their normal earnings while they stay as part of DVA-funded return to work rehabilitation plan.
Another reform announced in the budget relates to the Long Tan bursaries, which will see an extension of the eligibility criteria for a Long Tan bursary to include not only the children of the Vietnam veterans but also their grandchildren so that we continue to provide assistance to the descendants of Vietnam veterans.
In terms of mental health care, which is clearly a focus of this government, it's important to note that the budget recognises that, not just in the wider community but also in our the veteran community, there are concerns about how we provide for mental health support services. In fact, DVA provides up to $200 million a year to support our veterans with their mental health concerns. In this budget we've provided $2.2 million to expand eligibility for mental health treatment to those reservists with domestic or international disaster relief or border protection service, or those involved in a serious service-related training accident.
In terms of our veterans' mental health care, it's important to note there is a non-liability health care system in place, in the sense that veterans will receive free mental health care regardless of how their situation develops. It doesn't necessarily need to be related to their military service. A key focus, which has been the subject of great discussion between myself and the shadow minister, relates to the transition of veterans out of the ADF and into civilian life. It's important to note, and I do so at every opportunity, that the majority of people who leave the Australian Defence Force, on an annual basis somewhere in the order of 5,500 to 6,000, make a successful transition with very little need for immediate support, but others do need additional support, and we need to work with them very closely to make sure that transition is as easy as possible.
It's also critical that we assure the broader Australian public, the corporate sector and business community that hiring a veteran is good for your business. They have great leadership and teamwork skills developed over a period of time in the services. Many have learnt skills that are easily transferrable to civilian life. Explaining to the business and corporate sector and the broader public about the easy employability of veterans is something I'm determined to do in my time in the role. A feature of our work, in terms of transition, is the Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Program, which features the employment awards, which were held this year for the first time and were successful. We've seen an additional $8.3 million allocated to that program to further develop, promote and implement the program to support veterans as they transition to civilian life.
I'm conscious there'll be plenty of questions from those opposite and probably from this side, so I'll close with one last point about two very important inquiries that are underway at the moment. One is the Productivity Commission inquiry into the compensation and rehabilitation system for veterans. I encourage those who are interested in veterans issues to make a submission to that inquiry. This will be a comprehensive inquiry considering how the system works now, whether it is fit for purpose and how it should work into the future. The second bit of work is with regard to the Veterans' Advocacy and Support Services Scoping Study, which will be undertaken by Robert Cornall on behalf of the government.
As the federal member representing the largest garrison city in Australia, I'm incredibly proud to represent current serving and ex-serving veterans and peacekeepers and their families. Our veterans fought to protect our country, and I have always stood in this place to fight for their best interests and needs. When I speak with our Defence community the No. 1 issue raised with me is the need for employment assistance at the point of transition. Currently, there is minimal assistance available for Defence personnel at the point of transition. There is limited to no recognition for currently held skills acquired during time served in the Defence Force. No-one provides gap training and no-one gets transitioning Defence personnel employment ready. This identified lack of assistance provided to transitioning veterans is shocking, and I'm very concerned as to how it has been allowed to continue for so long. This gap needs to be addressed and that is why I'm incredibly proud of Labor's comprehensive veterans employment program. Labor is always the party to deliver on education, training and apprenticeships and most importantly, jobs. It is what the Australian public has grown to trust that Labor will deliver, and that's exactly what we're doing for our veterans.
Earlier this year, Labor announced a comprehensive veterans employment program, committing $121 million towards veterans employment, which pales in comparison to the Turnbull government's $8 million commitment. Our policy is designed to address the significant rates of unemployment related to veterans transitioning from the ADF. Finding meaningful employment is important for many reasons. Employment doesn't just provide financial security; it also provides a structure, a sense of purpose and belonging, all important factors for those leaving the ADF and transitioning to civilian life. Our policy will assist veterans leaving the ADF and ensure that businesses are best placed to gain the many advantages of employing a veteran. Veterans have told me about their difficulties finding employment post their time in the ADF. These are highly skilled and valuable employees who would make a welcome addition to any work place, but their skills are lost in the transition from ADF to civilian life. We must do more to ensure that veterans are able to find meaningful and purposeful employment.
The government's response to this issue is to focus on delivering the Prime Minister's employment program, including providing additional funding to industry-led programs in this year's budget. With this in mind, can the minister please advise how many businesses have joined or are participating in the programs? How many veterans have received a job as a result of this program since it was launched? What is the retention rate of veterans who have been employed through these initiatives? Is the Department of Veterans' Affairs monitoring these programs? Have there been any KPIs established to measure success? If so, what are these KPIs? If not, how can we be sure that this program is delivering actual results for veterans?
Minister, like every other member in this place, I make sure that I attend every commemoration that I possibly can around my electorate commemorating those who have served our country. I think the way those days are revered is growing within the community and rightly so. We should put aside that time and spend it with our veterans, remembering what has gone before us.
But the way we support veterans on a daily basis is a far more meaningful measurement of our commitment to them. By and large, I find that my veteran community and my veterans organisations are pleased with the support they receive from the federal government—and I don't mean just in recent days but across a broad number of years. They're particularly pleased with the operations at DVA at the moment. These organisations are very important to the wellbeing of our veterans. They supply a safe haven, a place where our veterans can go and find people with similar issues, similar backgrounds and similar problems—a problem shared is a problem halved. Most veterans I've spoken to appreciate the government's efforts across the board, including fair indexation of military pensions, establishing a female veterans policy forum and providing more targeted assistance for homeless veterans.
There's been a concentrated effort to assist those struggling with mental health, and the recent budget measures ensure all veterans, including reservists, receive free mental health services. I've had a check, and there are around 1,000 veterans living in the Grey electorate at the moment. Some have their life completely in order and are living success stories—some of them are my friends—others, unfortunately, are not. They face the burden of dealing with the horrors of the past—a mental health burden. Some cases—and one I can remember not so long ago—result in the very worst outcome of all: suicide.
When we make decisions around the budget and allocate resources, we need to recognise what it is that we can possibly do to alleviate the stresses and strains in these peoples' lives. I often come into contact with DVA counsellors who tell me of their face-to-face contact with veterans and the challenges they face with mental health. I applaud anything that the government can do in this space. I implore my community to be understanding of these people, because sometimes, particularly when you are a politician where a lot of people bring their problems to you, it is easy to put people in a box and say, 'They're off with the fairies,' or whatever it might be. We have to be on our guard against that every single day. When we see someone down on their luck, and particularly if we're aware that their background is one of having served this nation, we need to pull out all stops, get our staff to work and contact all the organisations involved to make sure that we find help when they need it.
Minister, my questions are pretty simple. How is the government implementing new initiatives to respond to the mental health needs of our veteran community? Can you please tell us what the interest in the non-liability health care has been amongst the veteran community. I think the three criteria that have been issued is a very important move. For these people who have served us so well, it's not what you did and where you did it; it's that you were prepared to do it. Why you've become sick is irrelevant to the cause. Minister, could you inform the House on those issues.
I'm happy to have the opportunity to ask some questions of the minister about a particularly important issue, and that's to do with the health care that we provide to the people who have served our country. I imagine that those who have joined us in the Federation Chamber today are from the department. I just want to acknowledge the work of the people in the Department of Veterans' Affairs. It's very important work that you have to do, and that also goes for the office in Darwin, which does exemplary work. The department is one part of our support to our veterans, but it's a very important part.
To the minister, my questions are around the Medicare freeze and some of the work that we might need to do there to make sure that our veterans are getting the care they need and are not falling through the gaps due to health professionals deciding not to take on DVA clients. Last year, the AMA flagged some concerns about the Medicare freeze—that it had an impact on DVA's fee schedule and that the indexation freeze was affecting not only psychological services but also specialists, including surgery, medicine, psychiatry and ophthalmology to name a few. Of those specialists who were surveyed by the AMA, almost 30 per cent were no longer committed to treating veterans. I've maintained a dialogue with friends of mine who are health professionals to encourage them to stick with it until we can improve the situation, regardless of the disadvantage they face in taking on DVA clients. The AMA survey also found that 44 per cent of respondents said they'll keep seeing veterans if the freeze continues—I congratulate that 44 per cent—with the remainder considering other ways to charge veterans or closing their books entirely, which is unfortunate.
This is obviously a larger issue in rural and regional areas, like my own electorate, where access to allied health specialists is already a problem and has become worse with the impact of the freeze. For example, an old commando mate of mine, when he moved away from Sydney to a regional area, was unable to find a provider willing to take him on as a DVA client. As admitted by the health professional in the regional area, this was a direct result of the gap between what they charge and DVA's fee schedule. Of course, this issue was highlighted during the recent Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans.
My questions, and I'm happy to provide them in writing, are: Can the minister advise what action has been taken to ensure that veterans are able to access allied health treatment? Is the minister or his department collecting evidence of veterans being turned away from services because of the Medicare freeze? Has the minister heard from any providers raising concerns about this gap? Has the minister written or communicated with the Minister for Health about the impact of the freeze? Has the minister made any representations on this issue to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to reverse the freeze to ensure veterans get the services they need? Is there any plan for any adjustments to be made to address this issue? Have there been any discussions about decoupling the DVA repatriation medical fee schedule from the Medicare rebate? Have any costings been completed with a view to increasing the amount paid by DVA to health service providers? Has the minister engaged with providers to discuss these issues? And, what actions is the minister taking to ensure that veterans are able to access what they are entitled to?
There are a number of questions there. I appreciate, again, the work of the department to really look at this issue seriously. We must provide for our veterans and ex-service personnel, whether they've served one day or many, so that we can get better outcomes.
Minister, could you please provide an update to the chamber of how the government is commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Korean War armistice? In addition, could you provide any further information relating to how the government has recognised those who served in the Korean War? By way of background for some of the work we've both been doing, in April 2014 I received a letter from the senior vice-president of the Korean War Veterans Association of New South Wales, Bob Morris OAM, who just happens to be a resident of Gilmore. He outlined some issues relating to the issuing of Korean War service medals. There have been many years of advocacy to our Department of Veterans' Affairs regarding the wearing of, in Bob's words, 'this significant award that was given to all servicemen who served in Korea under the United Nations from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953'. He added: 'A medal was issued by the South Korean government, which has since been accepted by Canada, America and New Zealand.' Bob and other veterans are very proud to have served Australia in their nation's commitment to preserving peace in our region. It was important for me to know some of their story, which I share here. It actually begins at the end of the war, with the armistice so gratefully celebrated by the South Koreans.
The armistice, ending three years of fighting on the Korean Peninsula, was signed on 27 July 1953. The present-day border between North and South Korea, marked by a four-kilometre-wide demilitarised zone, follows the line in which the warring armies—Chinese and North Korean in the north and the large United Nations force in the south—stood when fighting ended. The Korean War was a constant battle of advancing from the north and back to the South. The armistice, which took more than a year to negotiate, recognised the inability of either side to achieve a battlefield victory. While the fighting ended in 1953, the state of war between the two Koreas persists to this present day. All three of Australia's armed services took part in the Korean War. Approximately 17,000 Australian personnel served in Korea, including Army and RAAF nurses. Some 340 lost their lives, more than 1,200 were wounded and 30 were taken prisoner.
I began by referencing the advocacy of my Korean War veterans for their service recognition. As part of that story, in 2017 I reignited inquiries with the then Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon. Dan Tehan MP, on behalf of local veterans about the Korean War and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal. In December the minister approved the creation of the Korean War Armistice Consultative Committee. This was accepted and approved by His Excellency General the Hon. Sir Peter Cosgrove on 6 March 2017. As a result, the medal may now be officially worn by eligible veterans in recognition of their service. In more recent discussions, this veterans community feel they have some suggestions that would enhance the recognition process, and we've contacted the minister on this matter.
On 27 July 2018 it will be the 65th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. This will be recognised as part of the Department of Veterans' Affairs Century of Service Domestic Program 2015-18. A national commemorative service will be held at the Australian National Korean War Memorial, on Anzac Parade, in Canberra on that day to mark this significant anniversary. The service has been developed in conjunction with the Korean War Armistice Consultative Committee. Veterans from the Korean War, along with Korean War widows and representatives of the ex-service organisations, will be joined at the service by senior members of the Australian parliament, the ADF and DVA. One of the important parts of this commemorative location is a boulder taken from a Korean battlefield. It is the focal point. A word in Korean script represents peace and independence. The battlefield boulder is set in a field of stainless steel poles that symbolise those who died. The obelisk commemorates those who died with no known grave. The inscription taken from the United Nations Memorial Cemetery at Pusan is a poignant link with the Australians who are buried there.
We acknowledge the efforts of all our Korean veterans but, in particular, I would like to take this opportunity to remind the minister of the efforts of Bob and Mavis Morris, Alice Burns and Rod Coupland, who have been tireless in their advocacy. In summary, Minister, what is the government doing for the Korean War veterans on 27 July this year and could you confirm the work the government has been doing for recognition of their service?
In the 2018-19 budget, there was a signalling of the establishment of a trial in the Department of Veterans' Affairs which alters the way veterans access allied health treatments, requiring individuals to return to their doctor every 12 weeks to seek a new referral. Veterans routinely raise with me concerns about their ability to access services, particularly in regional areas. With these issues and the impact of the Medicare freeze on DVA's fee schedule in mind, can the minister advise why DVA is trialling a change to the way allied health care is provided? Is the minister aware of any providers overservicing clients? If yes, what services and how much has this overservicing cost? Has DVA taken any actions to address issues of overservicing? Under these changes, can the minister ensure that veterans on long-term treatment plans will not experience a gap in continuity of care? Will any consideration be given to waiving this requirement for veterans on long-term treatment plans, particularly for complex issues such as post-traumatic stress? How will these changes be communicated to both GPs and the DVA clients? How will the minister ensure that veterans don't miss out on treatment they need through this new model?
I thank the members for Herbert, Grey, Gilmore and Solomon for their questions. I'll endeavour to get through as many as I can right now. In relation to any questions I don't get to, I do have department staff available who have been taking notes and will respond in writing. They've taken note of some of the concerns as well.
I agree from the outset with the member for Herbert that the transition period is a critical period for any of our ADF personnel as they move to civilian life. I reject the suggestion that no assistance is provided, but I do acknowledge there's more work to done in that regard. In terms of how many businesses are participating within the Veterans' Employment Program through the Prime Minister's initiative, I'll get back to the member for Herbert in more detail. It's important to note, though, that, while many members transition very successfully, for some it is more difficult, especially for those who've been medically discharged from the ADF.
I would note that there's an often-quoted figure that's been put forward in recent times that the unemployment rate amongst veterans is 30 per cent, which is not consistent with the latest data from the Defence transition team. In fact, the latest research on veterans' unemployment indicates that, in the first 10 months into civilian life, the unemployment rate is about eight per cent. That is still too high, I acknowledge, but it is nowhere near the 30 per cent figure which is often quoted.
I thank the member for Grey for his great interest and insights into how the mental health of veterans impacts on their transition into civilian life. In relation to his questions regarding mental health, we must acknowledge in this place that suicide remains the greatest cause of death of young males. Unfortunately, our ADF personnel and veterans are not immune from that. DVA now spends about $196 million per year on supporting the mental health of its clients. Funding for mental health treatment is demand driven, and that means it's not capped. It's important that we recognise that. For anyone who's listening today who may be struggling with their mental health, I simply encourage them to get in contact with the Veterans and Veterans Family Counselling Service. The service can be contacted 24 hours a day by ringing 1800 011 046. The Veterans and Veterans Family Counselling Service provides a great service. In relation to the specific question of the member for Grey regarding how many individuals have accessed the non-liability health care, in the last financial year the number was 3,732. We expect to see more people contact us for mental health care as people become more aware and as there is less stigma in relation to mental health and wellbeing in the general community.
Regarding access to allied health services, which was raised by the member for Solomon and also the member for Herbert, I want to ask anyone in the veteran community who's turned away from a health provider to please contact the department, and we'll make alternative arrangements for them. There is no question that, in some of our regional communities—and the member for Herbert comes from a regional area—access to health services, allied health services and professional specialists can be challenging. If anyone is turned away who needs help, we can help them make alternative arrangements. I give her that assurance, but we'll follow up more directly on any specific requests she has in that regard.
Finally, in the time I have allotted, I note the member for Gilmore's outstanding advocacy on behalf of the Korean veterans in her community—and I note the former Minister for Veterans' Affairs is here today and the work he did in providing for the wearing of the Republic of Korea War Service Medal. If she has any concerns in that regard, we'll continue to work to overcome any issues surrounding the eligibility to wear that medal. In terms of commemorative activity, I note that on 27 July, which will mark the 65th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, it is recognised by DVA and Century of Service domestic program for this period. A commemorative service will be held at the Australian Korean War Memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra and will mark this very significant anniversary.
I will conclude by simply saying one thing: we thank those Korean War veterans for their service. We thank all veterans and current serving personnel for their service. It is a unique contribution they make to our nation, and I will undertake to follow up on behalf of other members the questions they've raised this afternoon.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Before I start, I commend the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel for the seamless way he's taken on an incredibly important job and, in particular, his implementation of veteran-centric reform. I acknowledge the very important work he's doing in that regard.
In the Social Services portfolio, the 2018-19 budget continues the government's commitment to providing a genuine safety net for those most in need while making it more sustainable by strengthening the integrity of the welfare system. As the Treasurer said in his budget speech, it is part of the government's guarantee to provide the essential services that Australians rely on like Medicare, hospitals, schools and caring for older Australians.
In this financial year, the Social Services portfolio is seeking $10 billion in funding to deliver on the government's policy priorities, programs and services that improve the lifetime and wellbeing of people and families in Australia. The Department of Social Services will also administer $115.3 billion—around one quarter of the total Australian government budget. The budget introduces a range of measures to support people with disability and vulnerable families, and to assist Indigenous and regional students to complete their education.
The government is providing a range of innovative measures to assist older Australians with more choice in retirement. The budget includes $258.6 million to support people of age pension age to achieve a better standard of living during their retirement. From 1 July 2019, there will be changes to the pension work bonus, the pension loan scheme and the means-test rules for pooled lifetime retirement income streams.
From 1 July 2019, the amount that social security pensioners can earn through work before it is assessed under the pension income test will increase by $50 a fortnight to $300 a fortnight. The maximum work bonus accrual amount will increase from $6,500 to $7,800. Additionally, for the first time, self-employed recipients will be able to access the work bonus. This increase will benefit about 81,500 social security pensioners and 850 allowance recipients each fortnight and will importantly improve our economy.
As the Council on the Ageing noted, the measure is important to fight ageism in the workforce, tap into the experience of older Australians and provide flexibility in retirement. In addition to this, from 1 July 2019 the pension loan scheme will be expanded with the available fortnightly loan plus pension amount increasing from 100 to 150 per cent of the maximum rate of the fortnightly age pension. This will provide an option for people of age-pension age with property to enjoy a higher standard of living. This change will benefit, for the first time, pensioners of age-pension age with property who currently receive the maximum rate and previously could not access the Pensions Loan Scheme. Self-funded retirees with property who currently cannot access the scheme will also benefit from this change and be able to apply for a loan.
The 2018-19 budget reaffirms the government's focus on the safety and wellbeing of communities, families, women and children in Australia, and people with disability. The government has committed an additional $11.5 million over 18 months to enhance the capacity of 1800RESPECT, the national domestic and family violence and sexual assault counselling information and support service. An addition $6.7 million will be provided for domestic violence response training to train around 7,400 front-line workers such as nurses, counsellors and disability and settlement service workers.
The budget also continues the government's commitment to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and I welcome the presence of the assistant minister here today and commend her on the outstanding job she's doing. In the coming year, we will have an additional 750 staff added to the NDIS and full rollouts in New South Wales and South Australia. (Time expired)
The Liberal-National government has a history of cutting the age pension and making life harder for pensioners. They have cut concessions, have done a deal with the Greens party to change the pension assets test, have tried three times to axe the energy supplement and want Australians to work until they're 70 years old.
The minister has also failed to stand up for part-pensioners by refusing to change the deeming rates of interest rates, therefore decreasing the returns pensioners get from their savings. Currently, a single pensioner's savings are deemed at 1.75 per cent on the first $50,200, and any amount over it is deemed at 3.25 per cent. Falling interest rates are impacting the standard of living of many part-pensioners. Interest rates have fallen from 2.25 per cent in February 2015 to 1.50 per cent today, yet the deeming rates have remained the same for more than a thousand days. The rates are supposed to reflect returns across a range of investment choices available in the market, but the Turnbull government is failing to act to lower them. This means that pensioners already squeezed by low interest rates are also being hurt by the Turnbull government's failure to adjust deeming rates. On top of this, people who get a pension from the United Kingdom still aren't getting their pensions fairly indexed, because the United Kingdom's government simply won't do the right thing.
Despite his opening statements on how they're helping pensioners, my series of questions clearly show that there is an awful amount of work that needs to be done by this government when it comes to pensioners. There are six questions. Over the forward estimates, how many pensioners will lose the pension entirely, and how many will have their pension cut as a result of the government's assets test changes? Secondly, if the minister won't provide this number over the forward estimates, why is he hiding it? Thirdly, how many pensioners will be worse off in Longman and Braddon because of the government's asset test changes? Fourthly, has the minister received advice about adjusting the deeming rates? Fifthly, why does the minister think it is fair for pensioners that he won't adjust the deeming rate, even though interest rates are at record lows? That is the key question. Finally, has the minister done anything to advocate for United Kingdom pensioners who are failing to get fair indexation on their pensions?
There is a pattern with the Turnbull government. There is a pattern when it comes to age pensioners, and there is a pattern when it comes to the most vulnerable people in our community, and it is not a good pattern. It seems that the answer is: 'People can just go and get a job.' Not everyone is capable of doing that, and I think the minister rightly understands that. I want to put on record that the Labor Party respects pensioners. It respects them because they have spent their entire lives working and paying taxes, and it is their right within the social security system of this country to be treated fairly at the end of their working life.
Somehow this government takes the position that it wants our seniors to work until they're 70! It's just ludicrous. How can someone who has worked in the construction industry, for example, or as a cleaner—someone who has had hard physical labour their whole life—be expected to work until they're 70? You wouldn't do it, and I'm not going to be doing it. There should not be an expectation that seniors have to work until their 70s. Pensioner concessions have been cut. The pension assets test is being changed, which will not benefit most pensioners. Appallingly, as I said, the government has tried three times to cut the clean energy supplement, which—with increasing utility prices, particularly electricity—is so crucial to so many people on low incomes. There is no denying that; it is clearly on the record. The agenda of this government is still to do that. The government is attacking people who have spent their entire lives giving to this country, who have spent their entire lives working and paying taxes, and who are finally moving into the age of the age pension. This is an attack on them. (Time expired)
My question goes to a very important policy of this government—that is, to make lives better by implementing a two-year trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of Newstart allowance and youth allowance for illicit substances like ice, ecstasy and marijuana. It is a compassionate policy. It is about making lives better. It is an issue that is close to my heart because of the experience that I've had firsthand in my own family about the intersection of illicit drugs and welfare in our community. It's about getting people with drug issues the services and treatment they need to beat their addiction and to get on a path to a productive life for themselves and their family.
Substance abuse stops jobseekers from undertaking job search and it stops them from working. If you are bombed out of your brain on drugs and booze you can't search for work and, if you get that interview, you won't get that job. Substance abuse impacts so many in the community and not just the person taking the drugs. Families and friends all experience the social and financial strains and the safety issues that come from that individual who is taking drugs.
The National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Program provides concrete data to inform drug policy. This year the program estimated the weight of four of the illicit drugs tested for. More than 8.3 tonnes of methamphetamine, three tonnes of cocaine, 1.2 tonnes of MDMA and more than 700 kilos of heroin were consumed between August 2016 and August 2017. Our community has a big problem with drugs. A really important part of the drug-testing trial is a dedicated fund for the treatment of those people who are identified with drugs in their system. This is something that is often overlooked by those who are trying to defeat this important and compassionate policy.
An opposition member: That would be me.
Yes, that's you—absolutely it is. Ten million dollars will be provided to support those people that need the services, once they are identified with drugs in their system. This is in addition to the almost $685 million the government has already committed over four years to reduce the impact of drug and alcohol abuse on individuals, families and communities. That includes an investment of almost $300 million as part of the national ice strategy to improve treatment, education and prevention, to tackle the scourge of ice.
Some of our colleagues opposite speak about the drug-testing trial in isolation, without any mention of the support services that this trial will deliver. The $10 million is significant, but let's remember it's a trial. In my view, it is those support services that are being trialled as well. The drug tests and the support services are being trialled together, because we have to allocate more resources to those people in our community that need it.
I spoke about how I know about the intersection of welfare and drugs from my family experience. The minister is aware of the story in my family and in my life, when my parents took custody of my two nieces from a drug-fuelled, abusive environment. I've spoken in the House about my thoughts for my niece's mother, who was someone who took drugs and who, when I've reflected on what the government is trying to do, didn't have the important intervention in her life at a young age that may have—very likely would have—led to a different outcome than that we have today. It is an outcome where we have a large degree of hospitalisation of a very sick person—someone who wasn't able to raise their children, someone in a family who had the grandparents take on the additional responsibility.
People say to me: 'Well, if we are going to trial this for 5,000 welfare recipients, who in the past would go untested, wouldn't get that intervention, wouldn't have the opportunity to access those further support services, what difference could this make? Could it make a difference to a hundred people's lives? If it can, that's worth it.' So I'm very passionate about this trial. Can the minister update us on the additional services that will be provided alongside the compassionate trial of drug testing for 5,000 recipients of Newstart and youth allowance? Can the minister advise us on what additional support services will be provided that will also be trialled as part of this process?
I would like to ask the minister sitting right over there: could you confirm that it remains the policy of the Turnbull government to increase the pension age to 70 and that you're still trying to get this unfair change through in this budget? Minister, given you're new to the portfolio, and, clearly from question time, you're not quite on top of things, I'll just give you a bit of a sense of the history of this. I remind you that Prime Minister Abbott's 2014 horror budget increased the pension age to 70, meaning Australians born from 1 January 1966 will have to work until they're 70 before they can access an age pension. That means Australians currently in their 50s and late 40s who are starting to plan for their retirement now will have to deal with not being able to access the age pension until they're 70 years old. That's 52 years of an adult working life before being eligible for an age pension.
My own mum retired when she was 67. She'd worked all her life as a nurse, a bookkeeper and a single mum, and she died when she was 70. So, under your changes, Minister, someone like my mum would never have got a cent of pension. It's a devastating change for many Australians who have no chance of working that long, and we will speak up for them. Their bodies won't take it. I challenge you, or your out-of-touch, arrogant Prime Minister, to come to my electorate and tell a bricklayer they have to work until they're 70. My brother almost completed a brickies apprenticeship, but he realised near the end there was no way his body could take it as a career and he quit in his 30s. I have great admiration for people who can stick it out—but until they're 70? Minister, find a farmer in your electorate working in the sun and tell them they've got to work just a bit harder, that they have to stay out there on the farm doing that sort of physical work. Tell that to a nurse, or an aged-care worker. I met with a delegation of aged-care workers brought here by their union, United Voice, a few weeks ago. You could go and tell them the Prime Minister's lines from question time today. 'Sixty is the new 40,' we heard from the Prime Minister. 'Get a better job. If you don't want to be an aged-care worker in Braddon in Tasmania, just go and get a better job.' How snobbish and out of touch. We can't all be an investment banker, now, can we?
This unfair cut can be traced right back to the Abbott government's 2014 Commission of Audit, which recommended the pension age be increased to 70 by the year 2053. Shortly after getting that appalling report, the member for Warringah and then Treasurer Joe Hockey announced that they were ending 'the age of entitlement' and that we were a nation of 'lifters, not leaners'. So they announced their plan, your plan, to increase the pension eligibility age to 70 by 2035. This was a full 18 years before even that abhorrent Commission of Audit recommendation. It's a $3.6 billion cut between 2025 and 2029. That's $3.6 billion that comes from the pockets of ordinary Australians. It's another unfair cut from the Abbott-Turnbull government. The Prime Minister might like to pretend that he's got rid of the unfair cuts from the 2014 horror budget, but he certainly has not. He's hell-bent, and you're hell-bent, on tearing away Australia's social safety net, which we should be so proud we built up over generations. This would make it the oldest pension age in your much beloved Anglosphere that we hear so much about from the former Prime Minister—the UK, New Zealand, Canada, the USA. Only a bloke who worked all his life in an office could think that is a good idea.
My questions to you, Minister, are: can you confirm that the Turnbull government is no different from the Abbott government and that it remains government policy, in your budget documents right there in front of you, to increase the pension age to 70? Minister, could you finally tell us how many Australians currently in the workforce will be affected by this proposal to increase the pension eligibility age to 70? In this forum, in the consideration in detail of the budget—the one hour where you turn up and are supposed to answer questions—Australians deserve a simple, direct answer, not the waffle or spin, not the talking paper clip routine you do, the Microsoft Office assistant. I saw the cartoon, and it was very funny. Tell us the truth about this budget we're debating.
Encouraging more people to participate in the economic life of our country is critical. It's not just an ethical responsibility; it's an economic imperative. As our nation ages, which the previous speaker, the member for Bruce, was talking about, and as workforce growth contracts over the next two decades, our push to increase participation in the workforce will be a crucial ingredient in ensuring Australia's ongoing economic growth. The principal object of reform, therefore, should be to encourage and assist more and more people to contribute and participate positively.
Consider the trends. The number of people aged 65-plus is expected to increase from 3.4 million in 2016 to 6.5 million in 2040. Indeed, the fastest growing cohort is people aged 80-plus. While the number aged 18 or less will grow more slowly and decrease as a proportion of the population, overall dependency will increase. It's projected that the ratio of dependent people who are not of working age to those who are of working age will increase from 52 per cent in 2016 to 62.4 per cent in 2040. Even these figures underestimate the extent of total dependency. For example, most 15- to 18-year-olds are dependants. Another 1.5 million people are in receipt of unemployment benefits or the disability support pension.
So, if it is not addressed, the ageing of the Australian population will have profound impacts on our standard of living. Consider the cost of the pension to the budget if the numbers double. It's estimated that currently 71 per cent of people over 65 are in receipt of the pension, including 41 per cent at the full rate. While the pension age, as has been referred to, will gradually increase to 70 by 2040 as a consequence of previous legislative changes, the pension represents an increasing burden on the Commonwealth of Australia.
The profound and rapid change to employment itself compounds the urgency of raising participation. The changes are already occurring. Since 1986 the proportion of the workforce that is unskilled has fallen from 13.5 per cent to 9.9 per cent. The professional occupation share of total employment has increased from 15 per cent to 23.5 per cent, while the technicians and trade workers share of total employment has fallen from 18.4 per cent to just 14 per cent. These are profound changes to the composition of the Australian workforce over a relatively short period.
I come to the issue that I raised with the minister. In the 2014 budget, the Australian government directed funding to the implementation of an investment approach to participation, based on the successful New Zealand model. Targeted interventions can be designed to encourage a person onto a pathway of training, a job and prosperity rather than a trajectory to worklessness and welfare. The work in New Zealand has shown that if you make an investment up-front, based on actuarial calculations and determinations looking at various cohorts, you can have an entirely different trajectory for a young person. To take the cliched example that we hear from time to time of a young person aged 16 or 17 who leaves school at the earliest possible age, who has no skills and who may be employed in a part-time job or not employed for a period of time, the work in New Zealand has shown that that young person is much more likely to remain unemployed, to be unemployed at the age of 35 and to be unemployed for a long period of time. Whereas, if you can make the right intervention with that young person, give them the skills and the training, it's likely that they will get a job, remain in a job, be in a job at the age of 35, and can have a family and all the things that people aspire to in life and therefore be on a trajectory to prosperity and a better outcome for themselves and their families.
I know that in New Zealand they're looking at extending this to the way in which they approach housing issues and homelessness, and even to the way in which the prison population is dealt with in terms of giving them skills so that they don't end up in prison once again. This is a system which I've always believed is an advance on where we have been in Australia, and I'd ask the minister, if he could, to update me on the progress of the work that's been done in that regard.
Australia is in the midst of a worsening housing affordability crisis, and the government is too out of touch to do anything about it. The Australian housing affordability crisis has been mounting for years now, with the pressure particularly on those who might be struggling financially and who are already the first to feel the pinch.
We know that homeownership rates for young Australians have collapsed to their lowest level in 30 years. Fewer than 40 per cent now own their own home, compared to 60 per cent a generation ago. My region in the growing south-west Sydney is home to a number of young families who are doing their best to find affordable housing in the Sydney housing market. Many sacrifice valuable time together to put a roof over their head. My area is a long way from the Sydney CBD, which is where most people go to work, and many local commuters spend well in excess of an hour travelling each way to and from work. With over 13 per cent of households with mortgages in Werriwa now experiencing housing stress, this being well above the national average, we see that even the once more affordable south-west Sydney is becoming out of reach.
Despite the obvious signs that the situation is approaching crisis point, the government's response appears to be high on rhetoric and low on solutions that will actually address housing affordability. Despite claiming that measures to address housing affordability were the centrepiece of their last budget, one year on the government's contradictory measures have delivered no relief for the locals in my area. I know this because I see it each day. Florence and Suresh, a couple who recently approached me, have been finding it extremely difficult in the private rental market between rising rent, cost-of-living pressures and a fixed wage. They have been on the waiting list for social housing for a staggering 17 years. The fact that they've had to wait for so long can only be seen as a failure. They've been very patient, but the stress and fatigue that this has placed on them means that they are now considering leaving our local area. People should be able to afford to live comfortably in our major cities. It's as simple as that. Yet those opposite, while acknowledging the concerns of others, don't seem to view action as a priority; instead they choose to window dress while the situation facing many of our Australians, like my constituents, becomes more and more dire.
The quality of housing is another matter. Much of Sydney's social housing has been allowed to decay into disrepair with the expectation of wide-scale renewal that never arrives. Another constituent I met with recently has mobility difficulties and lives in social housing on the eight floor of an apartment building. She experiences constant anxiety about what would happen if there was a fire, in which event she would be unable to use the lift. Her disabilities make it impossible for her to use the stairs. She's been placed on a priority housing list, but even that is years long, and she's been advised again and again there's simply not anything available that is appropriate to her needs. The simple fact is that there is more that has to be done.
The government has no housing minister, no national plan to tackle rising homelessness and, a full year after announcing the new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, has yet to reach agreement with any of the states and territories. My question to the minister, through you, Chair, is: how many more affordable rental properties does Australia need in order to address the current shortage, and how many Australian households are experiencing rental stress?
How many additional affordable rental houses will the proposed National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation deliver?
I'd also like to ask some questions on another subject dear to the residents of my electorate: carers' respite funding. Can the minister confirm how much the government has allocated for short-term, emergency and planned respite for each year between 2017-18 and 2020-21? Is it correct that total funding over that time frame for short-term and emergency respite is around $89.4 million? Given the fact that in the financial year 2015-16 the government allocated $60.298 million in funding for short-term and emergency respite, the logical conclusion is that fewer carers are now available to access this crucial service. Can the minister confirm that this is a cut and explain why he has reduced the yearly amount of funding the government provides for emergency carer respite?
I'll start with the question that was asked by the member for Tangney. Once again, I express to him my absolute and utter respect for the way that he deals with this portfolio area. He brings with it a life experience that means he's heartfelt, sincere and really focused not on ideology but on wanting to get outcomes on the ground. I absolutely commend him for that.
The government's drug-testing trial, which we hope to get through the parliament in the coming months, would see people randomly drug tested—5,000 new recipients of Newstart and youth allowance, other, over two years in the three trial sites of Canterbury-Bankstown in New South Wales, Logan in Queensland and Mandurah in Western Australia. Importantly, he went to the area that it's not solely about drug testing—it's also about the wrap-around services that come with that, so we have a proper approach to help those people who are, sadly, afflicted with drug dependence.
The treatment funds will comprise $1 million for case management services to help people who return more than one positive test result during the trial access the services and treatment identified in their treatment plan; $3 million in funding to boost drug-treatment capacity in the three trial sites and respond to any additional treatment demands; and approximately $6 million for accredited treatment support for individuals identified through the trial, in the event that state or Commonwealth funded services are not able to be accessed in a timely manner. I thank him very much for his interest in this area.
I would like to mention the issues around housing and homelessness. As the parliament knows, the Australian government has taken this issue incredibly seriously. That's why, in addition to the approximate $4.4 billion provided in Commonwealth rent assistance, the government announced a comprehensive housing affordability plan as part of the 2017-18 budget. The government's plan improves housing outcomes for Australians by unlocking supply, creating the right incentives and improving outcomes for those most in need. This includes the establishment of a new $1.5 billion-a-year National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, to commence on 1 July 2018; the First Home Super Saver Scheme, to help Australians buy their first home; the $1 billion National Housing Infrastructure Facility; the $9.6 million National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, which will help unlock new housing supply, including social housing; $6 million to support the Homes for Homes initiative, which aims to raise funds for social and affordable housing; and $10 million over 10 years to develop social-impact investments that help young people at risk of homelessness.
I would now like to address the issue that the former minister raised with me, and I thank him for his question. Obviously, the government's investment approach is incredibly important and is getting results. The government released the priority investment approach 2016 valuation report, which estimated the future lifetime cost of welfare payments for all Australians to be $4.5 trillion as at 30 June 2016, compared to the baseline valuation report estimation of $4.8 trillion as at 30 June 2015. As we can see, as a result of the government's policy, the lifetime cost of our welfare system has been reduced by $28 billion due to the approach that we've taken, which is obviously significant for the Australian people.
I mention that, when it comes to pensions, under this government, pensions for singles have risen by approximately $100—by $99.20 per fortnight. Pensions for couples have risen by nearly $150—by $149.40 per fortnight.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is the biggest social reform since Medicare. It's something that the disability community fought for years to realise. But there are serious problems with the rollout that need to be fixed urgently. The latest quarterly report shows a big jump in complaints: 4,146 complaints were made in the most recent quarter, with more than 17,300 complaints made since the scheme commenced. Progress against the bilateral estimates also continues to worsen. Since the scheme started, 78 per cent of the bilateral estimates have been met, down from 83 per cent in June 2017. The rate of unscheduled planned reviews also remains far too high, at 28 per cent, indicating people are not getting the right supports included in their plans.
I said in a speech nearly two years ago that, in my electorate of Bass, demand was 1,300, growing to approximately 2,900 participants under the full scheme, and that the workforce would need to grow significantly to meet demand. Left to a Turnbull Liberal government, real gaps in management and service provision have emerged, and people with disabilities are losing out. At the last census, one in four Tasmanians, or about 148,000 people, were identified as dealing with a disability. That's the highest proportion in Australia. About 3,500 Tasmanians have so far signed up to the NDIS, and 10,600 will be in the NDIS when it's fully rolled out by July 2019.
It's now very clear that the NDIA doesn't have enough staff to roll out the scheme on time. If we are going to sort out the problems with poor-quality NDIS plans, the staffing cap on the NDIA needs to be lifted. This is reinforced by the Commonwealth Ombudsman's findings, which have prompted 20 recommendations for the agency overseeing the NDIS. The agency admitted to the Ombudsman in February that it had more than 8,000 reviews on hand and was receiving around 620 new review requests each and every week. People in my electorate have experienced delays and dramas with the transitional arrangements with the NDIS. The Turnbull government must also take action on workforce and market development. We know that one in five new jobs over the next few years will be in the disability sector.
Underutilisation of NDIS plans is a growing source of concern. A high proportion of plans, 55 per cent, have a utilisation rate of between zero and 50 per cent. This means that far too many people with disability that are already in the NDIS aren't getting the services and supports the NDIS plans say they need. Even worse, around 15 per cent, or 3,254 plans, have not been activated at all in the most recently reported quarter. We need a comprehensive workforce development and training plan so that the workforce is ready to provide the support services that people with disability need as the NDIS continues to roll out across Australia.
There are far too many examples of people not getting the services they need in their NDIS plans. We receive regular reports that staff are under pressure, participants are getting poor-quality planning outcomes and the IT system is unreliable. I have the following questions for the minister. Last year in their report into NDIS costs, the Productivity Commission made the following recommendation:
The Australian Government should remove the cap on staff employed directly by the National Disability Insurance Agency.
Will the government accept this recommendation and lift the cap on the NDIA to end the delays and improve capacity within the agency?
Many providers are also reporting that they'll need to cease delivering services in the NDIS due to the NDIA's pricing decisions and serious cashflow issues that are caused by delays in receiving payment from the NDIA. Who does the minister think is primarily responsible for supporting the sector and workers to be ready for the expansion of the NDIS—is it the role of the minister and the DSS, the NDIA or the states? Given that one of the central tenets of the NDIS is control and choice for people with disability, what is the minister doing to ensure there are service providers available to participants to exercise that choice and that quality long-standing services and dedicated workers in the sector are being retained at this crucial time of growth in services and demand?
Can the minister confirm that the categorisation of autism under the scheme is at his discretion? Is the minister able to provide more recent figures than those the agency published in their quarterly report last month? If so, could the minister please provide an update on the current number of scheme participants? And how does this compare to the bilateral target, the current utilisation and activation rates for plans? How much of the sector development fund has been spent? And does the government have any plans beyond the relatively limited scope of the NDIS Jobs and Market Fund?
Minister, we have so much good news to share about the rollout of the NDIS. But sometimes we forget the good news and are overtaken by the need to resolve the complex cases that take a little time to stitch together a good delivery of services. We know the National Disability Insurance Scheme is a world-first scheme to provide support to people with a disability. It will change the way people with a disability, their families and disability providers work together. In fact, it is highly envied by other nations, even in developed nations with healthy economies.
Gilmore is a region where part of the electorate was introduced to the scheme in 2016, and the other part only began to transition in 2017. Initially, I have to say, there were reservations with this belated rollout schedule and, in addition, many of my parents of children with a disability and those adults established already within the state system were equally concerned. However, it has been in some ways a blessing, as we've learned a great deal in the process. People, in general, are more aware and compassionate about the needs of those with a disability, and that can only be a good thing.
Delivering this groundbreaking reform to improve outcomes for Australians with significant disabilities and permanent disabilities will inevitably involve challenges. The scale of the rollout is huge. It's a bigger nation-building project than the Snowy River hydro scheme and the Defence investment in our new shipbuilding program. Clearly, the NDIS is improving the wellbeing of people with a disability. The insurance approach allows pressures on the scheme to be identified early and to have strategies to respond to these pressures. The specific strategies to address these pressures include: the introduction of the Early Childhood Early Intervention gateway, which aims to support children within the mainstream services; the introduction of typical support packages to establish support for participants with specific characteristics; increased risk based quality assurance at access and plan approval; increased staff training; and the redesign of the participant pathway to provide a stronger focus on participant outcomes and goals and sustainability.
Currently, the best estimate of the longer term cost of a well-managed NDIS is $22 billion a year at full scheme, which we are able to fund through our revenue streams. There have been several positive stories with NDIS, particularly when the minister and staff can assist in this process. Sometimes it can be difficult for families. My office was assisted to help Robin Robertson and her two-year-old son Jack in transitioning from the care of state Helping Children with Autism to the NDIS. Robin said, 'The vision I have for my son Jack is that he will be able to fully participate in life and have successful relationships.' And further: 'At two years and nine months, Jack has a crucial window of learning ahead of him. The importance of building new pathways in his brain over the next few years will determine his ability to successfully manage in the world as an adult.'
Lynne Walker of Nowra is another constituent that we have assisted. Lynne's son Gavin was automatically eligible for the NDIS, but her other son Damon was not. Both were diagnosed with autism from a young age and received the same treatment previously. We were able to resolve this, and Damon was successful in receiving an NDIS package.
In December 2017, Robyn Fitzgerald submitted a review of her son Brad. Brad's package was nearly one-third of the funding he was receiving prior to the NDIS. He'd already depleted his funding despite halving the hours of care he receives. This matter was referred to the NDIS by our office, and we received the following:
Robyn was called by the NDIA on Friday. She asked for a phone conversation with someone who could help her explaining what was needed. Robyn had that phone conversation today at interchange with a staff member … She received a phone call on the way home letting her know that the plan would be emailed to her tomorrow and would begin now for a period of 12 months.
Finally, I received this letter from Fiona Stewart of Milton, after helping with her son, Robert:
Dear Mrs Sudmalis,
I'm writing to thank you for your assistance in resolving a long running delay in the progress on my son, Robert's NDIS eligibility … With the help of the team in the minister's office Robert came out of the process feeling that he'd had the chance to express himself well and discuss his support need in a positive environment. We have now received his plan and are very satisfied that it will meet his medium-term needs while he is able to remain in our home. We have since commenced dialogue with local service providers regarding independent living options.
Minister, can you detail and describe the overall success of the NDIS rollout as it is happening all over Australia, without specific reference to the problems which are of course incurred when there's such a big rollout program? They need to be put together, and we need to make sure that we recognise the good whilst we also address the ones that are causing grief for families.
There's no doubt in anyone's mind, I would think, that it is incredibly difficult to live on Newstart. The rate of Newstart is so low that it's acting as a barrier to people actually finding work. Businesses, unions and experts have all agreed on this. Indeed, the Business Council of Australia—representing the establishment, if you like, the biggest of corporate Australia—has clearly said that the rate of Newstart is too low. Most people in the parliament, I think, agree—whether publicly or privately, at the least. The member for Chisholm, however, has said publicly '$40 a day is fine, you can live on that, but there are far too many Australians who can't get a job.'
We hear a lot from the government that they have created a million jobs—the million jobs!
Honourable members interjecting—
They don't tell us, of course, that since 2013, half of those million jobs were actually given to people on temporary work visas. We don't hear much about that. Minister, we don't hear much about the 1.1 million Australians that are underemployed, that want more work, that need to work more hours and that can't get those hours. We don't hear the inconvenient truth that there are 40,000 more people in the unemployment queue than when your government were elected. That million jobs figure is apparently a smoke and mirrors thing to distract from what's really going on. Buried in those figures, Minister, there are 470,000 Australians that are long-term unemployed. They've been on Newstart for 12 months. It's totally unacceptable.
Newstart, of course, is meant to be a temporary payment; you're not meant to live on it lifelong. But when you're on that kind of money long term, real damage sets in. What do you think a decent government would do? You could be honest that it's too low and say: 'We're going to review the system. We're fiscally constrained; it's tough, but we acknowledge it's a problem and we'll have a look at it.' That's Labor policy. At the very least you could do nothing, Minister. You could say quietly, 'We're not going to look at this at the moment.' But the government's policy is to not even do nothing. They're so arrogant and out of touch that they're still pursuing a cut to Newstart of $8.80 per fortnight, by axing the energy supplement. Let's be very clear, Minister, on why you haven't managed to do this yet. It's because Labor has fought hard for the last two years to protect vulnerable Australians from Newstart cuts. That is the only reason this hasn't happened yet. So it's time for the government, through this budget, to drop your unfair cut to Australians on Newstart. The former Prime Minister wanted to make young people wait for six months before getting any income support, but Labor defeated that cut because Labor believes in a society that protects and invests in people, and not in demonising Australians who need our social security safety net.
I'm going to put clear and specific questions to the minister. You did fail to answer any of my questions last time. I'll give you one out of 10. You didn't mention the pension age of 70. You did say the word 'pension', so we'll word associate and give you one mark out of 10 for that! But I'm going to be optimistic, Minister, even hopeful, that you might answer—a moment of redemption. I did say to the minister in a speech previously that we have something in common; it was a moment of empathy again. We are both scared of the member for Jagajaga!
I'm scared of her—I've known her for 22 years—and you're scared of her—we see it in question time. She's sick today; she's not here, so you can relax. You can settle in, and you can tell the truth. Nothing bad is going to happen. There's no reason to be scared.
My questions, Minister: What is the maximum rate of the energy supplement that someone on Newstart could receive today? What is the current fortnightly maximum payment for a single person with no dependants on Newstart, including the energy supplement? What will be the fortnightly maximum payment for a single person on Newstart if the government's plan to remove the energy supplement for new applicants is successful? How much less will a new applicant receive per fortnight? Isn't it the case that by axing the energy supplement the Turnbull government is essentially cutting Newstart to the most vulnerable? That's a yes/no question. It's pretty much multiple-choice. You've got a 50 per cent chance of getting that one right. We know you're not fully across the detail yet. And how many people on Newstart will see their energy supplement cut?
We have had a bit of this in Senate estimates. You're not there, so maybe we'll get something better from you, Minister, but it tends to go sideways. I know your talking point over there will say somewhere: 'Newstart hasn't changed,' but that is waffle. What we need are answers that talk about the cash that goes into peoples' pockets, because in the real world when you're living hand to mouth—I've doorknocked swathes of my electorate—$10 is a lot of money to people living hand to mouth, and taking $4.40 off people per week is material over the year. You have an opportunity for here for redemption, Minister. You could show that this forum is not as meaningless as question time and actually answer the questions.
I would like to thank the people in my electorate who are older, who are over 65. They've contributed so much to this country. One of the things I'd like to do, Minister, is thank those people for their contribution to Australia, because the great country that we have, which we all benefit from living in and sharing now, has been left to us because of the actions, the lives and the contributions that they've made.
Hear, hear!
Thank you member for Goldstein.
I think the member for Goldstein was warned about banging desks earlier today.
The age pension is the backbone of the lives of many retired Australians not just in my electorate but right around Australia. It's a safety net, and it's a guaranteed hand-up for those who have spent their lives contributing to our nation and to our work force. Young fellows like me in their mid-40s—I'm still there—have superannuation if we're working. Even if we've got the minimum contribution of 9½ per cent, when we get to retirement age of 67—which Labor raised it to, by the way—we'll have money from superannuation that we can use. You know what? That's actually the pension age, but even if we retired when we were 63, we could use our superannuation. We could draw down on that and use it for five, six, seven or eight years. The further that goes, the greater job that we're doing for the taxpayer, which is really important.
It has been difficult for pensioners to receive an income from employment and not have their pension reduced. Many pensioners in my electorate have extensive experience in a wide range of fields and can still make a valuable contribution to the workforce—because of their experience there's a lot that they can offer—but asset testing and income deductions don't always make it worthwhile. When you see job applications online today, employers are looking for experience. They'd do well to hire older Australians, because statistics show that they have fewer sick days, and they've also got a lot to contribute and to pass on to younger Australians whom they can mentor. Many people with decades of experience can ensure the workforce remains sustainable, and they can pass on career and life lessons to younger generations. So it's important that we, as a government, continue to encourage older Australians to stay engaged in the workforce for as long as they choose to, and many people in my electorate do choose to do that. The way to do this is to have an age-pension scheme that works in practice, not just on paper. Everyday Australians want to be supported, valued and free to make their own decisions. As a federal government, we need to make sure Australians have more choice in retirement and give people the flexibility to design a retirement that suits them, not one that just fits within a heap of rules.
If you look at the opposition's plans for retirement for pensioners, it's clear the Leader of the Opposition is incredibly out of touch with the Australian community. Labor always make sure they appear to be saying the right thing, but the devil is in the detail. Labor's poorly designed retirement tax will hurt pensioners not just in Petrie but in Longman and Braddon—probably in the minister's seat as well. It will punish well-prepared, organised and self-reliant Australians who've worked hard to support themselves and are actually contributing by helping their dollar go a bit further. Instead, what Labor want to do is tax them—no surprise there.
Australians are living longer, which means we're working longer. The feedback from my electorate is that it's not easy to just stop working at 63 or 67—or whenever it is you want to retire or when you can retire—when you still feel like you can continue to contribute. The fact is a lot of older Australians really want to keep working. You'll find that, when they do retire, they're often busier than ever. Have they said that to you?
A Labor government would place grandparents in the firing line, particularly lower income retirees. No matter what side of politics we come from, we should all unite to appreciate retirees and thank them for their lifelong contributions. Minister, could you address how this year's budget protects pensioners but also encourages them to remain and engage in the workforce.
I'll spare you the pensioner energy supplement and, while the member for Ryan is in the chamber—you're the senior cabinet minister overseeing the NDIS; congratulations, great Labor reform—I want to ask you a specific question and I hope for a real answer. I'll be serious. Could take this one on notice. I have written to the member for Ryan about it. I'm still hopeful for an answer. She's usually very good, despite what you did to her—that is, the Liberal Party. I spoke in parliament on 21 May, but I still haven't had a response.
I'm speaking on behalf of Caddie Whitehead and her son, Xabian. Xabian has severe cerebral palsy. He is under six. He attends the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in my electorate—one of the best centres in Australia. It's a flagship program that operates in a transdisciplinary setting: they have an occupational therapist, a physio and speech pathologist in the same class, and families. So part of the benefit of this program—I've visited it myself—is that parents and carers learn from other families. It's been brilliant and going for over 20 years. It's been evaluated numerous times and is studied nationally and internationally, but it is under threat and about to close—that's not an exaggeration; I've met with the chair of the board and the CEO—because of the NDIS pricing structure.
The default pricing structure for this kind of group program requires a two-to-one funding ratio of staff to recipient, but three to one is required for this program. The model that you're still currently operating is a one-size-fits-all model. I think this is a terrible situation. They're fundraising. They've another fundraising dinner on Saturday night. It's bandaids and sticky tape, but they said they cannot keep sustaining this and they've been hoping to have the issue resolved for 12 months.
It is a ridiculous false economy in that this early intervention improves lives and saves money down the track. The member for Ryan's nodding; I think we agree on this. Minister, can you please intervene and fix this? The rigid pricing structure isn't working. I would be very happy to host you or the member for Ryan and visit the class.
I thank the member for Bruce for that question. I'll talk to the assistant minister, and we will get back to you. The government will have more to say on pricing in the coming days—that is imminent.
I ask the member for Bruce if he could pass on my best wishes to the member for Jagajaga, and I hope that she gets better soon. Please, I would like no-one to get the impression that I don't in any way have a very good working relationship with her. I find her absolutely professional in the way she goes about her job. I would like to put to rest any idea of intimidation or anything like that, and I wish her well.
I thank the member for Petrie for his question. He is absolutely right that this year's budget was all about benefitting pensioners and, in particular, about the pension work bonus, which gives greater flexibility for our pensioners to do additional work. For a single pensioner it means an extra $50 a fortnight, so they can now earn up to $300 a fortnight, which is incredibly important. The Treasurer was very keen about making sure there's flexibility, so they don't have to earn it over 52 weeks of the year but can earn it in a period. Basically, they can boost their retirement income by up to $17,800. That is really important, and I thank him for the interest he has in this issue and also for his strong advocacy for pensioners. He knows how important it is that we are respectful of pensioners and retirees. He's absolutely right. The idea that you would hit retirees and by extension some pensioners with a tax of $5 billion a year beggars belief for us on this side. We cannot comprehend how any government could do that. It will impact his electorate; it will impact mine. As a matter of fact, the constituents of every member of parliament will be impacted by this.
Can I go to some previous questions which I didn't get around to answering. One was to do with the indexation of UK pensions, which has been a longstanding issue of concern for the Australian government. So that the shadow minister for human services is aware, I've been advised that in the margins of CHOGM the Prime Minister raised the UK policy on pension indexation directly with the UK Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Theresa May MP. This is an issue which both sides of government have raised over many years, and we will continue to do so at the highest level because it's incredibly important. On deeming rates, we will continue to monitor returns from financial investments and the appropriateness of deeming rates. When it comes to rebalancing the pension, can I just advise the shadow minister that 90 per cent of pensioners are either better off or have had no change to their pension under this measure. When it comes to raising the pension age, I really do think the best way to answer this question is to quote from a media release which was put out by the member for Lilley and the member for Jagajaga in 2009 where they said:
Increasing the age pension age is a responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians.
I put that quote on the record because I think it's an incredibly important one in this debate. Can I say to the member for Gilmore, when it comes to the NDIS she's absolutely right that this is an incredibly important reform. It's transformational. Already we're seeing 160,000 participants in the scheme, 40,000 of whom have never received services before from the Commonwealth or state governments. Over the coming months 750 additional staff will be brought on board as the rollout continues to ramp up.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Debate adjourned.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 18:34