BILLS

2015-06-23 44 1 6 House of Reps 0 1

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 12:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.

BILLS 1 BILLS Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill 2015 1

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill 2015

Returned from Senate 1 COMMITTEES 1 COMMITTEES National Capital and External Territories Committee 1 Report 1 12:01 Mr SIMPKINS HWE Cowan On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories I present the committee's report entitled Governance in the Indian Ocean territories—interim report: economic development. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). Mr SIMPKINS HWE by leave—The inquiry was referred in March 2015 by the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Broadly, the terms of reference direct the committee to examine governance and administrative arrangements in Indian Ocean territories. The committee is also directed to examine opportunities for economic diversification and development. The committee visited the Indian Ocean territories in April 2015. During the visit, members gained insight into the day-to-day challenges that residents face—be it the high cost of living, slow Internet access or difficulties running a business in a remote location. What has emerged is that residents of the Indian Ocean territories are frustrated by a system of governance, which has many layers of bureaucracy and unclear delineations of responsibility. Addressing these complex issues is a priority and the committee is seeking further information before reporting. The interim report sets aside these more complex issues to deal quickly with some aspects of economic development where the evidence on how to proceed has been clear and consistent. Unquestionably, the residents of the Indian Ocean territories want and need a sustainable and robust economy. This is especially the case on Christmas Island, which has experienced a boom and bust cycle with its mainstays—phosphate mining and immigration detention. The interim report makes three recommendations intended to boost the economy relatively quickly. Firstly, the committee recommends reopening the Christmas Island casino. This will require establishing the necessary policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks to allow for this. Once appropriate frameworks are in place, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development should conduct a process to assess proposals from private sector proponents. The community wants the casino reopened and work on this is long overdue. Interestingly, on 18 June the Indian Ocean Territories Administrator issued a bulletin advising that the Australian government had agreed to undertake initial consultation regarding the proposal to re-establish a casino. Minister Briggs will consult with ministerial colleagues about the complex regulatory issues and undertake discussions with the Western Australian and Northern Territory governments. This is a promising start. Secondly, the committee supports re-establishing the capacity for international fee-paying students at the Christmas Island high school. This had previously operated on Christmas Island for a short time and demonstrated the potential for a range of flow-on effects to the local economy. Thirdly, in these remote communities of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island a reliable and affordable shipping service is critical to residents to support business and development. The current shipping service may not best serve the needs of residents or, the largest single user, the Australian government. To determine if there is capacity to improve efficiency and achieve better value for money for shipping services the committee recommends that the Australian government test the market by calling for expressions of interest, to be followed, if need be, by a full tender. Lastly, the committee highlights the Mining to Plant Enterprise Project on Christmas Island as an example of possible economic diversification. MINTOPE is working to establish agriculture on exhausted mining leases via a research partnership between Murdoch University and Christmas Island Phosphates. The committee saw for itself the success that MINTOPE had with a variety of crops. Community support and involvement are driving forces behind the project. A recent field day drew interest from many island residents. More testing is required before individuals and groups can formulate reliable business cases for investment. If agricultural production is proven to be economically viable, there are potentially a range of opportunities. These include production of feed for animals, fish pellets, exporting vegetables to Asia and timber production, to name a few. The committee recognises the project's achievements to date and wants to see the project continue to flourish. On behalf of my committee colleagues I thank Sara Edson, the inquiry secretary, and the rest of the committee secretariat for their great work. I commend the interim report to the House and move: That the House take note of the report. The SPEAKER 10000 In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Reference to Federation Chamber 2 12:06 Mr SIMPKINS HWE Cowan I move: That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate. Question agreed to. Electoral Matters Committee 2 Report 2 12:07 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey I ask leave of the House to make a statement on behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on electoral matters updating the House on two new inquiries the committee will be launching, relating to electoral education and campaigning at polling places. Leave granted. Mr TONY SMITH 00APG I would like to update the House on the current work of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. As members would be aware, the committee has tabled reports into Senate voting practices, electronic voting options and, on budget day, the final report into the 2013 federal election. I inform the House that the committee has recently adopted terms of reference for two new inquiries, one on the delivery of electoral education, and the other on campaigning activities and conduct at polling places. I am pleased to formally launch both today. The launch of the electoral education inquiry ties in with the anniversaries of two historic and significant events that have shaped the Western world—the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and 750 years since the first Westminster parliament. The democratic principles of Magna Carta and the democratic architecture of Westminster developed, advanced and evolved over centuries, and took root here in the colonies. Such was the democratic transformation that the manner of the birth of the Australian nation in 1901 was unique, for it was created not by a war or revolution, but by a vote of the people. As a young democracy, we were therefore ideally placed to then lead the world in so many democratic advances. We took the best of both the British and American systems. We adopted the accountability of the British Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, but with the class-free features of the Americans. We established a House of Representatives instead of a House of Commons, and an elected Senate rather than an appointed House of Lords. Madam Speaker, you will not mind me revealing your keen interest in this topic and your wonderful descriptor of 'Ausminster' that I have heard you use on many occasions with school groups. We led both these democracies by decades in giving women the right to vote, when the first federal parliament passed its first electoral law in 1902. Our right to vote, how our parliament was created, its purpose and its operation have been the vital foundations for the success of our nation. The freedoms that flow from our democracy have been pivotal in providing generations of individuals with the opportunities that have built both their and, in turn, our nation's success. Every voter is a citizen shareholder in our nation, determining the direction of the nation through the ballot box at regular elections. Knowing our history is critical to understanding why parliament and politics matters, and how every citizen has a stake in the future. Maintaining the strength and vibrancy of our democracy in the years ahead requires an investment in Australia's young citizens, who are its future custodians. Teachers play a critical part in shaping young people's understanding of their role as citizens and future electors. Their work helps guide the democratic development of our nation. The committee will conduct its investigations focusing on the following terms of reference: electoral education services provided to schools, students and teachers the teaching methodology of the national Civics and Citizenship Curriculum; and evolving technology and new platforms for delivering electoral education. The focus of the electoral education inquiry will include: what is being taught to students when they visit Parliament House and Canberra? what are the barriers preventing some schools from visiting Canberra and what can be done about it? what resources and training are the teachers provided with to deliver effective electoral education? what are the electoral commissions delivering in terms of electoral education? how can the delivery of electoral education be improved? Our second inquiry follows a reference from the Special Minister of State, Senator Ronaldson, in relation to campaigning activities at polling places. The committee will inquire into and report on the current rules and practices in relation to campaign activities in the vicinity of polling places, with particular reference to: the distribution of how-to-vote cards; campaigning by organisations other than political parties at polling places; allegations in relation to the conduct of, and material disseminated by, campaigners at state and federal elections in the vicinity of polling places intended or likely to mislead or intimidate electors; and any other related matters. There have been allegations aired in the media of bullying and intimidation of candidates and voters at polling places, and misleading conduct designed to deceive voters and distort their electoral will. The committee will consider these issues, as well as the rules and regulations around conduct at polling places. DELEGATION REPORTS 3 DELEGATION REPORTS Parliamentary Delegation to Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, South Africa and the Seychelles) 3 12:12 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to southern Africa (Zimbabwe, South Africa and the Seychelles), and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection to that report. Leave granted. Mr ENTSCH 7K6 This report outlines the main activities and observations of the parliamentary delegation from the Parliament of Australia's visit to the Republic of Zimbabwe, the Republic of South Africa, and the Republic of the Seychelles between 3 and 16 August 2014. The overall objective of the delegation was to enhance bilateral relations between Australia and the three countries visited, while also gaining a greater understanding of Africa—particularly southern Africa—and the Indian Ocean region. The members of the delegation included me, the member for Leichhardt, for the Liberal Party, as the delegation leader; Senator Sue Lines, senator for Western Australia, for the Australian Labor Party, who was my very capable deputy delegation leader; Senator David Bushby, senator for Tasmania, for the Liberal Party; Dr Andrew Southcott MP, member for Boothby, for the Liberal Party; and Senator Penny Wright, senator for South Australia, of the Australian Greens. We were accompanied by Mr Daniel Weight, our delegation secretary, who had come from the Parliamentary Library. Travelling through this area, there were a number of issues over the course of the delegation that we saw were reoccurring wherever we went. One, of course, was the importance of stable property rights, which are absolutely critical to ensure that individuals and communities have an interest in developing sustainable models of economic activity and growth. The second one was improving the economic and social status of women. Ensuring that women have real control over their sexual choices and activities is critically important. The third reoccurring point was that the potential of Africa has not been fully tapped by Australian businesses and there are also opportunities for further cooperation in education, particularly vocational education. In Zimbabwe we visited both Harare and Bulawayo. Zimbabwe enjoys significant natural and human resources but largely politically-inflicted economic difficulties continue to undermine the potential of the country and its people. Many contemporary problems within Zimbabwe appear to result from explicit policies aimed at addressing historic injustices. Rather than improving circumstances for current-day Zimbabweans, however, these policies have had devastating economic and social effects. Despite the adverse circumstances in Zimbabwe, there were reasons for optimism. The delegation met with the women's caucus of the Zimbabwean parliament, building on ties that were established by several of those women during their visit to the Australian parliament as part of the Oxfam program for women's participation in politics and decision making. I certainly enjoyed meeting with them when they were here in this parliament, and it was great to be able to catch up with them when we were in Zimbabwe. In South Africa we visited Johannesburg, Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal province and Durban. We visited civil society and other organisations that have been active in addressing the cultural and social issues that have their origins in the apartheid era and its end in 1994. We visited the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa and viewed the outstanding work being undertaken. The management of natural resources and wildlife, particularly the balancing of environmental conservation with the economic utilisation of those resources, was a particular area of interest. From its difficult history, South Africa has developed institutions and expertise to address its current economic and social challenges. We then travelled to the Seychelles and we visited Mahe and the island of Praslin. We met with many Seychellois politicians and dignitaries and canvassed a broad range of issues, many of which were related to natural resource management. Other issues resulted from the Seychelles' strategic position in the Indian Ocean and its important role in combatting international crime and piracy. I have to say that we also had the opportunity to visit a prison in the Seychelles. The work that they are doing is absolutely outstanding in the way of rehabilitation. They have a number of Somali pirates residing there. The rehabilitation work that they are doing within the prison system was a real eye-opener and something of which the Seychelles government can be very proud. The delegation considered that in the future the greatest assistance to the Seychelles would be the development of the clear and obvious business opportunities which exist for Australian businesses and greater cultural and educational exchanges. In order to develop this, more regular—at least annual—ministerial engagement between Australia and the Seychelles should become a feature of the relationship. We looked at a number of aid projects in Zimbabwe that are assisted by Australian aid, and the delegation had the opportunity to look at a number of projects that were funded directly or indirectly through Australian aid. Projects included: water, sanitation and hygiene projects; family impact—relationship counselling; the Sandra Jones Children's Home, run by a wonderful Australian, which supports young sexual assault victims; the Bulawayo Water and Sewerage Emergency Response Program; the Kirimuva Community Gardens; and Ebenezer Farm. We have three primary recommendations from our visit. The first is that the delegation encourages the government of Zimbabwe to recognise the deleterious effects of uncertain property rights on economic growth and to restore effective protections for those rights, including protections over interests in land. The second is that the delegation encourages the government of Zimbabwe to expedite the establishment of the various civil society institutions required by the 2013 constitution. Appropriate non-government organisations or regional bodies, such as SADC, may wish to monitor Zimbabwe's progress in this regard. The final recommendation is that the Australian and Seychellois governments seek to develop the relationship between the two nations, including through more regular, at least annual, ministerial exchange. The delegation was very, very successful, in no small way due to the cooperation and the good spirit of the members of the delegation. I commend the report to the House. BILLS 4 BILLS Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015 4 First Reading 4 Second Reading 4 12:22 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I move: That this bill be now read a second time. Once again I do thank the opposition for the opportunity to have this matter dealt with today and to enable this bill to be introduced to the House of Representatives and considered on this day; and, in moving that the bill be read a second time, I would like to outline a number of things. That is that this bill takes schedule 1 of a bill that was considered by the House yesterday under the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fairer and Sustainable Pensions) Bill—it was actually schedule 1 of that bill—and it reintroduces it into this place in the new bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015. Members of the House will know that last night in the Senate the fairer and sustainable pensions bill passed the Senate, which was welcome news for the government. In addition to that, there was another measure, which was originally in the fair and sustainable pensions bill which was schedule 4 of that bill, relating to the cessation of the seniors supplement, which was also passed in separate legislation in the Senate last night. That means that some $3.5 billion of savings that are in the have-a-go budget have been passed already by the Senate. That means that the have-a-go budget is having a go. The have-a-go budget is getting a go and it is having a go, and today in this bill we are reintroducing schedule 1 of the fairer and sustainable pensions bill. That bill presents measures that will result in further savings of $465.5 million for the budget. The bill will introduce a further budget measure improving the fairness and sustainability of the pension system, and I note that it relates to defined benefit income stream, which usually comes from an employer superannuation fund or government employee superannuation scheme. It currently includes military defined benefit income streams. The payments received from a defined benefit income stream less the deducted amount are taken into consideration as ordinary income when determining whether an individual is eligible for income support payments and, if eligible, the rate of payment. The deductible amount for a defined benefit income stream is defined in section 9 of the Social Security Act. Currently, the deductible amount is calculated by reference to the tax-free component of the amount payable under the defined benefit income stream as determined in accordance with the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 or the Income Tax (Transitional Provisions) Act 1997. Amendments to the Income Tax Act 1997 and 2007 resulted in an increase to the tax-free component for some individuals, and this had the effect of increasing the deductible amount for the purposes of the Social Security Act, resulting in individuals becoming entitled to income support payments or higher rates of income support. For improved fairness and equity, the bill will make sure a fairer proportion of a superannuant's actual defined benefit income is taken into account when the social security income test is applied. From 1 January 2016, this measure will introduce a 10 per cent cap on the defined benefit income that can be excluded from the social security income test. A defined benefit income stream is a pension paid from a public sector or other corporate defined benefit superannuation fund, where the pension paid generally reflects years of service and the final salary of the beneficiary. Current arrangements allow some defined benefit superannuants to have a large proportion of their superannuation income excluded from the pension income test. I note that that will now be restricted to 10 per cent. People receiving veterans' affairs pensions, I note, will not be affected by this change, and defined benefit income streams paid by military superannuation schemes will be excluded. The combined savings, I note, of $465.5 million, when added to those that have already passed the Senate, will mean combined savings of almost $4 billion as a result of these measures that were originally included in the fairer and sustainable pensions bill, and now schedule 1 of that bill, as I noted, is now specifically addressed and reintroduced in this measure. The DEPUTY SPEAKER E0D Is leave granted for the debate to continue? Leave granted. 12:27 Ms MACKLIN PG6 Jagajaga As the minister has just indicated, this bill relates to specific social security treatment of defined benefits and will cap the deductible amount from the pension income test at 10 per cent. The information provided indicates that there are 48,000 pensioners on defined benefit schemes. As I understand it, most people claim less than 10 per cent. Only 17,000 people will be affected by this change. As the explanatory memorandum of the bill explains, this bill ensures that a proportion of a superannuant's actual defined benefit income is taken into account when applying the social security income test. As the minister indicated, from 1 January the deductible amount, which is the amount that can be excluded from the income test for a defined income benefit stream, excluding military defined benefit schemes, will be capped at a maximum of 10 per cent. As I indicated, the vast majority of people with defined benefit income streams actually already claim less than 10 per cent, so it is only a minority of people in these circumstances who will be affected by this change. It is the case that these defined benefit income streams usually come from employer superannuation funds or government employee superannuation schemes. The change that is being effected emerges from amendments that were put in place in 2007 that did result in an increase to the tax-free component for some individuals. This has the effect of increasing the deductible amount for the purpose of the Social Security Act, resulting in individuals becoming entitled to income support payments or higher rates of income support. These are difficult decisions, certainly for those of us who are very concerned about this government's attack on pensioners, but we do understand that these are very difficult economic times. The minister tries to make out that the economic situation under this government is rosy. In fact, as the government's own budget papers show, the government, in less than two years, has doubled the deficit, and unemployment is up and confidence is down. So we actually find that the economic circumstances that this government is imposing on Australia are becoming more difficult, just as they are becoming more difficult for the millions of Australian pensioners who have been subjected to the most horrific attack by this government over the last 18 months. This change to the social security treatment of defined benefit schemes is just the latest change. We all recall that, before the last election, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, said to every single pensioner in Australia that there would be no changes to pensions, no changes whatsoever. Of course, in last year's budget that was found to be a complete untruth, when the Liberal-National Party government introduced the most substantial attack on the pension that Australia has ever seen. This government wanted to cut the indexation rate for the pension. It anticipated cutting over $23 billion from the pension over the next 10 years. This would have taken around $80 a week from pensioners—so a huge cut to pensions and a huge amount that would have been taken out of the pockets of pensioners. We saw the Prime Minister in here every single day in question time defending that cut to the pension that he was determined to try to implement through this parliament. Fortunately, pensioners around the country joined together with Labor and fought this change, and we were able to defeat it in the Senate. I remind every single member of the House of Representatives from the Liberal and National parties that they actually voted for this cut to pension indexation. We will make sure that pensioners remember this as we go to the next election. When Mr Abbott tells pensioners that he is not going to change anything, that he is not going to hurt pensioners, not one of them will believe him, because of the broken promises that pensioners have seen over the last two budgets. It was not just the change to indexation. The government did not stop there. It realised it could not get that measure through the parliament, so it came into this budget with more changes to the pension. The minister has just indicated that last night in the Senate we saw the Greens party team up with the National Party and the Liberal Party to cut the pension for 330,00 pensioners. These are middle-income Australians, people who have worked hard and saved hard all their lives. As a result of this government's broken promises, these middle-income people—they are by no means millionaires, as the minister likes to suggest; in fact, some of these people have incomes as low as $15,000 a year from their superannuation investments—will be facing cuts, if they are single pensioners, of anything up to $8,000 a year, each and every year. If they are couple pensioners, they will face cuts of up to $14,000 a year. These are very substantial changes, changes that the government promised that it would not make. It said, 'No changes to pensions,' and yet here we have the government rushing through the parliament a very substantial cut to middle-income pensioners who have saved hard all their lives and who now find that this government wants to completely move the goalposts and make them worse off in their retirement. It is not only people who are currently retired who will be affected by that change. It is also those hundreds of thousands of people in their 50s and 60s planning their retirement who now know that they too will be affected by this toughening-up of the pension assets test. The independent analysis that has been done of the impact on people who are planning their retirement over the next 10 years estimates that around half of all new retirees in the next 10 years will be affected by this measure. These will be people who in fact have less than average wages, so they certainly are not millionaires. They certainly never were going to be millionaires. And yet they will find that their retirement is going to be that much harder because of this government's attack on the pension. It is an attack on middle Australia, on those people who are still working hard, saving hard for their retirement, and yet we see the government deciding to really take the sledgehammer to people who are working and saving very hard. The government also has legislation that it wants to pursue through this parliament to increase the pension age to 70. Go and tell a hardworking nurse, bricklayer, carpenter or builder that they are going to have to keep working till they are 70. I have not found one of them who is happy about that. They know how hard that will be on their bodies. If it were the case that this government got this increased pension age through the parliament, we would see Australia have the oldest retirement age in the developed world. I can assure you that Labor will not support that increase to the age pension age. We think it is too harsh, particularly too harsh on the many thousands of Australians who do very tough jobs, particularly jobs that are tough on their bodies every single day. We understand that some older people do want to keep working. We want to support and encourage them. But we are not going to make it a requirement for access to the pension that you have to be at least 70 years of age. One of the other cuts in last year's budget, which is just starting to be felt by pensioners—but I can tell you they are very worried about it—is the unilateral decision by this government to cut $1.3 billion from the amount of money that goes from the Commonwealth to the states for concessions to pensioners and seniors. This is money that helps pensioners with the costs of their rates, their utilities, their water bills, their transport—all of those concessions. These are concessions that are delivered by the state and territory governments. The Commonwealth previously provided $1.3 billion to help with the costs of those concessions. It is just another cut imposed by the Abbott government on pensioners through the states and territories. Some states have done the right thing by pensioners and made up the difference. But there is a limit to what the states can do. The states are already having to also confront the huge cuts in health and education that will also, particularly in the case of hospitals, have a disproportionate effect on our older Australians. I assure the government that each and every marginal seat member on that side of the House will get used to seeing me in their electorates telling pensioners that this government does not tell the truth to them and this government is intent on attacking pensioners. Labor will not stop our campaign. There are millions of Australian pensioners who know that Mr Abbott did not tell them the truth before the last election. Labor will do everything in our power to stand up for Australian pensioners. 12:39 Mr SIMPKINS HWE Cowan What a free-ranging debate this will clearly be. Obviously I endorse this bill. The shadow minister raised a number of very interesting issues. She talked a fair bit about reminding pensioners—and other matters as well—so I will also do some reminding. As we know, before the last election there was a promise of no changes to pensions during this term of government. When we talk about changes from 1 January 2017 it can be very clearly pointed out that that is indeed after the first term of this government. The changes that were introduced and have been passed by the Senate were very clearly to wind back the access to part pensions for those who have assets exceeding $1 million, and to a degree under $1 million as well. We talked about self-funded; self-funded it will be. Labor talk about how they will remind people about what passed in that bill yesterday. I too will take great pleasure in reminding people, particularly in suburbs like Girrawheen and Koondoola—the Girrawheen Koondoola Senior Citizens Centre, Alexander Heights seniors centre, Ballajura seniors centre, Wanneroo seniors club—that, under the changes this government has passed, from 1 January 2017 they will be $15 a week better off. Clearly, from what the opposition have said, their intention is to take that away. So for all those age pensioners in Homes West houses throughout the electorate of Cowan, in yesterday's vote the opposition of the Labor Party to the bill was about making sure that that $30 never appears. I will take great pleasure in reminding people of that. And I will not wait till the next election; I will be talking about it very soon indeed. That will be a great opportunity. This bill was about making things fairer: about making sure that the support payment, the welfare payment, goes to those who are in the most need. Much has been said about the increase of the pension age to 70. Sixty-seven is okay as far as the Labor Party is concerned but 70—that is just a bridge too far. It is most disingenuous of them to talk in those terms. This bill will add another $465 million in savings. That is very important. The entire country will remember that, at the change of government in November 2007, there was money in the bank. The federal government had run things in the black. Then the series of events took place whereby this country went deep into the red. There was only one side in government at that time, and that was obviously the Labor Party. What they did to this country, the intergenerational debt that they have inflicted on this country—on the children, toddlers and babies of this country—is an absolute disgrace. They can never walk away from that. What has been achieved since the budget this year is that $3.5 billion of savings have already passed. That is good news for future generations of Australians. This bill will give a fair assessment of someone's contribution to their pension, which means the government will be able to be more equitable when it is determining who needs support and who can support themselves. Around 65 per cent of income support recipients with payments from defined benefit schemes will not even be affected by this measure. Being ex-service—ex-Army—myself I would also say that this does not apply to those on the Defence side of things. By that I mean that service pensioners will not be affected and defined benefit income streams from military defined benefit schemes will also be exempt from the proposal. I certainly welcome that element as well. This bill really does address the anomalies in the income test treatment of some defined benefit income streams that have resulted in highly concessional income test deductions for some people. Under this measure, the social security income test deductible amount for the defined benefit income streams will be capped at a maximum of 10 per cent of gross payments from 1 January 2016. Without delaying the House anymore, it is certainly my view that this is a very good bill. I am very pleased that it will, by all accounts, pass today. It will deliver important savings to help with the budget bottom line and to help get the country back to a sustainable level. It is fair and it is absolutely appropriate that the House should pass it. I would just finish by saying, again, that I very much appreciate the passing of the bill about fair and sustainable pensions last night. Particularly, I think it is a great thing for those who are on the most modest of government provided incomes. The majority of pensioners will be $15 a week better off. That will be greatly welcomed in the electorate of Cowan and I certainly look forward to telling as many pensioners about it as I can. 12:46 Ms BURKE 83S Chisholm I also rise to talk about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015, which was a schedule in the original fair and sustainable pensions bill before the House. It was rapidly taken out of that bill in a bit of a strange incident last week, where the poor deputy chair was left in the situation of having a dissent from his ruling moved because of the confusion about what was going on with that bill. We are a bit perplexed as to why this is all happening at many levels, but no more perplexed than the poor pensioners and part pensioners out there who are on the receiving end of these changes. Whilst the opposition will support these changes in the bill before us today, they will have an impact on many people. There are many Commonwealth superannuants in my electorate; Commonwealth superannuants who do not live on excessive amounts of income. They live on a defined benefit. That is what this is. They know what they are getting and they have no way of supplementing that income. So if you take away some part pension or if you introduce the 10 per cent cap that is being done today, that has quite a strong ripple effect on these peoples' lives. In an electorate like mine, where housing costs are very high, that also relates to local government rates, which are coming around and being put up as we speak. A lot of my pensioners who are living on defined benefits struggle each time the rates notice arrives because they are living in a house which, when they bought it, was quite a modest house. It is now quite an expensive house and therefore the rates go up in correlation with the cost of that home. You might say, 'Well, sell the home.' Where do you live then? Any of these movements have unintended and quite dramatic impacts on people who are living on defined benefits. That is what a lot of the people who are impacted by these changes are. The fair and sustainable pensions bill that went through the parliament last night—thanks to the participation of the Greens, a party that the government said they would not do dirty deals with—proposed to reduce assets tests for age pension eligibility in order to cut the pensions of around 330,000 retirees across Australia and to alter dramatically the plans of 700,000 people aged between 55 and 65 who are currently planning their retirement. Again, many of them live in my electorate. And 90,000 part pensioners will lose their pensions entirely. One very nervous individual is my mother, who has rung me and is quite concerned about how this will impact on her. Again, living within a set income sounds okay until the car breaks down or until you need to get—as in my mother's case recently—a whole lot of bricks removed from the back of her fence because someone decided to dump them there. That sounds ridiculous to us here but, as a part pensioner—who does not move easily at the best of times—faced with a very large bill from council for a tonne of bricks that she had not dumped at the back of her property, she was quite traumatised. Of course, coming to her aid and support was not the man who was going to charge her a couple of hundred dollars to do this but my younger brother, who went round with a wheelbarrow and moved all the bricks—which caused him an enormous amount of back pain! If you think about these things, they seem slight, but they have the ripple effect on individuals who do not have the wherewithal to raise money to meet those costs that they face from time to time. Again, this has a huge impact in my electorate. The fair and sustainable pensions bill, which this bill now rolls out from, proposes to cut $2.4 billion to pensions. Before the election it was the Prime Minister who promised no change to pensions. Well, we have seen massive change to pensions. Chisholm is home to more than 17,000 age pensioners. Of these, 8,410 are part pensioners who will see their pensions either reduced or lost entirely due to these measures. Some single pensioners will be $8,000 a year worse off and some couples may lose as much as $14,000 a year. Pensioners with as little as $289,000 in assets will lose because of this cut. Following the Treasurer's second unfair budget, the biggest complaint from constituents in Chisholm was about the cut to pensions. I am sure that I am not the only member in this place who has been inundated by concerned pensioners and part pensioners in their electorate about what this means and how it will impact on them. Again, I go back to the fact that they are living on a defined benefit—a defined amount of money. They have no way of adding to their income, so any change has a massive effect on them and on their households. Part pensioners are in a better position than people who are solely on the pension, particularly those who own their own homes and are in a slightly better position than those who are renting. I feel for those who are on a part pension and pension who rent, because any movement has a huge impact on them. These are people who have worked hard, who have had the ability to save money and who have contributed to superannuation but who do not quite make it to being wholly self-funded in retirement. Going back to the bill before us, many of these are Commonwealth superannuants in my electorate who worked at CSIRO and the old PMG—the movement before Telecom and Telstra—and so are living on their defined benefits. Many of them have struggled and many have written to me over many years about how their pensions are already indexed. So, for them, any changes at the margin have a ripple effect. People earning around $55,000 from their super represent the top end of the income bracket that this government is targeting with this legislation. It is doing this instead of targeting the top 10 per cent of earners who receive the largest tax concessions on massive superannuation portfolios. The top 10 per cent receive 38 per cent of the unsustainable super tax concession and they are seriously hurting the budget. The biggest impost on the budget and the sustainability for the future are not pensioners; it is the tax concession given to those on massive amounts of superannuation. Many, as I said, have written to me with local comments. David in Mount Waverley wrote: We were not big earners but we were prepared to go without in our younger days so that we could live with some comfort in our later years. Now we are to be penalised for our thrifty ways. We are not millionaires by any stretch of the imagination. We do not want to reduce our cash reserves because we want that for any emergency—such as health problems where we might need expensive medication. Home repairs are also something that might be needed as well. We are already drawing down on our superannuation in order to live comfortably. Perhaps that is what you want—all pensioners living below the poverty line. Colin from Box Hill North hit the nail on the head when he wrote: Changing retirement rules for people in middle Australia who have already retired is unfair and wrong—particularly when the big end of town still avoids paying its fair share of tax. While the dream of experiencing many of the things we put off over the past 20 years so that we could save for our retirement appears to be over, there is still one thing we can do—we still have a VOTE which no government of the day can control. Robert in Box Hill wrote to me to say that these unfair changes to the pension should be knocked back and that the government should only consider pension changes: … when the Government commits to exposing the richest in our society to their fair share of pain, a commitment they have singularly failed to make. This will have the effect of immediately relieving suffering from those with the least, while supporting the general thrust towards making the pension system more sustainable. And many more wrote in the same vain, but I think it was Colin who said, 'We are not going to be experiencing our dreams of travel now in our retirement, but we still have a vote.' They are out there, and they are going to be using their vote. At $2.4 billion, these bills altogether represent the single biggest saving measure in this budget. It is achieved by cutting the incomes of 330,000 middle-income retirees. Labor has proposed that, instead, the generous tax concession for around 70,000 very wealthy people be slightly reduced to save the budget more than $14 billion. This was condemned by the government as not a large enough measure—as not being sufficient. It is a lot more sufficient and it hurts a lot fewer people. Indeed, the people targeted probably would not feel it at all. Superannuation tax concessions, if left unchecked, are fast outstripping the cost of pensions. According to the budget papers, the annual cost of the concession on employer contributions to super is set to climb from $16.3 billion to $20.15 billion in the next four years. The annual cost of the concession on super fund earnings is set to climb from $13.4 billion to $30.4 billion. Thirty-eight per cent of these concessions go to the top 10 per cent of account holders—Australians earning more than $260,000 per year; the top one per cent. The set of bills before us mean that from 2017 the assets test threshold for home-owning couples will be lowered from $1.15 million to $823,000. For single home owners it will drop from $775,000 to $547,000. In addition, the current $1.50 taper rate will change to $3. Pauline Vamos from the Association of Superannuation Funds Australia said: … increasing the taper rate for part-pensioners from $1.50 to $3.00 per $1,000 of assets, while also increasing the threshold at which the asset test starts to apply, would require a couple to save around $120,000 more for a comfortable retirement, requiring a super balance of $630,000. This will have a greater impact on single retirees, who will need to save $180,000 more in superannuation or a total balance of $610,000. The Treasurer may well say that all you need is a 'good paying job', but the reality is that many people simply will not be able to achieve this without extra savings. Under Labor's plan, rather than hurting the people stuck in the middle, people with very high superannuation balances in excess of $1.5 million will have overly generous tax concessions reduced. The tax-free status of superannuation earnings disproportionately benefits high-income earners. Labor's policy would mean that people with very large superannuation accounts would still enjoy $75,000 a year of tax-free income before earnings over that amount attract a concessional tax rate 15 per cent. I would argue that in retirement, in this bracket, if you own your own home, $75,000 is a pretty good income to be living off. Contrast this with the government's set of bills which will see a part-pensioner couple with a superannuation income of less than $40,000 now lose $13,500. This is a huge amount, a huge impact, and, again, there is no way of making up this shortfall, because the individual has no way of actually earning any additional income. We are a long time retired nowadays. This is the issue. This is the drama. It is not something new and it is not something the government recently discovered. If we go back to the days of Peter Costello as Treasurer, he produced the first Intergenerational report many years ago, indicating that we needed to be doing something about this to sustain both the budget and good retirement incomes for individuals—not welfare; retirement incomes. These set of measures will not do that. Even though we are supporting the bill before us today, it will still have a ripple impact upon those who are living within their means and have no way of adding to those means. Before us we have a bill that seeks to hurt those who can least afford it, as opposed to Labor's policy which is fairer. It reduces generous concessions to those who can afford it, and it would save $14 billion. This is coupled with the Greens who proudly trumpet the fact that by supporting this suite of measures they would secure agreement from Tony Abbott to look at reducing tax concessions and high-income super. They are wrong. They are completely wrong. The Prime Minister confirmed it the day after they reached this so-called agreement. He said that the government will not include the super tax concession in its tax white paper. So the Greens have done a deal, got through a suite of measures that are going to hurt people, on a promise that they would have some discussion into the future. What do they get? A couple of weeks extra for people to make submissions to an inquiry. This will make no impact. It will certainly do nothing to assist in finding savings measures or ensuring that we have good retirement incomes for the future. All the Greens have done is strip middle-income retirees of their pensions. They have received no gains from the government, who always focus their sights on lower- and middle-income earners, never the top earners. It is a shocking betrayal by a political party that pretends to care about people. We have a suite of bills before us; one passed last night. This measure was carved out of it and is being reintroduced today. Whilst it is being supported by Labor, it will still have impacts upon pensioners now and into the future. 13:01 Ms BUTLER 248006 Griffith I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015 before the House today, which covers the social security treatment of defined benefit streams. Today's bill relates to that specific issue. It will cap the deductible amount from the pension income test at 10 per cent. Labor does not like this bill but we understand that in tough economic times we must make tough economic decisions. And these are tough economic times, because this government in less than two years has absolutely smashed the Australian economy. They have doubled the deficit in the federal budget. They have overseen an economy in which unemployment went above six per cent—it is still has a number with a six in front of it, which is a disgrace. Unemployment is higher than at the height of the global financial crisis. This is the highest unemployment that we have had in a decade—in fact, the last time unemployment was as high as it has been under this government was when Tony Abbott was the employment minister. So unemployment is up, and confidence is down. And why is confidence is down? Last year's federal budget was an absolute disgrace. It was a federal budget that smashed confidence, smashed household and consumer confidence, and smashed business confidence. And we know that wages are at their slowest growth in the period since the wages price index started being kept in the late 1990s. It is clear that the economy is in a very poor state at the moment as a consequence of the decisions of this government and the cuts that they sought to make in last year's federal budget and this year's federal budget. So we accept that these are tough economic times as a consequence of the disgraceful mismanagement of this appalling government. But we will not oppose the passage of this measure today. We will do this very reluctantly, but let me make one thing very clear, as the shadow minister has, Labor will keep standing up for pensioners. Labor will keep standing up for pensioners, as we have done for the entire period of this terrible federal government, this Abbott Liberal-National government, and as we did when we were in government. When we were in government, Labor did not take an axe to the pension—in fact, Labor looked at the age pension and said, 'We can do better as a nation to support the retirement incomes of people who have worked in this nation their whole lives and who deserve dignity in retirement.' Under Labor in 2009 there was a review of retirement incomes, and we looked at the way the pension was indexed and we said, 'You know what? The pension needs to do a couple of things. It needs to keep up with the cost-of-living changes for pensioners, and it also needs to keep up with community standards and community increases in living standards.' So, in addition to the traditional CPI indexation for the pension, we looked at indexation and we changed the law so that the pension would be indexed by the greater of the CPI or an index that was specific to pensioners, called the pensioner and beneficiary living cost index. We also looked at the benchmarking against male total average weekly earnings and we increased the benchmarking to 27½ per cent. That was a double indexation arrangement, where you took the higher of the two indices and then, to make sure that the pension was also keeping up with living standards, it was benchmarked against male total average weekly earnings. Of course, what was one of the first things that the Abbott government did when they got into office? In their first budget they decided to try and slash the indexation of pensions. It would have been an $80 per week cut to the pension over a decade. It would have seen cuts to the pension that would have seen the pension decline from 28 per cent of average weekly earnings down to just 16 per cent. Of course we opposed these cuts; we will always stand up for the age pension and for age pensioners. We opposed them for the entire period, since they were announced in last year's federal budget. We worked with seniors groups and other civil society groups around this nation to mount a case against these cuts to the pensions, because these cuts not only flew in the face of fairness but flew in the face of a commitment that Tony Abbott, the now Prime Minister, made prior to the last federal election, in which he promised that there would be no cuts to pensions. That promise was not met. That promise has been broken. That is a terrible thing. And what is more terrible is the fact that Mr Abbott, the Prime Minister, sees the pensioners of Australia as some sort of piggy bank that he can go to—to get money, to take away pensioners' chance at dignity in retirement, and to use those pensioners as a way to seek savings in the federal budget. As I said, we opposed those cuts to the pensions. We—and the civil society groups and seniors groups who opposed those changes—were successful in our campaign. We were successful in stopping the Abbott government from making those cuts to the pension because they were fundamentally unfair, and we will continue to oppose any of those changes to indexation that the Abbott government sought to make last year. This year we have seen a new attack on pensioners, a new attempt to make cuts to the pension, when the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Greens teamed up to cut the pension. What a disgrace. Australians now know—if further proof was needed—that the only party committed to protecting pensioners is Labor; the only party committed to protecting pensioners and pensioner living standards is the Australian Labor Party. As I said, the day before the federal election the now Prime Minister promised that there would be no changes to pensions. He also promised that there would be no deals with any Independents or Greens. Both of those promises have since been broken. What will this new cut to the pension do? Well, within 10 years, more than half of new retirees will be affected by this. Around 330,000 pensioners are set to lose, including 90,000 pensioners who will be kicked off the pension altogether, with single pensioners to lose as much as $8,000 and couples to lose as much as $14,000. As the member for Jagajaga, the shadow minister, said, while the government might claim that all these pensioners are rich, that is just not true. Pensioners with as little less $289,000 in assets will lose out because of this cut. Labor has stood beside Australia's 3 ½ million pensioners to fight Tony Abbott's cuts to pension indexation. We continue to stand up for pensioners. The seniors group, National Seniors Australia, recognised the importance of what we were doing to stand up for pensioners and to oppose these cuts in their press release of 16 June headed: Seniors welcome Labor's pension stance to protect mid to low income retirees. They welcomed our stance. Just today, National Seniors Australia put out a statement about this new Green's-National-Liberal deal to cut the pension. It is headed: Coalition cuts pensions and turns its back on middle Australia. The press release went on to say: The Coalition, supported by the Greens, has turned its back on middle Australia with the passage of its $1 billion-a-year pension cuts through the Senate last night. Michael O'Neill, who is the chief executive of National Seniors, is quoted as saying: The Coalition’s victory will ring hollow for the several hundred thousand older Australians who have saved and gone without for decades only to see the rules change at retirement,”... He said: It is disappointing that these cuts have been sold to the public on the pretext of ending welfare to millionaire retirees in Sydney Harbour homes. He said: It is this single old woman living in a little house with moderate savings who will be hit hardest. He said: All the experts confirm this. On current deeming rates, her yearly income will be well under $20,000 or several thousand dollars less than that of a full age pensioner. He went on to give some examples of how people would be affected. He also made the point that in its submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee, the ANU's Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, an institute of which you would be well aware of, Deputy Speaker Whiteley, confirmed that asset test changes would penalise savers outside of superannuation and create perverse incentives to spend and leave the wealthiest retirees untouched. He spoke of a single person with a small home and an income of $17,875 per annum, which is 3.25 per cent of the current upper level DSS deeming rate, and with $550,000 in savings would no longer qualify for a part pension. Yet a single person with a small home and no savings would receive the full age pension of around $22,365 a year plus state concessions on rates, utilities and registration. Does that example not demonstrate why National Seniors is taking this strong position that they are against the changes to the pension, the cuts to the pension and the deal between the Greens, the Liberal Party and the Nationals? The Australian Council of Trade Unions has also spoken out. In a release headed: 'Women and low to middle income earners workers will lose out thanks to Greens pension deal,' the union said: The Australian Greens have sold out women and low to middle income workers by agreeing to the Abbott Government's cuts to the age pension this week. Analysis by respected research firm Rice Warner and superannuation experts Industry Super Australia shows those hit the hardest by the Greens - Abbott deal are ordinary workers on low to middle incomes earning $75 000 or below. In fact, the research reveals that around 80 per cent of single women retiring in 2055 will be disadvantaged. Even with current superannuation, pension payments and other savings combined, nearly 63 per cent of single women will not be able to retire comfortably through to 2055. These cuts will make this situation even worse. Single men will also be adversely affected by the cuts, including those currently aged: 55 to 59 years who are earning between $52,000 to $160,000; 45 to 49 years who are earning between $56,000 to $183,000; and 25 to 29 years who are earning around $27,500 to $143,000. The ACTU quite rightly said: Combined with the Abbott Government's decision to freeze the 0.5 per cent increase to the superannuation guarantee at last year's Budget, these new measures will deepen social inequity. And haven't we seen so many new measures that will deepen social inequity under this government? This is a government that—we saw in a leaked green paper the night before last—is considering things like further cuts to schools and hospital funding and has in its leaked green paper some suggestion of means testing of access to public school. You cannot imagine a more reckless government, a more outrageous government than a government that would actually consider the further attacks on public education and public health that this government now seems to be considering—if you go by the leaked green paper. Those are, of course, on top of the $80-billion of cuts in health and education that were in the government's own budget papers in the federal budget announced last year. This is a government that will stop at nothing to break apart the social contract of this nation. This is a government that will stop at nothing to not take steps to slow the growing inequality that we face in this nation but will actively take steps to increase the inequality in this nation, that will increase the inequality that we have. As most people across this nation and this globe know, extreme inequality actually slows economic growth. It is not just my view; it is the view of the IMF as well. We all know in this place that we are in a low growth phase globally at the moment. But even taking into account global conditions, the things that this government has done to actively damage Australia's prospects of improving our economic growth are nothing short of economic vandalism. It is a phrase they like to use on us, 'economic vandalism'. But people who are in the coalition who like to say those words about Labor ought to take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror. If you wanted to try to slow growth, if you wanted to make our economic conditions worse then well done on last's federal budget—if you were trying to arrange situations where people were not spending, where people found that their confidence was being smashed, where business confidence was smashed. If you want a great example of the damage that this government has done to the economy, look at the number of business insolvencies in the past year. Look at the way that small business has been hit by this government. It is running around town talking about the measures that it had in this federal budget about small business. Well, congratulations on finally reversing the axe that you took to the instant asset write-off—Labor's measure. You took an axe to it. What else did we have? We had loss carry-back provisions. We had accelerated depreciation of motor vehicles because Labor, unlike the coalition, which likes to talk a big game in this space, actually understand small businesses. We understand the benefits that unincorporated small businesses need. Let us hope that the greatly belated acknowledgement that this government has now given to small business actually starts to repair some of the damage that its fiscal vandalism caused last year in smashing confidence, stopping people from going out and spending money, and driving unemployment up to above six per cent—as I said, an absolute disgrace—not to mention the immense attacks that we saw on the social fabric of this nation with the cuts to education and the cuts to health. Deputy Speaker, if you want to find a government that epitomises why Australians lack trust in politicians, just look at the government that we have on the benches at the moment, a government that broke every single promise that it made before the federal election, including the promise not to make any changes to pensions and not to make any changes, for that matter, to superannuation. After the freezing of the SGC, the taking away of the lower income superannuation contribution and now this new attack on pensions, these new cuts to pensions, it is quite clear that the only party that cares about retirement is Labor. (Time expired) 13:16 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo I rise to also speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015, which is before us today in the House. I just want to talk very quickly about process and how we got to be here today. It appears that the government's new approach is to bring piece-by-piece legislation before the House, denying us the opportunity as a country and as a community to debate retirement income. What frustrates me about the government's approach when it comes to retirement income is that they refuse to look at all retirement income. They have a bit of a track record on this. Before the election, the now government said—and we all know the promise; what the Prime Minister said when he was the Leader of the Opposition, time and time again—there would be no cuts to pensions. But then, after the election, they did something very similar. What the government also said when they were in opposition prior to the last election was that there would be no changes to super. When we talk about retirement income, about what our older Australians live on, we cannot consider one without the other. What frustrates me about the government's process in this entire debate is this piece-by-piece coming forward and that it is not a genuine attempt to have a conversation about what a fair retirement income is. They have broken promises on super—just to focus on those for a moment. One of the first things that they did when they got elected was that they scrapped the low-income co-contribution. This enabled people who were on a low income to contribute more to their super. As a government that claim to be the best friend of super, they have scrapped something that would have helped to ensure that low-income earners were not reliant on a pension or a part-pension when they retired. What the government also did after they got elected was that they froze the increases to the compulsory super guarantee. They froze them, again denying workers, particularly low-paid workers, the opportunity to earn more in their super during their working life so that they would not be reliant upon a pension when they retired. They would not be reliant on a part-pension when they retired because they would have earned more in their super through the increasing of the compulsory guarantee. Another decision that the government made in terms of retirement income when they first got elected was that they reversed the decisions to make those on a very high super account pay some tax. They reversed that decision, and now they are ruling out even talking about it. It is just not fair that in today's age we are not talking about retirement income. We are not talking about what a fair rate of retirement income is and trying to do what we can in terms of government policy to get to that point. Let us just remember where this debate first started. In 1992, the Labor government at the time introduced the compulsory super guarantee. That allowed working people for the first time to put away money for their retirement. Coming to that point where we have a decent retirement income is going to take a generation. It will take a generation for people my age, from when we first started working, to have a working life of retirement income that is enough for us to retire on. There needs to be some kind of logical acceptance. Until we get to a stage where the 30-somethings are retiring and have a working lifetime of super to retire on, there is going to have to be a part-pension and pension rate. There is going to be the need to pull together a comprehensive government policy that takes into account where people are in the transition towards superannuation and being able to live on superannuation. We need to draw a line and say, 'This is a fair retirement income,' and work towards helping as many people get to that point as possible. This is what has been missing in this debate to date, and it is disappointing that this legislation is coming before us piece by piece. 13:20 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank members for their contribution to the debate on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Defined Benefit Income Streams) Bill 2015. I do not wish to delay the House any further, and I thank the opposition for their indulgence in allowing these matters to be considered now. I note that the debate canvassed a wide range of issues, not just the bill before us, and I note that those opposite referred much to the assets test rebalance measure, which was passed by the Senate last night. There is just a simple proposition there. If the opposition wish to continue their opposition to this measure, they have to answer one simple question, and that is: will they reverse it? I note that the Leader of the Opposition failed to give that commitment this morning, and I imagine that will be the case. I thank members for their contribution, and I commend the bill to the House. The DEPUTY SPEAKER 207800 The question before the chair is that this bill be now read a second time. A division having been called and the bells having been rung— The DEPUTY SPEAKER 207800 As there are fewer than five members on the side for the noes, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. Question agreed to, Mr Katter and Mr Wilkie voting no. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 14 13:26 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Once again, I thank the House for their indulgence in dealing with this matter and the opposition for their support for this measure, which will provide savings to the budget approaching some $470 million. That is in addition to the more than $1 billion in savings for the changes to the seniors supplement, which was also supported by the opposition in the other place. That was a measure that was in the original Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill 2015 that came before this place and passed this House yesterday. That schedule was removed, as was the measure that has been the subject of this bill. That saving of around $1 billion has also, of course, added to the some $2.4 billion in the schedule that went forward from the other bill to the other place and was approved last night. The government is very pleased to be in a position where the savings measures that were contained in this year's budget and were brought down by the Treasurer are getting the support of the parliament. The government is getting on with the business of government. The government's savings measures are passing the parliament, and this is addressing the very serious fiscal challenge that this government has to face. I note also that the changes to the seniors supplement do not affect pensioners. As the shadow minister would also acknowledge, that change only applies to seniors. It does not apply to any of the 3.7 million pensioners or pension related payment beneficiaries. It only relates to those who were on the Commonwealth seniors health card. And we note that the energy supplement continues for those who are in that situation. These changes all come together to ensure that the 'have a go' budget is getting a go. The 'have a go' budget, is delivering for small business and delivering real reforms and real savings while providing real support to Australians who need it—and they are getting that support. It is essential that, if we are going to have new measures—as we have many new measures in this budget—we are also achieving the budget savings that are necessary to afford to put those other measures in place. We now find ourselves in the position, in this last week of the parliament, where the single largest savings measure in the budget has passed the Senate. In addition, the other measure relating to the seniors supplement, which was from the 2014-15 budget, has also now passed the Senate as a result of the work of the government and the support of those around the chamber. That measure was passed without dissent in the Senate. And now this measure relating to defined benefits, which is also approaching some $470 million in savings, can be achieved. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS 14 STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Indi Electorate: Environment 14 13:30 Ms McGOWAN 123674 Indi One of the defining features of my electorate of Indi is its geography: eight river valleys, snow-capped mountains and over 50 per cent of the water that falls in the Murray-Darling Basin. With this background imagine my delight when the students of the year 11 VCE class at Cathedral College in Wangaratta invited me to discuss the results of their recent excursion through the Ovens Valley to study the interconnection between environmental biology and geography, how human development has affected the water, the consequences of human manipulation on environmental quality, and measures to stop erosion. I thank Amber-Jade, Brooke, Cameron, Cara, Gabrielle, Houston, Oscar and Zeb and their teacher, Reverend David Jones. It is wonderful to have a health check of our rivers undertaken by students who bring their skills, experience, curiosity and inquisitive minds to current problems. To have our next generation of farmers, environmentalists, scientists, teachers, park rangers and policy makers apply their education to local examples strengthens our whole community. On their recommendation, we as a community need to pay attention to the effects of the quarry at Tarrawingee, land management around Lake Buffalo and the positive example of measures taken by the rural City of Wangaratta to stop erosion at Sydney Beach. I say to the young people of Wangaratta and the young people of Indi: the future is yours. We need to look after our environment. Longman Electorate: Green Army Program 15 13:31 WYATT ROY M2X Longman It is great to follow the member for Indi, who talked about the next generation of Australians and protecting our environment, because over the last few weeks I have had a great opportunity to visit several Green Army initiatives across my local region. These Green Army initiatives are great. They are giving the next generation of locals an opportunity not only to participate in practical environmental work but to meet people in the workforce, to put things with great meaning on their CV and ultimately to help them find employment in the future. There are a number of these great initiatives across my electorate. The first one I visited was at Burpengary. We were cleaning the area around Burpengary Creek. We were repairing the riparian vegetation. This will make a real difference to this stunning natural asset that we have in Burpengary. The second one was at Neurum. Again riparian vegetation was being protected and cleaned up across the beautiful creek system there. That was a great practical initiative for our environment. I want to say how proud I am of the young locals involved in these Green Army initiatives. They were dedicated and determined. They were making a real difference to their community and really increasing their prospects of future employment. I think any employer would be lucky to have them. Education Funding 15 13:33 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo Sometimes I think that government members and the frontbench are living in a very different universe to the rest of Australia. Their own budget papers said that there would be $30 billion cut from schools. This is not rhetoric; this is what is in their budget papers. Yet this government is trying to deny that this is going on. Every single day they stand up and say that there are no cuts. It is just false. In my own area of Bendigo it is estimated that $200 million will be cut from our local schools, meaning our local schools will struggle to buy the sports equipment that they need and will struggle to have the equipment they need for science classes and for maths classes and to make sure that all the students in Bendigo have the same opportunities as those in the city. We are not seeing a commitment from this government to put the money back. Instead we have seen a leaked document, from the Prime Minister's own department, that says they want to charge the parents more. They want to whack fees on public school students. They want to make public school students and their parents pay more to access education. It would be a very dark day in this country if we go down that road and go back to the 1940s and 1950s and make public school students pay for their education. Education is a right. This government should back public education and fund it properly. Casey Electorate: Pitch Project 15 13:34 Mr TONY SMITH 00APG Casey On Monday, 4 May I was pleased to visit Ormond College at the University of Melbourne to meet a number of dedicated students as part of the college's Pitch Project. The Pitch Project enables teams of Ormond students to pitch a policy proposal to federal or state members of parliament. This group of students worked over many weeks on a pilot program to assist people to start up a small business. It was focused on young people. They focused on an area of my electorate, the Upper Yarra Valley. It was a very impressive presentation. It was so impressive that I spoke with local councillor Jim Child. He is super keen to meet with the group because, like me, he thinks there is real potential that this project could be rolled out and make a difference. I want to pay tribute in the House to the Ormond College students for the work they did and for their commitment—Felicity Gent, Charles McIntosh, Sam MacIntyre and George Threadgold—and to the facilitator of the Pitch Project, Saskia Holloway. They have done a great job. Hopefully, I will be able to come back into the House in the coming months and talk about the next steps. Education Funding 16 13:36 Ms RYAN 249224 Lalor I rise today to talk about the last few days in this parliament and in the national press. It is a given that everyone in this place, everyone who sits here every day, was involved in the election campaign in 2013. I have no doubt that those opposite, as well as we on this side, understand the promises that were made at that election. In fact, in my electorate, their promises have been put to music, almost. We all know what we heard. We heard, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to pensions.' What we did not hear in the 2013 election campaign was, 'That is the responsibility of the states.' We did not hear that at all in the 2013 election campaign. What we heard on schools was that those opposite were on a 'unity ticket' on Gonski. Well, lo and behold, again this week we are hearing that that is anything but the truth—that 'no cuts to education' was an untruth and that a unity ticket on Gonski was an untruth—because now we have again this government's agenda coming to the fore. They are playing footloose with state budgets. They are providing no certainty. We have this Federation paper that brings anything back on the table. O'Connor Electorate: Karen Community 16 13:38 Mr WILSON 198084 O'Connor Today I rise to commend the achievements of the local Karen community in my home town of Katanning. Many of these refugees lived in refugee camps in Thailand after fleeing unrest in their homeland of Burma. They were settled in Katanning largely through the efforts of Paul Kyaw, a Karen himself and a career development officer at the Multicultural Services Centre of WA. Paul foresaw work opportunities for them as non-English-speakers with a strong work ethic, and the Karen community have subsequently been a valuable addition to the workforce at our local meat abattoir. I would also like to make special mention at this time of a remarkable local woman, Jean Phillips, known affectionately as Aunty Jean, who has been pivotal in welcoming these refugees over the years and assisting them to transition into life in our community. Jean has assisted them in obtaining the necessities of Australian life, securing a roof over their heads and enrolling their children in schools, as well as guiding them through the necessary paperwork associated with accessing banking, benefits and loans. It is thanks to the generous efforts of volunteers such as Jean that we see the Karen integrating well into the multicultural melting pot that is my home town of Katanning. The Karen children have settled well into the local schools, fluently bilingual and achieving good results. Graduates are now filtering into local employment, apprenticeships and further education, with young men training as plumbers, painters and mechanics and young women in nursing, teaching and child care. Committed to putting down firm roots in Katanning, the members of the 150-strong Karen community have purchased over 28 homes in the seven years since their resettlement. I take this opportunity to commend the Karen people in my electorate on their commitment to forging a rich and fulfilling life here in their new homeland while retaining their cultural and religious diversity. Education Funding 16 13:39 Ms BRODTMANN 30540 Canberra One of the major problems with the Abbott government's budget this year—aside, of course, from the fact that it is still fundamentally unfair—is its lack of vision for the future. That is particularly the case when it comes to education. Education should be seen as an investment, not a cost, but that is the exact opposite of what this government sees. Instead it has cut $30 billion from our classrooms for the next decade, including the vital fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reforms. That is, of course, after the Prime Minister said before the election that there was an absolute 'unity ticket' when it came to school funding. Now we read in the press that the government's own Federation green paper, currently being considered by the Liberals, includes plans to charge compulsory government fees to parents who send their kids to public schools and even suggests ending federal funding for public schools altogether. This is absolutely outrageous. By contrast, Labor has a plan for Australia's education system—a vision for this nation. We have a plan to boost coding in our schools and STEM in our universities. We have a plan to invest in our innovators and young entrepreneurs to unlock their potential for the jobs of tomorrow. A Shorten Labor government will protect Australia's public education system and ensure every student is given every possible opportunity to succeed and thrive. Murray Electorate: Food 16 13:41 Dr STONE EM6 Murray I rise to congratulate more of my electorate's great achievers. This week, a butchery in Numurkah has won the award for the best short-cut bacon in Victoria and the third best in Australia. Shaun Barbaro, the owner of Meats on Melville, said it is great to be recognised for his work. He has won close to 50 other awards for his meats. He sources the majority of his pig meat from local abattoirs at Echuca or Wangaratta. This week is also, of course, Australia's National Bacon Week. Also in Murray, we have some of the best bakeries in Australia. Tatura Hot Bread bakery has won a number of awards for its famous vanilla slice, including the 2011 Ouyen Vanilla Slice Triumph in Victoria and the 2015 Victorian Baking Show best vanilla slice. This bakery also won the award for Australia's best hot cross bun in 2011 and the award for the best poultry pie at the 2013 Australia's Best Pie Competition, run by the Bakers Association of Australia. This year, the Tatura Hot Bread bakery also won the award for best beef gourmet pie in the Australia's Best Pie Competition. So I would like to heartily congratulate Jeff Alexander and the team in Tatura. It is the place to go to buy your pies. The Mooroopna Bakery has just won the award for Australia's best hot cross bun for 2015 at the Bakers Association of Australia Victorian Baking Show. Congratulations to co-owner Bart Honig and the team. On top of these fantastic bakeries and butcheries, we have award-winning wineries and cheeses and a fantastic range of Australian-made and Australian-grown food. I am so proud to be the member for Murray. Health Funding, Education Funding 17 13:42 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon Normally, if there were a government document which flagged removing $70 billion out of public hospitals over four years, and which flagged the Commonwealth withdrawing from any funding of public hospitals in Australia, most people would not see it as a credible document. Most people would say it had no chance of being implemented. The trouble is that, with this government, it has every chance of being implemented, because this government's track record when it comes to funding hospitals and schools is nothing short of appalling. This is the government that has already scrapped $80 billion worth of funding from health and education over the next decade. In health alone, we have seen the government try to introduce a GP tax and try to cut $57 billion out of public hospitals, and they are implementing those cuts as we speak, and we know they have no credibility. We know that they want to cut funding to health and education. We see the Prime Minister day after day at the dispatch box, even denying the fact that the cuts exist when his own budget papers show they do. When the Treasurer of New South Wales, his Liberal colleague, bells the cat and says the cuts are unsustainable, he says she is wrong, apparently—the Liberal Treasurer of New South Wales. We saw yesterday a report indicating means-testing of access to public education. Again, normally you would say that has no chance of being implemented, but with this government it has every chance of being implemented, because we know this government wants to have price signals in health and education. It does not believe in universal health care or universal education. Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge 17 13:44 Mr ALEXANDER M3M Bennelong I would like to inform the house of another inspiring young woman from Bennelong. Kate Darmody of Denistone has been selected by ClubsNSW as the winner of this year's Kokoda Youth Leadership Challenge Scholarship, and she will be walking the Kokoda Track later this year. Kate has been working in rehabilitation and therapy in the widely-respected brain unit at Bennelong's Royal Rehab centre. She says that the strength and determination that she has learnt in this role will be essential in meeting the challenges of this hike. She has also trained in art and is hopeful of creating a meaningful body of work based on her experiences in this emotionally charged environment. Hiking the Kokoda Track has been a long-time ambition of Kate's, particularly as she has family members who have served in the ADF. This scholarship is awarded annually by ClubsNSW and gives young people a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain an understanding of what life was like for Australian soldiers during World War II and to bring this knowledge back to their communities. The skills and resilience Kate has learnt in her work at Royal Rehab will stand her in good stead throughout this challenge. I would like to wish her all the best and I congratulate Royal Rehab, ClubsNSW and the RSL for celebrating such a fine young advocate. Budget 17 13:45 Ms HALL 83N Shortland The one thing that all Australians know is that the Abbott government is a government of cuts. Add to that the fact that they said one thing before the election and they say another thing after the election. No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the ABC: that was before the election. Guess what? We had an election and, since that election, this Abbott government has become a master of cuts. If we look at education we see that $30 billion has been cut from Australia's schools by walking away from Labor's Gonski school funding model—something that every school in the Shortland electorate, be it public or private, supported. I suspect that every school in every electorate represented by those opposite supported it too. Not only did they promise one thing before the election and do another thing after it; they are also disadvantaging the constituents that they represent in this House. The cuts to health and hospitals are absolutely disgraceful. Once again I say: they said one thing before the election and another thing after the election. This government just cuts, cuts and cuts. National Security: Citizenship 18 13:47 Mr SUKKAR 242515 Deakin As I have said before, the first duty of good government is the protection of its citizens. I rise to highlight the government's unwavering commitment to keep Australians safe. There are currently over 250 Australians fighting with or supporting terrorists overseas. And we know that these terrorists, trained by groups such as ISIS, also seek to do us harm here in Australia. This is of great concern to local communities including mine in Deakin, so I am very proud to be part of a government that is acting decisively by introducing legislation this week to remove the citizenship of dual nationals who fight with or support terrorist organisations. Our message to these people is: if you leave Australia to murder, rape and terrorise others, we do not want you back. And if you are a dual national, we will not let you back. Where is Labor in all of this? The Leader of the Opposition calls it 'dog whistling', and, when the shadow Attorney-General was asked what he would do with those dual nationals who partake in acts of terror, he said, 'We'd get them back here.' So where does Labor really stand? The reality is that we do not know, and I suspect that many members of the Labor Party do not know themselves. But I can assure my electorate of Deakin: the coalition will always stand up and deliver the first duty of government, and that is to keep our country and its people safe. Budget 18 13:48 Mr GILES 243609 Scullin There is a big question mark hanging over this government and its Prime Minister. The question mark goes to its purpose, its sense of the role, the point of a Commonwealth government. We have seen this in the federation green paper, which was much discussed in this place yesterday and which will continue to be discussed here. While we remember the promises made before the election—no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to the pension, no cuts to the ABC or SBS, each one ticked off as it has been broken through the dishonest budgets of this government—we also think about this Prime Minister. The Prime Minister seems to think that the Commonwealth should walk away from any responsibility to health and any responsibility to education. We saw the sophistry and dissembling in question time yesterday as this government moved away from its pre-election unity ticket on needs-based school funding to a contemptuous and narrow vision of what our responsibility should be to children across Australia. This is even more acute when we think about preschool. It is only in recent weeks that the Commonwealth government suggested that a lifeline might be thrown in to save four-year-old kinder. When I think about this, this is perhaps the most egregious assault, now that the government is flagging walking away from its support for preschool. We know that 90 per cent of brain development takes place in the first five years of life. To have a national government unprepared to invest in children is simply disgraceful. Broadband 18 13:50 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume The coalition government promised to prioritise fast broadband to the bush, and this week another milestone has been reached. In the tiny village of Wombat near Harden, population 180 residents, the NBN has arrived. A fixed wireless tower is up and now it has been activated, bringing fast broadband to the village and surrounds. Wombat is racing ahead! As Wombat residents are just about to find out, the fixed wireless network uses advanced 4G technology, delivering speeds of up to 50 megabits per second. That is more than twice as fast as fast ADSL in the city. I had the great pleasure of visiting the Wombat pub last month. It is a great small business which has been continuously trading since the 1870s. Brian, the publican, tells us that they will be chasing up an NBN connection very soon. The NBN rollout continues unabated across my electorate of Hume. Hume will receive fast broadband in a mix of technologies to 31,500 premises in the next 18 months, not including the satellite. Already fixed towers are up and activated in Bribbaree, Cowra, Canowindra, Gooloogong, Koorawatha, Monteagle, Mount Weedalion, Murringo, Noonbinna, Young, and now Wombat. Towers are to be switched on in Stockinbingal, Mount Gibraltar, Mount McDonald and Woodstock in the next few weeks. The coalition government is doing exactly what it said it would: delivering fast and reliable internet to Hume and to regional Australia. Health Funding 18 13:51 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Throsby When the Treasurer of New South Wales rises to her feet in the state parliament today, she will not have very many kind words to say about this government, because this is the government that is cutting billions of dollars out of schools and hospitals in New South Wales, and their state colleagues are on to them. We have seen in a leaked copy of the federation green paper that, on top of the cuts from last year's budget, this government is proposing to dump another $70 billion worth of cuts in public hospital funding over the next three years. I dare every one of these coalition members to use the winter recess to go out to their electorates and campaign on the cruel cuts to education and hospitals that their Treasurer and their Prime Minister are visiting upon their electorates. And we know they will not, because they are absolute lions when they go to their electorate but lambs here where it matters in parliament and lambs in their caucus and party room. Not one of them will stand up to the Treasurer and the Prime Minister and say: 'These cuts are against the interests of my electors. They are a breach of our election promise.' At least we have one or two state premiers who are willing to do it, but where are these people who have been elected to stand up for their electorate? They are missing in action. (Time expired) Wannon Electorate: Melville Oval 19 13:53 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon I would like to lower the tone. I have some very good news I would like to tell the House about today, and I would like everyone to listen carefully. I do not need to yell to make my dramatic point, because this is fair dinkum. Today at Melville Oval in Hamilton, the new lighting system is scheduled to be switched on for the first time. The coalition is delivering for local communities. Indeed, as we sit here I understand a team from the power company is currently undergoing a final inspection. The Melville Oval is the heart of the sporting community in Hamilton. The instalment of these lights is a huge win for the local community. This important upgrade will enable Melville Oval to be utilised for extra activities such as underage football on Friday nights and night cricket games. It will also improve training conditions for footballers and netballers and will help increase participation in sport. I am sure many Hamilton residents would agree there is no better place to be than at Melville Oval on a crisp Saturday afternoon in winter as they barrack for the Kangaroos. These lights are being funded through the Community Development Grants Program, and the coalition has contributed $125,000 for this upgrade. I would like to thank Darren Templeton, Paul Block and John Pepper, all presidents of the relevant football clubs, for the contribution they have made in ensuring this important upgrade has taken place. Health Funding 19 13:55 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney In the short time I have available to me I wanted to talk about the difference between rhetoric and reality. We say on the one hand that we support an issue, we want to do our best for that issue and we want to see real change and on the other hand we see government, despite its rhetoric in a number of very important areas—areas where I would agree with them—instead cutting funding for the real services that make a real difference to people's lives. I was watching the ice advertising. It is a fine campaign against the drug ice that points out the terrible effect that it has on individuals, families and communities. I thought it was wonderful that we had a public education campaign on this damaging drug, but what about the services that deliver real change in people's lives—the beds in facilities where addicts would turn for rehabilitation, the prevention services that teach young people about the dangers of these drugs? We have seen massive cuts—hundreds of millions of dollars—from the programs that do drug and alcohol prevention and other community health services. The real effects of those are quite different from the rhetoric of the advertising campaigns. The real effects mean treatment facilities are harder to find and prevention services that used to exist now face funding cuts. This includes excellent services like the Haymarket Foundation, which is not in my electorate but in the neighbouring electorate of Wentworth. (Time expired) Swan Valley 19 13:56 Mr WYATT M3A Hasluck I rise today to welcome the City of Swan and businesses from the Swan Valley to Canberra. The Swan Valley is located east of the Perth CBD. The Swan Valley celebrated its 181st anniversary this year and is WA's oldest wine region and one of the oldest in Australia. It is built on a unique history and heritage that blends Indigenous, pioneering colonial and southern European roots. In recent years the Swan Valley has attracted a strong food element in the form of a chocolate factory, coffee roasters, several beekeepers, a lavender farm, olive groves, a goat farm, cheese farms and dried-fruit producers. The Swan Valley has over 150 locations to wine and dine and a number of pop-up roadside stalls that have fresh fruits for sale. Tonight, the City of Swan is hosting the Swan Valley and Surrounds Endless Experiences event in the Great Hall, which showcases the fine food, art and award-winning wines that this region produces. There will be representatives from the region who have produced unique art and sculpture displays as well as some entertainment from an Indigenous dance group. I may be biased, but I consider the wineries and produce that comes from the Swan Valley to be of the highest standard in Australia. I commend the City of Swan, in particular Mayor Charlie Zannino and CEO Mike Foley, for coordinating this event and bringing the people of the Swan Valley together so that the rest of Australia can see why it is Perth's taste of the valley. What they will taste tonight are the nectars and the sweetness of those things that are produced in the Swan Valley. Education Funding, Health Funding 20 13:58 Ms RISHWORTH HWA Kingston Not content with ripping out money from our schools and hospitals in the last budget, we now know that this government has a secret plan to abandon schools of Australia and indeed the hospitals of Australia. It is appalling that, not content to rip money out of our schools and trades training centres—to actually not pay any attention to the vocational curriculum—we now have a government with a secret plan. They need to come clean with the Australian people and tell them what their plan is. Before the last election, of course, they said they had no plans to make cuts to schools and hospitals. They said they were on a unity ticket when it came to our schools. But now we know that they do have a plan that will rip money from our schools and lead to both government schools and non-government schools with huge fee hikes that the Australian public will not stand for. Labor will stand up for universal schooling in this country. We will stand up for public hospitals in this country even if those on the other side will not. It is up to every single backbencher on the other side who is not being honest with their constituency to tell them what their secret plan is and how they will fund hospitals, preschools and indeed schools into the future. That is the question that they must answer. Kogarah Community Sleep Out 2015 20 13:59 Mr VARVARIS 250077 Barton On Saturday, 11 July, my family and I will be sleeping out under the stars at WIN Jubilee Oval, home of the St George Illawarra Dragons. We will be sleeping out on the field to raise awareness and funds for youth homelessness. Whilst it is only one night for us, sleeping out in the open, in rough conditions, is a reality for many people every night. I would like to acknowledge the tireless efforts of Kogarah Community Services and the Neighbourhood Centre for organising this event and, in particular, Cathy Nisbet for her work. Kogarah Community Services is a not-for-profit community organisation that has been providing much-needed services to the local area for 40 years. The SPEAKER 10000 It being two o'clock, the member is interrupted. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded. MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS 20 MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS 14:00 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah I inform the House that the Minister for Defence will be absent from question time today and tomorrow while he attends the NATO defence ministers meeting in Brussels. The Deputy Prime Minister will answer questions on his behalf. Opposition members: He's here! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 He is a remarkable man! As of tomorrow and Thursday, he will be absent. So please bring your questions on today. He is ready for them. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 20 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Hospitals 20 14:01 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. Did the Prime Minister's own department circulate a Federation green paper that provides an option that would see the Australian government cut every single dollar of funding to public hospitals? 14:01 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah My department did indeed circulate a draft green paper, a draft discussion paper, to officials in the premiers departments of the various states. As members on both sides of this House would know, the government, when in opposition, promised a white paper on reform of the Federation. We said that it was very important that we try to ensure that our Commonwealth is operating as efficiently and as effectively as possible. In particular, we thought it was very important that we try to ensure that our schools and our hospitals are delivering the best possible services. So what we are doing is entirely honouring the pre-election commitment that we made. There have been many months of discussions already between officials in my department and in other Commonwealth departments and officials of the premiers departments of the several states. This is officials talking to officials about what they think are interesting ideas for the future of our Commonwealth. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 There will be silence on my left! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 We should be capable of having a sensible discussion about our Federation, with the objective of trying to ensure that our schools and our hospitals are operating under the best possible circumstances. As part of this discussion, lots of things will be raised. Lots of things will be chewed over. Many things will be considered and rejected. What is important is what ultimately emerges from this process. I think the Australian people are more than mature enough to have a process of debate, and I think they are quite capable of understanding— Ms Macklin interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Jagajaga is warned! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 that what matters is what actually is concluded from this process, not what goes into this process. The only people who, it seems, are insufficiently mature to handle this process—judging by the catcalls today—are members opposite. Luckily not all Labor members of parliament have so taken leave of their senses, and I would certainly refer members opposite to the very sensible statements made by the Labor Premier of South Australia on radio this morning. National Security 21 14:04 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister update the House on the action the government is taking to strengthen Australia's national security? Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 Before I call the Prime Minister, I would advise the member for Moreton: if he wishes to remain for at least half of question time, he will desist. Otherwise he can leave smartly. I call the honourable Prime Minister, and we will have some silence for the answer. 14:05 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah I thank the member for Wannon for his question. He chairs the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. He does an excellent job, as indeed does his deputy. I want to thank the chairman and the deputy chairman for the work that that committee has done. Obviously the first priority of government is the safety of our community. Equally obviously, this country faces a very serious terrorist threat from people who have been influenced by the Islamist death cult, from people who have left this country to fight with various terrorist armies in the Middle East. The latest advice I have is that some 120 Australians are known to be fighting with the death cult in the Middle East, some 160 Australians are known to be supporting them with recruitment and financing, and we think about 30 Australians have so far been killed while fighting with terrorist groups in the Middle East. Our priority is to stop people becoming terrorists in the first place. But, if people do fall prey to the arguments of the death cult, if they do leave this country to fight with a terrorist army overseas, our determination is to stop them coming back to this country, because the last thing we need in this country is hardened, brutalised terrorists loose on our streets. We do not want terrorists in this country. People who have left our country to fight with terrorist armies overseas have committed the modern form of treason. That is what they have done. Tomorrow we will be introducing into the parliament legislation to deal with this. We will be introducing legislation into the parliament to strip citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals. This will obviously be referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Our previous legislation in this area has benefited from the scrutiny of that committee. I look forward to the benefit of that scrutiny, particularly the consideration of potential retrospective operation of the new law. I want to conclude on this point: this government will never surrender the freedoms that we Australians hold precious but we will fight for them. We will fight to preserve our freedom. That is what this legislation is about. National Security: Citizenship 21 14:08 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. Last month, when asked if the power to strip citizenship from dual nationals would be exercised at a minister's discretion, the Prime Minister said, 'That is correct.' What made the Prime Minister change his mind on his citizenship proposal between then and now? 14:08 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah As I have said all along on this matter, the government's position is to strip citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals. That was the announcement that was made by me and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. That has been the constant position of this government. We have always been determined to do this. We have always been determined to do this in the best possible way. We have always been determined to do this without prior judicial process. That is exactly what we have done. That is exactly what will be done by the legislation that is introduced into the parliament tomorrow. I want to say how well the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection has worked with his colleagues, particularly with the Attorney-General, to come up with a piece of legislation which entirely realises the clear policy objective of this government. Our objective is to keep our country safe. Our objective is to strip the citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals. Our objective is to ensure that if you are a terrorist you are never going to be loose on the streets of this country. That is what this government will do, and I look forward to the support of the Labor Party in making this come about. National Security: Citizenship 22 14:10 Mr WILLIAMS 249758 Hindmarsh My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister inform the House of action the government is taking to modernise citizenship laws to address terrorism threats, stop terrorists returning home and protect the community? 14:10 Mr DUTTON 00AKI Dickson I thank the member for Hindmarsh very much. He is part of our committee that looks at ways in which this government can make our society even safer for Australians. It is a very important job that he does. I want to say thank you very much to a couple of members, including the member for Bass, the member for Wannon and other members on our side of the House who have engaged very constructively in the way in which we can improve the Australian law to protect Australians. The reality is that since September of last year our country has faced two terrorist attacks. The authorities have thwarted six attacks, and 23 people have been charged with terrorist related offences. So the threat for us—the threat for the United Kingdom, for the United States and for other western democracies—only increases every single day. These people seek to attack our way of life. They seek to destroy the lives of innocent Australians. And this government intends to stop them. We have said through this legislation in relation to dual nationals that if they are terrorists, if they seek to do harm to the Australian public, we will do whatever we can under this law to prevent them from coming back to Australia. If they are convicted of an offence in Australia then there is, by their own conduct, an automatic renunciation of their Australian citizenship. If it is the case that they are involved in a situation of fighting for or serving with a particular proscribed organisation there is, by their own conduct, an automatic renunciation of their Australian citizenship. These are very important principles. They adhere to the rule of law, they align us with our international obligations and they really, I think, provide a great opportunity to keep the Australian public safe. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— Mr DUTTON 00AKI I hear interjections by the member for Isaacs. His contribution to this debate has been particularly interesting. I am glad you interjected, because we are going to expose you for the fraud that you are, member for Isaacs. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— Mr DUTTON 00AKI The Leader of the Opposition had the opportunity to stab two Prime Ministers in the back and he will not stand up to this bloke who wants to bring these— Mr Burke DYW Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on two— Government members interjecting— Mr Burke DYW I am raising a point of order. Madam Speaker, the point of order is on two matters. One is the use of unparliamentary language. The second is the action of the minister in attempting to verbal people and get things on the Hansard record that have not in fact been said. The SPEAKER 10000 I did not hear, over the noise, what was said. If the minister believes it to have been an unparliamentary term— Mr DUTTON 00AKI I do not believe so, Madam Speaker, but if it helps the House I am happy to withdraw it. What I said was that the member for Isaacs interjected, as he did last week, into this debate. He made a very interesting interjection into this debate: he advocated bringing these terrorists back to Australia. That is a complete outrage. It is an abrogation of his responsibility. They hid him for a couple days. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Isaacs will resume his seat. Mr DUTTON 00AKI They sent the shadow immigration minister out to clean up but in the end he made it worse. Mr Dreyfus interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 Page 189—the member for Isaacs is intending to disrupt. Now sit down. Resume your seat! Mr DUTTON 00AKI The reality is that even the Leader of the Opposition is embarrassed by the conduct of the member for Isaacs. Mr Burke DYW Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under a ruling you gave some time ago, if someone wants to make an objection under standing order 68 then only the member concerned can raise that objection. That is exactly what the member for Isaacs was attempting to do— The SPEAKER 10000 I am telling you that the member for Isaacs has continually during this period attempted to interrupt. Therefore, I am not giving him the call. Now, resume your seat. The minister has the call. Mr DUTTON 00AKI It cannot be out of order in this case to quote the member for Isaacs directly. We have a bill here that will make Australians safer and we look forward to support from the opposition. (Time expired) Hospitals 23 14:15 Mr BUTLER HWK Port Adelaide My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's department working up options to cut every single dollar of Australian government funding to public hospitals. Given the Prime Minister just described this as 'officials talking to officials', was there any consultation with the Prime Minister or his office on the content of the federation green paper? 14:15 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Again, I say that the people of Australia would like to have a mature and sensible conversation about how our public hospitals and how our public schools might work better. Our public hospital services could be better delivered. Our public education services could be better delivered and, of course, the conversations that officials have been having with officials at state and federal level over the last six months or so were very much prompted by the speech that I gave at Tenterfield late last year. That, in effect, kicked off the federation reform white paper process. The process has been going since then. I have had very constructive discussions with the premiers and chief ministers at the last two COAGs on this subject. I would like to inform the member who asked the question, that Premier Weatherill said today: … I think the Prime Minister is serious about reform. We had a meeting of state and territory leaders at the last COAG, and we had a I think a very good discussion about the need for each of us to step up and exercise the function of leadership. This government is stepping up and exercising the function of leadership. The premiers and chief ministers are stepping up and exercising the function of leadership. The only people who do not want to engage in the function of leadership, it seems, are members opposite, who would obviously rather run a scare campaign than have a serious discussion about how we can deliver better public hospital services and how we can deliver better public education services. Now, this document is so sinister—this document is so scary—that it will be published later on today for the benefit of all Australians, because it is important that as a nation we are capable of having a mature and sensible discussion about these things. In the course of that discussion a whole lot of issues will be raised and a whole lot of possibilities will be canvassed, but what matters is what ultimately comes out of it. That is what matters. Madam Speaker, I can assure you, I can assure all members of the House and I can assure the Australian public that this government will only propose things that are good for the public hospitals and the public schools of our country. Community Services 23 14:18 Ms McGOWAN 123674 Indi My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Minister, recent changes for emergency relief services, such as Loaves and Fishes in Wangaratta and north-east Victoria, have caused great confusion. Individuals in need and service providers do not know where to go or what to do. There is discontent due to the lack of relevant and timely information about the changes. Can the minister please tell the House what the government is doing on the ground to sort out this mess? 14:19 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for her question. The member would know that there was a very extensive DSS grants round at the end of last year, which was the most significant competitive round of grants for services relating to emergency relief. She would know that as a result of that competitive tender round that the following organisations—the Salvation Army, Beechworth Neighbourhood Centre, Euroa Community Education Centre, MACE Incorporated, UnitingCare Wodonga and VincentCare Victoria—were offered, and accepted, funding to provide emergency relief services in the Hume statistical area, which encompasses the Wangaratta district. The issue here is: is it the services that are being provided? There has been a continuity of services provided throughout this entire period. In January of this year we extended the existing funding for those services that were receiving them, including Loaves and Fishes, out to the end of March while we looked at the funding service gaps. I am advised by the Department of Social Services that the Loaves and Fishes program in Wangaratta has now received some funding directly from the Salvation Army, who is the principal provider of services in that area, as a result of the tender process. In addition to the Loaves and Fishes services at Ovens Street in Wangaratta, I understand that the Salvation Army is also present in Garnet Avenue Wangaratta, as well as in Wodonga, Beechworth, Benalla, Broadford and Seymour. I am also aware of a media report around the provision of services to the towns of Myrtleford, Bright and Mount Beauty. I am advised by the department that the Salvation Army currently provides services for these towns through their Beechworth centre. I understand that the Salvation Army is working on how services can be delivered in the Bright, Mount Beauty and Myrtleford communities, and will be working with the government to resolve any potential service gaps. We will continue to do that, just as on other DSS grant issues—as members opposite would know—whether it was for Karralika, or Mirabel Foundation, or Hartley House or any of these other places where the government is engaged in good faith with members to resolve any frontline service gaps. That is what we have also done exactly in these circumstances. Gun Control 24 14:21 Mr COLEMAN 241067 Banks My question is to the Minister for Justice and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism. Will the minister inform the House of steps the government is taking to protect Australians from the illegal firearms trade? 14:21 Mr KEENAN E0J Stirling I thank the member for Banks for the question and for the interest he takes in law and justice issues. Firearms trafficking is a deadly crime and even a small number of guns illegally coming into the country represents a serious risk to the safety of our communities. That is why, prior to coming to office, we committed to implementing in government tougher penalties for gun-related crime, which includes the introduction of mandatory sentences of five years imprisonment for those convicted of firearms or gun trafficking offences. When the coalition put these penalties to the parliament earlier this year, the Labor Party opposed them. This is despite the fact that the Martin Place siege review, conducted jointly by the Commonwealth and the New South Wales governments, specifically recommended that the Commonwealth and the states further consider messages to deal with illegal firearms. In March, we introduced this legislation giving the House of Representatives and the Labor Party another chance to join with us in opposing and providing the strongest possible sentencing for gun crime. This gives the Labor Party a chance to reconsider their position and make sure that this parliament sends the strongest possible message. Labor claimed during the last debate that they somehow have a longstanding position against mandatory sentencing. Indeed, the member for Batman, the sometimes shadow minister for justice, said during this debate that it is 'laid out in the Australian Labor Party's national platform that it is the strongly-held view of my party' that 'we oppose mandatory sentencing'. Mr Burke DYW Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. In terms of answering for a minister's responsibilities, he is straying a very long way from that and from being directly relevant to what he was asked. The SPEAKER 10000 The minister has the call. Mr KEENAN E0J What I was drawing the House's attention to was that the shadow minister for justice apparently believes that the Labor Party has a longstanding view in their national platform against mandatory sentencing, which is interesting because I came across this document: A secure and fair Australia: Let's move Australia Forward, brought to us by Julia Gillard and Labor. It is issued under the imprimatur of then Attorney-General Robert McClelland and then Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor. In this document, they actually brag about introducing mandatory sentencing. I will quote directly from it: In May 2010, Federal Labor introduced tough new people smuggling offences. They included penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment and mandatory minimum terms of up to eight years. The fact that this Labor Party have absolutely no idea what they stand for led to six years of chaos for our law enforcement agencies under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. But they now have a chance to do better. They now have chance to join with the government to send the strongest possible message that this parliament opposes gun crime and this parliament will make sure that you have mandatory minimum penalties of five years if you smuggle guns. Hospitals 24 14:25 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. In light of the Prime Minister's last answer, can the Prime Minister please explain to the parliament how it can be sensible or mature to cut every single Commonwealth dollar from public hospital funding? 14:25 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Again, I simply make the point that this is a discussion paper. It is a draft discussion paper and it ought to be possible for this country to have a sensible discussion about the best way of funding and operating public schools and public hospitals. Mr Butler interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Griffith will desist. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 It ought to be possible for this country to have a sensible discussion about how our Federation can work better. Obviously Labor leaders who actually have to exercise responsibility are prepared to have this sensible discussion, because we had the Labor Premier of South Australia, Mr Weatherill, on national radio this morning saying: …. it’s only a discussion paper. We’ve been asking them to canvas the broader range of options. There’s a broad debate going on about Commonwealth/state relations, which is a good thing. So the only people who seem to think that it is a bad thing to have a proper debate on this subject are the members opposite, which again just goes to show how low the Labor Party, at least in this particular parliament, have sunk—that they are not even prepared to have a proper debate. The Labor Premier of South Australia cautioned against playing politics over Federation reform. Unfortunately, that is just what members opposite have been trying to do today. They were trying to do it yesterday and I suspect they will try to do it all week because they do not have much. They absolutely do not have much. Again, let me say to the Leader of the Opposition that what matters here is not what goes into the process; what matters here is what comes out of the process. As far as this government is concerned, what will come out of the process are proposals for much better public hospitals and much better public schools and proposals for a better and stronger Federation with better services for the people of Australia. That is what the public expect of us. That is what the people expect of us. They expect a mature debate out of which will come sensible proposals for the betterment of our country—proposals, of course, that this government would certainly intend to take to an election. Budget 25 14:28 Mrs PRENTICE 217266 Ryan My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please outline the importance of sustainable and responsible budgeting? What does this mean for my constituents in Ryan? 14:28 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I would really like to thank the member for Ryan for that question. There is no doubt that the budget this year has been very successful. I say so because the $5.5 billion small business program has been the most successful— Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Moreton has been warned. Mr HOCKEY DK6 small business initiative ever delivered by a government, and it was delivered by the coalition. It was a budget for families, with a $3.5 billion increase in more affordable, flexible child care. It was a budget for infrastructure, with more than $50 billion for new infrastructure being provided through the budget over the next few years. And the results are starting to come in. The Commonwealth Bank business sales index came in today, indicating that sales across the business services sector posted a 1.9 per cent trend increase during the month, the biggest increase in three years. That is the biggest increase in sales in three years. As they say at the Commonwealth Bank, 'the news is encouraging'—and, importantly, it is broad based. Of course, you have to pay for all this. In the last week of parliament, $3.3 billion of savings passed through the Senate; savings that had, in some cases, been promised by Labor, were then opposed by Labor and are now supported by Labor, who cannot seem to make up their minds. Yesterday an additional $2.4 billion of savings passed through the Senate as a result of the initiatives in relation to changes to the pension. These changes are because we want to give people with the lowest income more of the pension and we want to ensure that those people who have millions of dollars in their bank accounts do not get the pension. I might say that, in addition, a further $1.1 billion worth of savings passed through parliament with the changes to the seniors supplement yesterday as well. So there is good progress being made. Today the Labor Party has been mugged by reality about the budget mess that they left behind. Today they have come on board with changes to fuel excise. It has taken them a while; they were opposed to it— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Isaacs and the member for Parramatta will desist. Mr HOCKEY DK6 and now they support it. And we welcome the support of the Labor Party, but there is still a long way to go to fix the mess left behind by Labor. We accept the proposal to spend an extra $1.1 billion on Roads to Recovery, a program that we backed, because it is backed and because it fits neatly with the narrative of the 'Infrastructure Prime Minister', the 'Infrastructure Treasurer', the 'Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister' and the 'Deputy Infrastructure Minister'. It is all part of the coalition's plan for a stronger Australia. (Time expired) Education Funding 26 14:32 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the Prime Minister promised 'no cuts to health' but has already cut more than $50 billion from public hospitals, leaving what the president of the AMA describes as 'a huge black hole', how can anyone believe a word this Prime Minister says on health funding? 14:32 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah This government is increasing health funding every year. Every year under this government health funding goes up. Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 Member for Gorton! Ms O'Neil interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Hotham is warned. The Prime Minister has the call. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 When it comes to public hospital funding, there is a 25 per cent increase in public hospital funding over the forward estimates period. Under this government, public hospital funding is $3.8 billion more than it otherwise would have been. So that is a 25 per cent increase in public hospital funding. But this government appreciates what members opposite plainly do not: it is not just all about money. Yes, money is important. But the morale of public hospitals matters. The systems under which public hospitals operate matter. The training of our public hospital professionals matters. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 There will be silence on my left. Mr Giles interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Scullin is not in his seat. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 There is a whole range of issues that are important when it comes to delivering better public hospitals and better public schools— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The Prime Minister will resume his seat. I will not have this cacophony. The member for Scullin is not in his seat; he may not speak. The same applies to the member for Lalor. You are very moveable, but you may not speak if you are not in your seat. We will have silence. I call the honourable the Prime Minister. He has the call. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 This government is interested in one thing and one thing only—that is: how do we deliver better public hospital services? We will deliver better public hospital services by, amongst other things, increasing spending on public hospitals by 25 per cent over the forward estimates period— Mr Perrett interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a). The member for Moreton then left the chamber. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 That will be a $3.8 billion increase in funding over the forward estimates period. The member for Sydney claims that there is a $50 billion funding gap. Well, I have a very simple question for the member for Sydney today about public hospitals, as I did for her yesterday about public schools. If she thinks there is a $50 billion gap, put the money back. That is my challenge: put the money back. And, if the member for Sydney is not prepared to stand up at the dispatch box and say, 'Yes, Labor will put the money back,' either they know that there is not a gap or, more to the point, they just cannot be trusted. Unless the member for Sydney is prepared to say that she will put the money back, this whole line of questioning today, just as it was yesterday, is absolutely and utterly fraudulent. Small Business 26 14:35 Ms HENDERSON ZN4 Corangamite My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister inform the House how small businesses in my electorate of Corangamite can take advantage of the government's budget? How are our budget measures helping small businesses have a go across the nation? 14:36 Mr BILLSON 1K6 Dunkley It is great to get a question from the member for Corangamite. I was very fortunate to be with the member for Corangamite shortly after the budget, visiting Colac and one of Greater Melbourne's two great peninsulas, the Bellarine Peninsula, and back to Geelong. We did not get to meet all of the 11,500 small businesses in her electorate, but we got to meet plenty of them. The small business forum at Colac was extremely positive, and there was such an upbeat and positive atmosphere at the packed house at Truffleduck, hosted by the Geelong Business Chamber. Everyone was energised by the budget. Not only did they respond positively; they were really quite taken by the new opportunities—some of the best policy settings from the best small business government that ever has been in this parliament, delivering the best small business package for their interests and their support. And we are already starting to see some benefits. Andrew Cleary runs a 90-year-young small family business, JB Scott. It is a family agricultural supply business that has provided, 90 years, almost a century of service for that region. And even those businesses that have been around that long are enchanted by the small business package. Mr Cleary said: As a business owner, I have found the government's initiatives a fantastic move. I could not have said it better myself. My June turnover has been bolstered by the incentive. The incentive that Mr Cleary was talking about was the immediate deductibility of business purchases for small businesses with a turnover of under $2 million for expenditures up to $20,000 time and time again that supports their business growth and their opportunities. But he was also referring to the instant asset write-off for water and fencing investment that the agricultural minister argued so strongly for. Ms Butler interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Griffith is warned. Mr BILLSON 1K6 The accelerated depreciation for animal food and fodder storage are all part of this package. We are seeing tangible benefits coming out of this package. As the Treasurer alluded to just a few moments ago, the Commonwealth Bank business sales indicator is recording economy-wide uplift as a consequence of the budget. The Treasurer pointed to the May figures but what he did not mention was the CBA as saying these figures now are so far above the decade-long trend, something is happening in our economy. What is happening in our economy is an Abbott government focused on the small business economy, getting behind the hay balers, the baristas, Tony's tradies that are buying building equipment, and the business services businesses that Joe talked about. We are interested in all small businesses because it is in all of our interests as a nation to get behind small business. They are a driver of growth and opportunity. They provide almost half of all the private sector workforce, and we have all got a job to do to recover from the damage and harm of an indifferent Labor government. Mr Albanese interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Grayndler is warned. Mr BILLSON 1K6 Bill Shorten could not even manage to mention the two-thirds that are unincorporated. We are behind the small businesses of Australia. Health Funding 27 14:39 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's federation green paper that proposes to cut every single dollar from public hospital funding. Isn't this just another way for the Prime Minister to force states to implement his Commission of Audit recommendation to charge a hospital tax for emergency department visits? 14:39 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah The simple answer is no. But we are not running away from a sensible discussion about the future of our country. We are not running away from this opportunity for the states and territories and, indeed, for the people of Australia to think about what is going to help our country in the years and decades to come. We are not scared of this. We are absolutely not scared of this. Ms Plibersek interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Sydney will desist. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Again I say to members opposite that the Labor Premier of South Australia is prepared to enter in good faith into a serious discussion about how we can have better public hospitals, better public schools. The other states and premiers are prepared to have proper discussions about this. The only people who are incapable of handling a mature debate, it seems, are members opposite. The only people who would rather they engage in mindless cackling, endless interjection and endless complaining are members opposite. I am a little surprised because Labor's national platform states: Labor believes our Constitution and Federation need to be modernised to resolve the funding and administrative problems that have prevented government effectively dealing with the challenges of today. Mr Bowen interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for McMahon is warned. Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Get with your own program—that is what I say to members opposite. Over the next few months, lots of things will be proposed. Lots of ideas will come up. But what matters is not what goes into the process; what matters is what comes out of the process. I can assure members opposite, I can assure every single Australian that this government will propose nothing that will not lead to better public schools, better public hospitals and nothing of substance that we will not be prepared to take to the people at the next election. Education 28 14:42 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. Would the minister update the House on the importance to the Australian economy of the international education sector. And how is the government ensuring the success of this vital sector? 14:42 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt I thank the member for Grey for his question. It is a very important question because international education has become one of the major mainstays of the Australian economy. In Victoria and South Australia, for example, it is the No. 1 export from both those states. It is No. 4 after iron ore, coal and natural gas for Australia. Particularly good news received yesterday here in Australia was that the value of international education to the economy has now risen to $17.6 billion. That is a $2-billion increase on 2013, which is a very substantial increase. For South Australia, where the member for Grey comes from, for the first time we passed through $1 billion of value of international education to the South Australian economy. When we came to power in 2013, international education had been on the decline under Labor. They did not have in their DNA support for international education. It had declined by $2 billion between 2009 and 2012. It had started to recover but in the 2014 calendar year it really bounced back. It did so because of the excellent work of the Department of Immigration, the assistant minister Senator Cash, the Minister for Immigration, the now Minister for Social Services, the Department of Education, foreign affairs, trade, industry and the vocational education and training minister to really have a whole-of-government coordinated response on international education. We streamlined visa processing for international students. Last week, Minister Michaela Cash announced the streamlined visa processing—having had a pilot for 12 months—would be extended across the sector. Last week we also had the round table where all of those six ministers attended and spoke to international education stakeholders. We have a national strategy for international education. But, most importantly, the message from the Abbott government and ministry is that we are open for business with international education. We welcome international students to Australia. They add revenue to our universities, our vocational education and training sector and our schools, but they also add enormously to retail trade, to accommodation and to tourism, bringing their family members to Australia, to boost local economies. So we are very pleased to be able to report that our strategy is working. It is more good news from the Abbott government, and I look forward to being able to report next year on the expansion over this calendar year of that fantastic industry. Hospitals 28 14:45 Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B Throsby My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's secret plan to cut every single dollar from public hospitals, forcing the states to hit Australians with a new hospital tax. Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 Silence on my right! Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B How much will parents have to pay— Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my right! Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B to have their sick child seen by a doctor in an emergency department? Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 I call the Leader of the House. There will be silence all round, please. Mr Pyne 9V5 Madam Speaker, both the government and I think that you as chair have been extremely tolerant today of the assertions, argument and hypothetical nature of all of these questions. There is no such plan, and making the assertion and arguing that there is in the question really rule the question out of order. If the opposition can ask a question that is specific to a real government policy, that is quite different to this ludicrous hypothetical question that we are being asked time after time by the opposition. The SPEAKER 10000 I will hear from the Manager of Opposition Business. Mr Burke DYW To the point of order: it would be extraordinary if we now view as hypothetical documents that are distributed from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The Manager of Opposition Business has the call. Have you completed your point? Mr Burke DYW Yes. The SPEAKER 10000 Good. I think it would be better if the member for Throsby rephrased his question— Government members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 without debate and without hypotheticals. Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B I refer to the plan that the Prime Minister advised would be published this afternoon, which plans to cut every single dollar from public hospital funding, forcing the states to hit Australians with a new hospital tax. Government members interjecting— Mr STEPHEN JONES A9B How much will parents have to pay to have their sick child seen by a doctor in an emergency department? The SPEAKER 10000 The noise that came from the government benches on this occasion made it very difficult to hear that question, but I do understand that the Prime Minister heard it. I will let it stand. 14:47 Mr ABBOTT EZ5 Warringah Our plan is to increase public hospital funding by 25 per cent over the forward estimates period. That is the plan that was published on budget night. That is our plan. As part of the Federation reform white-paper process, there is a draft discussion paper that has gone to the states and territories. It canvasses a range of issues, but the purpose— Ms Plibersek interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Sydney is warned! Mr ABBOTT EZ5 of everything that is being canvassed in this discussion paper is the delivery ultimately of better services, better public hospital services and better public school services. I would have thought that members opposite would not have been scared of a sensible debate, because—let us face it—their own national platform says: Labor believes our … Federation— needs— to be modernised to resolve the funding and administrative problems that have prevented government effectively dealing with the challenges … today. Over the last couple of days, the Leader of the Opposition has failed the challenge of leadership. He abdicated leadership when it came to budget responsibility, to the Greens. And today he has abdicated leadership of the challenge of modernising our Federation to Premier Jay Weatherill. Not only has he abdicated the challenge of leadership, but, frankly, he is even abdicating the challenge of followership, because surely it is not beyond the wit even of members opposite—even of the federal Labor Party, who have sunk so low, it seems, that they cannot even have a debate. They cannot even have a debate. I do not believe that we have necessarily already achieved the last word of wisdom in every policy matter concerning our Federation. I think it is very important that we do spend more when it comes to public schools and public hospitals, but I do not think that spending money is the be all and the end all, the only test and measure, of good policy. That is the problem that members opposite have. They think that more spending is the answer to every problem. Well, we found out time and time again when members opposite were in government that they could spend and spend and spend and just make a situation worse. That is what they do. They spend and spend and spend, and normally they make situations worse. I say to members opposite: have a long hard look at yourselves and engage in what is a serious process of national improvement. Child Care 30 14:51 Mr TAYLOR 231027 Hume My question is to the Minister for Social Services. I refer the minister to the report in today's The Daily Telegraph about the previous government's Early Years Quality Fund. What action is the government taking to ensure affordable access to child care for Australian families? 14:51 Mr MORRISON E3L Cook I thank the member for Hume for his question. I thank him for the work that he is doing to shed light on this through the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit. The facts as we know them are these. Labor established a $3 million fund in government, opposed by the coalition, to pay childcare centres to top up the wages of workers where they entered into enterprise bargaining agreements. And, as a result of that arrangement— Ms Plibersek interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Sydney will leave under 94(a). The member for Sydney then left the chamber. Mr MORRISON E3L the number of EBAs in the sector increased from 100 to over 400 in just four months. United Voice was the principal participant in signing up those EBAs—the former employer of the member for Port Adelaide, 'El Presidente' over there, Madam Speaker—and a first come, first served grant process was established which was described by the Auditor-General as unusual. When the department raised concerns about the process, Prime Minister Gillard's office said: … with respect to prioritising applications on the basis of quality, the department was 'over thinking' the process. They set up an advisory committee to guide the grant process, which had none other on it than, you guessed it, United Voice. United Voice were on the program. The funding agreement was shovelled out the door the day before the election, in the caretaker period, without the express consent of the opposition. Mr Conroy interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Charlton is warned. Mr MORRISON E3L It is interesting to note that, with all the funding agreements that were sent out the day before the election, all those centres had entered into agreements with, you guessed it, United Voice. At the 2013 federal election, United Voice donated $1.5 million to the ALP. It is not surprising that unions donate to the ALP, but this was twice the donation that they had provided at the 2010 election. But there is one other piece of information. Not only do we know about that funding—and significant support was provided to the member for Adelaide—but we also know that there were two ministers particularly responsible for the carriage of this program. One was the now member for Adelaide and the other one sits in the Leader of the Opposition's chair today. The Australian people are not fools, and I think they can smell the same thing we can smell coming from that side of the chamber. They can smell the stench that is rising up—the same stench we saw with New South Wales Labor that saw the end of that government in New South Wales. They can smell it and they are onto you. What are we doing about it? We are not doing grubby deals with unions. What we are doing is spending $3½ billion to support families—not unions. Budget 30 14:54 Mr CHAMPION HW9 Wakefield My question is for the Prime Minister, and I refer to his previous answer. Prime Minister, some government somewhere printed a document that refers to health and education cuts and says that they 'will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024-25'. I will give the Prime Minister a clue: the document has got a kangaroo and an emu on the front of it. The SPEAKER 10000 There are no props. Mr CHAMPION HW9 Does the Prime Minister know whose government printed such a document? The SPEAKER 10000 I think that we have got a question which infringes both standing orders 98 and 100 and is out of order. Australian Broadcasting Corporation 30 14:55 Mr HAWKE HWO Mitchell I have got a real question. My question is to the Minister for Communications, and I refer the minister to the airing by the— The SPEAKER 10000 The member for Mitchell will resume his seat. The member for Grayndler on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 It is a question— The SPEAKER 10000 It was ruled out of order. The member will resume his seat. Mr Albanese R36 On what— The SPEAKER 10000 Under standing order 100. Mr HAWKE HWO My question is to the Minister for Communications. I refer the minister to the airing by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, on the Q&A program last night, of the views of a Mr Zaky Mallah. Given the ABC has apologised for its mistake, will the minister outline the government's view on this matter and what action the government will take in relation to the airing of extremist views on the ABC? 14:56 Mr TURNBULL 885 Wentworth I thank the honourable member for his question. The inclusion of Mr Zaky Mallah in the live audience on Q&A last night was a very, very grave error of judgement on the part of the ABC. Mr Mallah was a very known quantity. He had served a term of imprisonment for threatening to kill ASIO officers. He had been charged with threatening suicide attacks and preparing for terrorist attacks in that context, although had been acquitted. He had travelled to Syria in the pursuit of what he described as 'jihad'. His social media presence is vile, abusive and violent. He is a very, very known quantity. It beggars believe that he was included in a live audience, whether it is on the basis of what he might say, given his clear track record of intemperate and violent language, but also, just as worryingly, from a physical security point of view. Surely we have learned to take threats of this kind, to take people like this, extremely seriously. The idea that that there was no physical security checks on that audience, or that this man was allowed into it, is extraordinary. The honourable member asked me what I have done. I have spoken to the managing director and expressed essentially the views I have just outlined here and I have been in touch with the chairman of the ABC to the same effect. I have asked the managing director to make sure that security arrangements are appropriate for the live audiences at the ABC. I am grateful to the Minister for Justice for facilitating the Australian Federal Police to assist the ABC in making sure that their arrangements are absolutely correct and appropriate to protect the live audiences, the guests, the production team and so forth in the studio. The ABC board have a statutory duty to ensure that their news and current affairs are accurate and impartial. That is their responsibility under the act. The ABC board have established an external review into Q&A—they have done a number of these into other parts of their coverage—and that will look at the whole gamut of issues relating to Q&A: audience composition, choice of topics, choice of guests and objectivity balance. That is absolutely appropriate. The ABC has to be seen to be accurate and impartial. It is the board's responsibility to do it and the government, the public and the taxpayers expect them to carry out their statutory duty. Education Funding 31 14:59 Mrs ELLIOT DZW Richmond My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's $30 billion school cuts will leave schools around the country an average of $3.2 million worse off, including schools like Alstonville High School in the electorate of Page. Given the Prime Minister's Federation green paper proposes to cut all funding to schools, aren't these cuts just another part of the Prime Minister's plan to make parents with kids at Alstonville High School pay a new schools tax? The SPEAKER 10000 I really do think that, again and again, members are referring to a discussion paper, which they acknowledge, and yet the questions are asserting it to be something else. I will give the member for Richmond the opportunity to rephrase her question and make clear what it is she is referring to. Mr Burke DYW Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order— The SPEAKER 10000 It comes quite clearly under the category of debate. The Manager of Opposition Business can make his point of order and then the member for Richmond can have an opportunity to rephrase her question. Mr Burke DYW When a government document has put forward an option, it must be valid for the opposition to question the government about the implications of that option. It has to be valid; otherwise— The SPEAKER 10000 The member will resume his seat. There is no question that members are quite entitled to ask questions about the discussion paper but not to assert it is something else. The member for Richmond has the call. Mrs ELLIOT DZW My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's $30 billion school cuts will leave schools around the country an average of $3.2 million worse off, including schools such as Alstonville High School in the electorate of Page. The SPEAKER 10000 The member will resume her seat. Perhaps the member for Richmond is hard of hearing. Mr Burke DYW Madam Speaker, I have a point of order. The SPEAKER 10000 Resume your seat. The member for Richmond has the call. Mrs ELLIOT DZW My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the Prime Minister's secret plan to cut all funding to schools, aren't these cuts another part of the Prime Minister's plan to make parents with kids at Alstonville High School pay a new school tax? The SPEAKER 10000 I do not think the member for Richmond quite gets the point. We will move on. Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 32 15:01 Mr WYATT M3A Hasluck My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on the steps the government is taking to create a more sustainable Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to ensure the provision of new and innovative lifesaving medicines for Australian patients? 15:02 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I am pleased to get a real health question in the House today. I am also pleased to report that the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill passed the Senate just before question time. I want to thank the Labor Party for their support of a serious and sustainable package designed to underpin the delivery of new medicines and the investments in new treatments that we know we need to make in the next five years over the course of this agreement. We are a government that are committed to listing of new medicines. The Abbott government have more than doubled the number of new and amended listings on the PBS to 667, worth almost $3 billion since September 2013. We have doubled the number that existed under Labor. We will continue to list without fear or favour. I say 'without fear or favour' because, unfortunately, under Labor we saw a lot of picking and choosing—picking the right or the wrong PBAC advice to suit the political purposes of the government of the day. We saw that with disastrous attempts to halt the listings of new drugs. Reversing that was one of the strongest commitments we made on being elected. To ensure that we can continue to afford to invest in new medicines, we need to make sure that the taxpayer investment now is as efficient as possible. The agreement that has just passed the Senate has, at its core: $18.9 billion in the sixth community pharmacy agreement; a strategic agreement with the Generic Medicines Industry Association; $6.6 billion worth of efficiencies through the PBS supply chain; and $2.8 billion of additional direct investment into the pharmacy sector, including $1.2 billion in primary care, as pharmacies transition from just dispensing medications to being key players in the delivery of primary care and looking after our increasing cohort of patients with chronic disease into the future. I am very pleased that this package has passed the Senate. I want to thank all involved, particularly those in the medicine supply chain, including, as I said, the manufacturers of both generic and innovator medicines. It is investments like this that enable us to do what I was able to do at the end of May—list a drug called Crizotinib on the PBS. It is a $60 million investment by this government. $80,000 is the real price per script. We worked with the drug manufacturer, Pfizer, through a managed entry program to allow access to this breakthrough drug for those in the most clinical need. We will continue to work constructively across the medicine supply chain to make sure that we look after patients. Education Funding 32 15:05 Ms O'NEIL 140590 Hotham My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, this year's budget locked in $30 billion of cuts to schools. That is the equivalent of sacking one in seven teachers at Narre Warren North Primary School in the electorate of La Trobe. Given the Prime Minister's own green paper contemplates completely vacating the field of the Federation funding schools, aren't these cuts just another part of the Prime Minister's plan to make parents with kids at Narre Warren North Primary School pay a new school tax? 15:06 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt It is terribly sad for the opposition that they have been reduced to this level where they have to make up questions and assertions rather than deal with the issues. But the question does give me the opportunity to range widely over the subject of school funding and trust, which is extremely important. This government went to the election with a promise to match funding, dollar for dollar, for the new school funding model. We delivered it 100 per cent. In fact, we restored the $1.2 billion of cuts visited by the Leader of the Opposition on the school education system in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. We delivered that, and we will continue to increase funding in the next four years by eight per cent, eight per cent, six per cent and four per cent. The member's question might have some resonance if only the opposition leader had committed to the apparent $30 billion in extra spending beyond the forward estimates. Ms O'Neil interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 The member has asked her question and will desist. Mr PYNE 9V5 But even today, at his doorstop in the Mural Hall, he was asked several times by journalists whether they would restore these so-called funding cuts. He said, 'In terms of what we want to do, we'll unveil our policies.' 'But will Labor bring them back to life?' 'Let us be very clear: we would take a policy to the next election.' How fantastic! That is what oppositions usually do. We had about 108, if I remember rightly, at the last federal election. But that is hardly the cast-iron guarantee that the unions and the schools sector are looking for. But it does allow me to talk about tonight's episode of The Killing Season. There has been a preview in The Canberra Times and, from what it is looking like, tonight's episode of The Killing Season will look more like the red wedding episode from the Game of Thrones. Here he is: Walder Frey and Joffrey. Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. The SPEAKER 10000 The minister will resume his seat. Mr Albanese interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 And I don't need any assistance from the member for Grayndler in who will sit down. Mr Albanese R36 The minister has just indicated in his own preamble that he was about to become completely out of order— The SPEAKER 10000 The member will resume his seat. It is a very wide ranging question, and the minister has the call. Mr PYNE 9V5 It was a wide-ranging question about who you could trust to deliver school funding. And the issue of trust is a very broad one. What I understand about tonight's episode of The Killing Season, which looks more like the red wedding episode from Game of Thrones, is in fact we will discover tonight that Walder Frey over here had already made a deal with Kevin Rudd on 19 June and had already told Julia Gillard on 17 June that he would change his allegiance. But on 21 June he told Neil Mitchell three times that he had done no such thing and that he was still 100 per cent behind Julia Gillard. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 There will be silence on my right. The member for Grayndler on a point of order? Mr Albanese R36 Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. This was a question about education and schools— The SPEAKER 10000 We have already had a point of order on relevance. The member will resume his seat. The minister has the call. Mr PYNE 9V5 He is the king slayer of Australian politics. He got rid of two prime ministers. The Treasurer was at the scene of the crime when Neil Mitchell asked him three times, and three times he lied to the Australian public. Superannuation 33 15:10 Mr VASTA E0D Bonner My question is to the Assistant Treasurer. Will the Assistant Treasurer update the House on how the government is providing security to all Australians saving for their retirement? Are there any challenges to this approach? Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER 10000 I will have no more of that. I call the Assistant Treasurer. 15:10 Mr FRYDENBERG FKL Kooyong I thank the honourable member for Bonner for his question and acknowledge his deep commitment to good economic policy. The savings of hardworking Australians have never been more important to the health of the Australian economy. With the Intergenerational report showing that the number of Australians over the age of 65 will more than double over the next four decades, we need to encourage people to save for their retirement and we need to protect those savings. That is why we on this side of the House are committed to no adverse or unexpected changes to super in this term of government, and that is why we are committed to reversing Labor's disastrous changes to the unclaimed moneys regime. I am asked: are there any challenges? The biggest challenge comes from the chaotic approach to superannuation from those opposite. They have had every position under the sun. Consider this from the member for McMahon in his book Hearts and Minds, which you can get for a steal at the local book-grocer. He said: The tax concessions for superannuation are … justified … they help boost our pool of savings … And he said that paring them back creates uncertainty. But the member for McMahon in a speech on 3 June this year said: It is indefensible to suggest we can leave superannuation tax concessions for another day. In fact it is completely irresponsible. The Leader of the Opposition is no better. On 23 June 2013, in a press release with his best friend the member for Lilley, he said: Labor is the party of superannuation … we’re the only party interested in growing the retirement savings of hardworking Australians. But now this year he insults millions of Australians with superannuation, calling it a legalised tax haven, and he wants to cut the tax concessions for more than 425,000 Australians to 'improve the budget bottom line'. Labor cannot be trusted with your savings. In this year, the so-called year of big ideas, they have no ideas. The shadow Assistant Treasurer, the member for Fraser, in one of his great speeches, said, 'Don't panic. The ideas are coming.' He said this: Labor’s policy development process … has been like the proverbial duck, calm on the surface while paddling like hell underneath. So watch this pond. After tonight's episode of The Killing Season, it might not be long before they dump this damaged duck and replace it with the old swan. Mr Abbott EZ5 I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper. PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 34 PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS 15:13 Mr DREYFUS HWG Isaacs Thank you, Madam Speaker, I do wish to make a personal explanation. The SPEAKER 10000 Does the member claimed to have been misrepresented? Mr DREYFUS HWG I do. The SPEAKER 10000 Then you have indulgence to proceed. Mr DREYFUS HWG Thank you. During question time today, the Minister for Immigration claimed that I want to 'bring these terrorists back into Australia'. This statement is completely false. I made a personal explanation in the House yesterday in respect of two previous similar false statements by the Prime Minister. I have clearly stated that any dual citizen taking up arms against Australia should be stripped of their citizenship. The repeated misrepresentation of my position by the government is nothing more than a cheap political smear. STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE 34 STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE Ravenshoe Accident 34 15:14 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy Madam Speaker, I want to express condolences on behalf of the parliament to the people of Ravenshoe following the accident at the bakery and cafe—to the loved ones of those involved and the people from the surrounding areas. Nicole Dempsey and Margaret Clark have both died, out of the 21 people injured. Many are still in a very serious condition. Ravenshoe is a very small and tightly-knit community. The Dempseys are one of the oldest families from that area, and many of the people in the region are connected by family. The member for Leichhardt will be saying a few words, and he will agree with me on that. This was the simplest of accidents. A driver had a stroke or something of that nature and lost control of his car. In a most extraordinary piece of bad luck—that is an understatement—the car careered forward, as he still had his foot on the accelerator, and it missed numerous trees, missed a big toilet block, missed numerous other obstacles and managed to drive straight into two very large gas cylinders, driving one of them, instead of the cylinder going over the back or to the side or underneath, forwards straight into the bakery, where it leaked and then exploded, with 21 people in the bakery and surrounding cafe area. I am not going to single people out, but many Ravenshoe people dashed into what was arguably a blazing inferno, one of them with a hose, trying to douse the fire. The second cylinder was sitting there and it could have exploded at any moment and seriously injured any of those inside dragging the very seriously injured people out. Numerous people had third-degree burns over most of their body. There are only a few thousand people in the town. There were over 1,000 people at the funeral of Nicole Dempsey, a young mother with two kids—a very handsome looking lady. They said one of Nicole's sayings was, 'You make the best of this minute—you never know what will happen in the next one.' At the funeral all of the pictures were of her dancing and having fun and paddling with her kids. She was very active in the community. She was on the executive of the Cairns Netball Association, and a lot of people told me that she was one of the driving forces that carried netball—a very big sport in the north—throughout the greater Cairns region. All her team were there, dressed up in their uniforms. Undoubtedly she was a fun person. They remarked on how she changed her hair colour on numerous occasions, and I am pretty certain it was her mother who was there with a bright red wig on. The family, of course, had done their grieving over previous days, and they were celebrating the happy life of Nicole. Last week we heard of the death of Margaret Clark, from Innisfail. In sharp contrast to Nicole, she was well on in years and had seen many traumas—Cyclone Larry and Cyclone Yasi being amongst them. I would appreciate the parliament acknowledging what has occurred, because it means an awful lot to people in these situations. Having been a member of parliament during Larry and Yasi—particularly Larry, with the horrific damage it did—I understand the shocking psychological impact those events had on people, seeing their main street completely destroyed with heaps of bricks lying around and all of that, but we did not suffer loss of life like Ravenshoe did. And there are still many people very seriously ill who are not out of the woods yet. The Mayor of Newcastle rang me during Larry and said, 'It is two years later, Bob, that you will run into problems.' And that was profoundly true. At the time people showed great heroism and a great ability to deal with a horrific situation, but it affects them later on. As I say, it would mean a lot to them if members of the parliament of Australia acknowledged what has happened and expressed their care. That is all I ask that we do today. 15:20 Mr TRUSS GT4 Wide Bay Madam Speaker, I join with the member for Kennedy in expressing sympathy to the families of those who lost loved ones in this disaster at Ravenshoe, which can only be described as an extraordinary freak accident. People were quietly going about their day around the coffee shop, only to have an out-of-control of vehicle run through the wall and cause an explosion. It is certainly an example to us all of how precious and I guess how tenuous on occasions life can be. I understand seven people are still critically ill and so there is obviously a real risk that the death toll will rise. We think very much of the families and the people of Ravenshoe. As the honourable member for Kennedy has mentioned, it is a relatively small community but a close-knit community that has gone through a lot of trouble in its day. They have worked and knitted closely together and built strong bonds of friendship and loyalty to one another. This is a very sad event for the town of Ravenshoe and particularly for the families of those who have lost loved ones. I hope to go up to Ravenshoe on Monday to meet with the community and look at whether there are any ways in which the government might be able to assist them in these difficult times. 15:21 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong The opposition joins with the remarks of the member for Kennedy and the remarks of the government. I think all Australians who saw some of the footage and all who learnt the news of what happened at Ravenshoe were shocked. It was a dreadful ordeal. The set of circumstances outlined by the member for Kennedy shows how unlucky people were. The fireballs of a gas explosion—nothing can prepare people for that. We acknowledge and put on record the stories of modest heroism—of people putting their friends or victims before themselves. I have seen firsthand, in other circumstances, burns injuries; they are a particularly dreadful form of pain. People will be scarred for life and, in the case of at least two families, losses that are irreparable. Robert Frost was the American poet laureate and he spoke about a terrible tragedy in his life—he called it 'the shafts of fate'. Whilst this could be described in the same way, I do not believe anything can make sense for the people, who have gone through this, of what has happened to them—unfinished conversations, for example. I am sure there will be some people who will be saying: 'Why not me?' while others will say: 'Why her?' Let me reassure those who have been through that tragedy that everyone understands, is committed to you. We understand that Australians are resilient, and people will be resilient here. We also understand that nothing could have prepared people of this. 15:23 Mr ENTSCH 7K6 Leichhardt I would like to associate myself with this motion. Those horrendous events now at the Serve You Right cafe happened two weeks ago, when we saw Ravenshoe literally implode. As the Leader of the Opposition rightly said, the graphic images that we saw on the news were really quite horrific. Twenty-one people were injured and, as the member for Kennedy has said, sadly two to date have succumbed to their injuries. The first was 37-year-old Nicole Dempsey, who sadly passed away and was buried in the community last Friday; the second funeral for 82-year-old Margaret Clark will happen on Thursday in Innisfail. We are not out of the woods yet, because there is still a number of critically ill patients in Brisbane and others who are in a stable condition in our local hospital, including the driver of the vehicle. As we always see in Far North Queensland communities, people are being very generous. There is an appeal to assist the victims—there is an official GIVIT Ravenshoe; you can contribute by visiting www.givit.org.au. I think it is important when you reflect on a tragedy like this that you recognise the absolute heroic nature of this community. There were two firefighters at that cafe at the time, Joe Torrisi and Michael Beck, who were going about their normal work, talking to some senior members of the community. In spite of the fact that they were very badly burnt, they ignored their own burns and continued to help other people. They will both survive, but they are going to face years and years of rehabilitation. The local paramedic, Darrell Thompson, was on his own at the time—he was the only paramedic in town for 13 minutes before emergency services arrived—but Darrell will tell you that he was never on his own, because the community, right from the moment this happened, rallied around him. It was an extraordinary effort by all of the community, including the firefighters and others like Eric Balodis, an artist who lives across the road. He went into the burning building and dragged one woman out by her feet because she pleaded with him not to touch her badly burnt hands. Ken Tobler had burns to 37 per cent of his body and yet he rushed in there to help, as did many other locals who are too numerous to name. The strength of a community is always gauged by how people respond to these tragedies and this small tableland community has responded in a most amazing way. I was talking yesterday to Nicola Baker, who was a very dear and close friend of Nicole Dempsey. She said that Nicole had two beautiful children—Jordan, 13 and Brody, 8—and she was a very strong supporter of the school. As the member for Kennedy said, she was also heavily involved in netball and in the local footie team. What Nicola and the community are looking to do is to put together a proposal for a fitting legacy to Nicole's contribution at the local sports area. I am pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister will be going up there to hear about that. The community is already focusing on how they can make a positive out of this absolute tragedy. My condolences are with those families who have lost loved ones; our best wishes and hopes are with those who still have challenges ahead. 15:28 The SPEAKER SE4 In a moment I am going to ask members to rise in their places to acknowledge the courage, pain and loss suffered by those in Ravenshoe. I will ask that, when we stand, we ask the Deputy Prime Minister to take with him the wishes of the House, to extend condolences to those who have lost loved ones and to extend the compassion, empathy and sympathy that the House feels for their loss when he travels there on Monday. As a mark of respect, I invite honourable members to rise in their places. Honourable members having stood in their places— Debate adjourned. DOCUMENTS 36 DOCUMENTS Presentation 36 15:29 Mr PYNE 9V5 Sturt Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings. MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE 36 MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE Health and Education Funding 36 15:29 The SPEAKER SE4 I have received a letter from the honourable Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely: The Government cutting funding for health and education. 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— 15:30 Mr SHORTEN 00ATG Maribyrnong I thought I might open the debate on this matter of public importance with a reading from 'the book of Tony'. It is the updated 2013 election version. Any good remainder bin will have one! It says, on page 133: Commonwealth spending on health and education now approaches $90 billion a year … It goes on to say: Most of it is not directly authorised by the constitution other than via specific-purpose grants … Still, any withdrawal of Commonwealth involvement or spending in these areas would rightly be seen as a cop out. My question to the government is: what have you done with the author of Battlelines and where is he? What we are witness to today with the Federation green paper is what the leader of the government would say is 'a cop out'. We would actually say it is something more. We do not call it 'a mature and sensible conversation'. I think you could hear the sound of jaws dropping right across the nation today when the Prime Minister, in defence of his proposals, said that no public dollars, no Commonwealth dollars, going to public hospitals was an option. That was a proposal for the hospital systems of Australia: no Commonwealth money. You could have heard a pin drop when the Prime Minister said that. We thought to ourselves: did we really hear the leader of Australia, the author of Battlelines—he is still probably getting royalties from it—not only confirm that that idea has come from his own department but also, in that trademark stubbornness, not rule it out? On the contrary, he said, 'What's wrong with the opposition? Don't they want to have a sensible and mature conversation?' Prime Minister, we are always up for a sensible and mature conversation; we just think this idea is plain crazy. Who has dreamt up the idea that cutting the funding for and walking away from responsibilities to health and education is a good idea for the Federation of Australia? It is a rewriting of the contract which was initiated, in the case of schools and education, by none other than Robert Menzies, former Liberal Prime Minister of Australia. The interesting fact is that these Federation green-paper proposals to means-test parents to send their children to public schools and to take away all the funding of hospitals are based on the trend of the last two years: the government persisting in the myth that they are not cutting funding—$80 billion worth of funding—to hospitals and schools. One of our members of parliament, the member for Wakefield, tried to offer in question time today the budget papers where there is a graph which clearly spells out that there is $80 billion less over the next 10 years for hospitals and schools. But this government is in such denial that it would not even admit who drew up the graph. They would not even admit that it is in their own budget papers, when it has the logo of the Commonwealth on it. It would be funny if it were not so serious. This is a war being waged by the government on Australia's teachers and students, parents, nurses, doctors and patients, a war on families, with a $30 billion cut to schools and $50 billion cut to hospitals—and we have found out this is just the beginning. Now we see the Liberals talking about cutting hospitals loose and cutting schools loose. Today we have also discovered that their meanness does not extend just to this radical agenda to cut billions of dollars from schools and hospitals; they have even decided to go after preschools. No Labor propaganda-writing unit could have ever dreamed up that this government would turn its back on its pledge to provide four-year-olds with 15 hours a week of preschool. What on earth did the children in the preschools and kindergartens of Australia, or their parents, do to be the government's latest target? I will be honest. I thought the government would rush to rule this out but, impressively, they have owned it! At least they have owned it. They are saying that this is part of a 'mature and sensible conversation'. No, Prime Minister, this is not sensible or mature. The green paper actually says what we are saying. Mr Chester interjecting— Mr SHORTEN 00ATG On page 7—that would be after page 6, Member for Gippsland!—the Commonwealth said, about hospitals: The Commonwealth would no longer provide funding for public hospital services and would have no role in setting operational targets for public hospitals … I repeat that— Mr Chester IPZ This is one long fairy tale. Mr SHORTEN 00ATG This is not a fairy tale; it is a nightmare, and your team are writing it: The Commonwealth would no longer provide funding for public hospital services and would have no role in setting operational targets for public hospitals … Did we hear that right? Australians will hear this. Labor will take this right across the country, when this parliament rises, and warn all Australians that this government considers that sort of proposal sensible and mature—and we heard the Prime Minister own it time and time again today. What are the consequences of no longer providing funding for public hospitals? The paper goes on, on page 8: 'This option risks entrenching the existing incentives for governments to shift costs and to blame other parts of the system. It also does not on its own improve access to primary care or address fragmentation between public hospitals and primary care.' Australians are on notice. This is a government proposing to cut $50 billion from public hospitals, as much as it denies it. They now wish to go further and have 'a mature and sensible conversation' about defunding the state system. This is not a sensible idea. It is a radical, right-wing idea, and it has no place in the firmament of Australian policy. The Prime Minister thinks that coming up with stupid ideas somehow polishes his reform credentials—no, it does not. On schools, option 1 is: 'States have to fund all schools with no Commonwealth funding.' Option 2 is: 'Commonwealth only funds non-government schools.' This is a disaster. This is a repudiation of the concept of free education which was set up in colonial Australia. Labor understand how the education system works. We do not need a discussion paper to tell us something is a dumb idea when we see it. We do not need to have our public servants consulting other public servants about an inappropriate idea which will damage the future of all Australians. It only gets worse. On preschools, page 21 of this federation paper says, about walking away from the funding of the commitment to preschool hours for four-year-olds, 'It will mean some families miss out on a preschool program, particularly the children of working parents.' This is a government that is out of control. But when we ask the Prime Minister about these plans to walk away, as a number of opposition members and journalists have asked today, he bangs on that he has no plan. But today, time and time again, he actually accepts that somehow, if we do not talk about these ridiculous ideas and embrace the discussion of them, we are somehow anti-reform. This government's proposals are not reforms; they are a dreadful setback to the Australian people. When I hear the government say, and they will rush to say this again, 'No, no, that was a rogue public servant' or 'That was an authorised discussion' or 'That does not exist' or 'We want to see your birth certificate before you can ask the question'—whatever this government says—I am reminded of what the Prime Minister did before the last election when he wanted your vote. He said nine times before the election, 'No cuts to health and no cuts to education.' What did we get? We got a $30 billion cut from schools and $50 billion cut from hospitals. So when this Prime Minister says, 'There will be no cuts to hospitals', we know that is not true, and when he says that there will be no cuts schools, we know that is not true. I think Australians are getting a trifle tired of the Prime Minister's argument, where he says on the one hand, somewhat disingenuously, 'States run schools', and, on the other hand, 'The Commonwealth funds the states to run schools.' What the Prime Minister tries to do is say that, because the state governments are in charge of the administration of state schools, somehow that absolves his responsibility for any cuts he makes to the funding of state schools. We are onto that fraud. And he has got form on ruling out measures. He ruled out the GP tax. On 1 February, before the Griffith by-election, when we elected the remarkable Terri Butler, Michelle Grattan asked Mr Abbott, 'Can you guarantee there won't be a Medicare co-payment?' The Prime Minister said, 'Michelle, nothing is being considered, nothing has been proposed, nothing is planned.' Then we dial forward to 6 February and the famous victory. Just before that election, Steve Austin asked the Prime Minister, 'Are you actively considering a GP tax?' The Prime Minister said, 'No, we are not. Nothing has been proposed and nothing is being considered.' He said it was just part of a Labor scare campaign. Indeed, on 25 February, before the Senate by-election, when the member for Perth asked the Prime Minister, 'Will you guarantee that the GP tax will not increase emergency waiting times in WA?', the Prime Minister said, 'I am happy to say that there is no such tax planned.' The story of the GP tax is the story of the threat to education. What are the common factors? A promise before an election, Tony Abbott is the one making it and it is just not true. We know that these are plans for massive cuts. We know that the Prime Minister of this country does not see an active role for the Commonwealth in schools and hospitals. We know this government, with $80 billion worth of cuts, has a plan to move away from the proper funding of schools and hospitals, to say that it is all a state problem, to walk away from what the Prime Minister wrote in his own book and to walk away from 50 years of Commonwealth policy on both sides of politics—shame, shame, shame! We will take this issue right across the electorate in the winter break, and you will retreat on this as you retreat on every other bad idea. (Time expired) 15:40 Ms LEY 00AMN Farrer I could tell that the Leader of the Opposition's heart was not in it today. He kept talking about a sensible and mature conversation, and it was the theme that ran through question time, but the only people without sense and without maturity today are the Labor Party. I wonder whose benefit this is all for, because everyone inside this chamber knows, and knew throughout question time, that this was all just a mess of confected outrage. The member for Sydney was brandishing charts and shrieking about the AMA but conveniently had forgotten that when she was health minister she said, 'Those doctors earn enough. They can afford a rebate freeze.' She was not at all worried about the cost to patients. The outrageous member for Throsby harnessed the real and genuine need of the sick children of Australia to his pointless political opportunism by juxtaposing children at emergency with an options paper on the Federation, which again I come back to. Everyone in this place knows that this is not a real argument. So for whose benefit is this all being carried out? I know that the Leader of the Opposition is in the thrall of all of the unions who elect all of the members on his front bench. We had no better reminder today than my colleague, the Minister for Social Services, talking about a subject that I was familiar with and was very interested in as the spokesperson on child care in opposition, and that is the Early Years Quality Fund. Today it is about the patients and it is about the schoolchildren. Then it was about the children in child care. That was the argument that Labor brought to this place. What did we see? What was revealed today? The real truth of the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Early Years Quality Fund—$300 million. It was not about the workers and not about the children. It was only ever about the union. We saw that today when the Minister for Social Services revealed that United Voice, one of the unions that elects more than one member on the front bench, gave a donation of $1½ million to the Labor Party in the year that Julia Gillard rolled out the fund. When you look at the forces at work in determining what this Labor Party says, what it does and what it pretends to believe in, you do not have to dig very deep. But the subject matter of today is the Federation white paper. We are talking about Labor playing politics, and they are playing politics with the Federation. The Federation is, as we all know, the arrangement that the Commonwealth makes with the states, and that includes funding agreements. Today we had a scare campaign about an options paper. Ms Chesters interjecting— Ms LEY 00AMN The member for Bendigo, as one of the United Voice members in this parliament, might have some concerns about her involvement in the Early Years Quality Fund. The scare campaign that Labor jumped up and down about today was about an options paper that will appear on a website tonight—an options paper that, shock horror, many of us have actually seen—and has been the subject of conversations between the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the premiers' departments in the different states. When we start an agreement that finishes with a discussion at COAG, Council of Australian Governments, involving the Prime Minister and the premiers, those discussions are worked up through state and federal bureaucracies. People might be getting bored because you talk about what gets worked up through state and federal bureaucracies. Some of it is fantastic, some of it is interesting and some of it will never see the light of day. But we are talking about a discussion paper. We are talking about options and we are talking about ideas. While the Leader of the Opposition said in one breath that he is very, very happy to have a sensible and mature conversation about the Federation, he turned around and, in another breath, said, 'How could you possibly suggest these things?' Apart from the fact that we, the government, are not suggesting any of these things, we want to come back to the core business, which is to work on a white paper for the reform of the Federation. If I come to my own area of health, the important point I want to make is that this is going to be a constructive piece of policy work. It really is. I have raised it twice with state and territory ministers because as we approach a new funding agreement with the states we have to work out how we can act together in the interests of patients—not how we can act in the interests of the unions who elect us and not how we can act in our own interests but how we can act in the interests of patients. We build the health system for patients and we build the school system for children and their families. We know that over time the burden of chronic and complex disease in Australia is falling on an ever-increasing cohort of the population. Once upon a time there were episodes of care—and they might have been in primary care and might have involved hospital care—but now we see more than ever the transition from general practice to hospital, back to community care, to step-down care and often back to hospital again. Mr Deputy Speaker, as a rural member like me who is interested in these things you might be interested to know that the cost of avoidable hospital admissions in Australia has been estimated at $3 billion. That was part of the work that went into this options paper. It is a sensible statistic. It tells us—me as the Commonwealth health minister and the state minister—that there is $3 billion that between us we could save. Wouldn't it be good if we did that? It would be good for our budgets and, most of all, it would be good for patients. It would be good for those patients who go to hospital because their blood sugar is out of control, their asthma plan has not worked, they have a cardiac arrest because of mismanaged coronary heart disease or their depression puts them in a desperate place and they come to emergency. I accept that for state governments that presentation at emergency is something they cannot turn away, but between us we can work out how we can avoid those hospital admissions, save our budgets money and look after patients. We fund 40 per cent of the cost of the public hospital system. That is well known. Over time we and the states have shared the cost of the public hospital system. That presents its own challenges, particularly with the increasing burden of chronic disease. It presents its own challenges because where there are clear lines of funding there are clear lines of responsibility but those lines of responsibility do not map across a patient's life experience and they do not necessarily mean that the two arms of government work together in the interests of patients. Labor have been talking about an amount of money that they seem to think we have taken away from schools and hospitals. Again today we heard $80 million. The Prime Minister very clearly asked: 'If that is what you believe the system is missing out on, what will you do? Will you put it back?' There was dead silence. In fact, there has been dead silence from Labor on every aspect of their policy in health. As the health minister I have sat here and listened and tried to understand and I have asked the odd question, gone to conferences and read transcripts but I have not heard any of the spokespeople for Labor on health talk about a policy. I have actually heard some good policies from other members of the crossbench. I have heard some interesting policies from the Greens. The leader of the Greens, being a doctor, and I have had some good conversations. So it is possible to have conversations with your political opponents, but it is not possible for the Labor Party to come up with a single policy—not one. The Prime Minister asked the Leader of the Opposition today: 'If you think all this money has gone missing from hospitals and schools, what will you do? Will you put it back?' There was dead silence. In fact, the only thing we have ever got from Labor is a sort of tacit admission that savings need to be made—'We understand that no area will be exempt.' The opposition spokesperson said on Sky News on 22 February: … the opposition would be kidding itself if it didn't recognise there were challenges in the budget and that savings needed to be found. There is no area that is going to be exempt. We have to look across the board. I get the admission, but what is the Labor Party going to do? What are your policies? We have released a budget that is absolutely full of new initiatives: reform of the MBS, reform of the PBS—the legislation passed the Senate a couple of hours ago; strategic agreements around the supply of medicine—and fixed up Labor's e-health mess—$485 million over four years to build an electronic health record that works for patients. I come back to the Prime Minister's comments that Labor did in its term in government add more money—all of that money borrowed—but did it make a difference? Unfortunately, it made very little difference to the health of Australians. Its agreements with the states were all about free money. The responsibility on the part of the states to do something that in the interests of their emergency presentations, their elective surgery waiting lists and so on actually did not even occur. So we are here saddled with Labor's debt but nevertheless working on positive, proactive policies for the future. The whole question time was wasted with this nonsense. Again, everyone in here knew it was just a piece of confected outrage designed to score a political point and to construct more smokescreen around the Leader of the Opposition's unfortunate circumstances at the moment. 15:50 Mr BUTLER HWK Port Adelaide It is hard to imagine many matters more important than the matter proposed today by the Leader of the Opposition—the sustainability of our public education and public hospital systems. There is surely very little more central to Australia's social contract than the idea that Australians will wake up every morning confident that their governments—Liberal or Labor—will deliver a free universal, secular public education system for their children and a free public hospital system for every Australian when they become sick, but we saw this morning and yesterday morning as this Federation green paper leaked, this secret plan leaked, the Prime Minister shaping up for the biggest smash and grab on Australia's school and public hospital systems in our nation's history. Surely, as we head to the winter break, this must be the last nail in the coffin of this Prime Minister's credibility because everyone remembers what he said before the last election—no cuts to health and no cuts to education. Australian voters know that this man has form. They remembered that a lot of the things we were seeing in the budget last year, with the $80 billion of cuts, and the Federation green paper over the last couple of days are the same trick he pulled on the Australian people when he was health minister in 2004—a mean, tricky change to indexation systems that results in cuts to public hospitals of billions and billions of dollars over years. That is why he was at pains to put a hand on his heart, because he knew that the Australian people remembered his time as Australia's health minister. Hand on heart, he said there would be no cuts to health and no cuts to education. On education, as public support for the Gonski plan was building real momentum, the Prime Minister came out and said that the Liberal Party was on a unity ticket with Labor on schools funding. They rolled out bunting across polling booths throughout Australia, promising that there would not be a single dollar's difference in the funding for every one of the 9,500 schools in Australia under a Liberal government or a Labor government. But immediately we saw cuts to education. We saw the trades training centre program go. Then, in the 2014 budget, we saw $80 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals. Today there were all sorts of points of order taken, seeking to deny the $80 billion that was proudly framed in the 2014 budget glossy. But we know that it is there. Treasury officials have testified to it being there in Senate estimates hearing after hearing. Thirty billion dollars of those cuts are to schools—cuts that the Liberal Party Treasurer of New South Wales said only this week meant that schools funding was simply not sustainable. Fifty-seven billion dollars of the cuts are to public hospitals. The AMA said earlier this year that this resulted in a huge black hole in public hospital funding. The Prime Minister said today in question time: 'That's all right. Money's sort of important, but the morale of public hospitals matters more.' So, when your family is sick and rocks into the emergency department of your local public hospital—one of the 750 great public hospitals in Australia—they will just try to fix you by hooking you up to an IV of morale! An IV of morale will help everything! These crippling cuts can only result from one of two motives. One is a complete lack of care for public hospitals and public education. I do not even ascribe that to this Prime Minister, because we know what he really wanted the premiers to do in the face of these cuts was to beg him to increase the GST and broaden the base of the GST to cover food, health and education. Now we see over the last 48 hours, in this leaked green paper, the most extraordinary attacks on schools and public hospitals that have ever been seen in this nation, placing state governments in an invidious position where they will simply have to look at alternative ways of raising funds to run schools, including the schools tax that is included as an option in the leaked green paper put together by the Prime Minister's own department. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we are committed to that social contract—a universal, secular, free public education system and a universal public hospital system for all Australians—and we will fight this government every step of the way to the next election on that. 15:55 Mr CHESTER IPZ Gippsland You have to give the member for Port Adelaide some credit—10 out of 10 for effort. He tried to whip himself into a frenzy. He started with six members here listening. It was so important! This was the most important issue of the day! He managed to have six members of his own team here for a while. Then they raced up to 10, and finally they had 12. Twelve thought it was so important; the rest raced over for a coffee. This is your MPI. We know what it is. We know it is just a massive scare campaign. So I feel sorry for the member for Port Adelaide. This poor man is the incoming President of the Australian Labor Party. What has happened to your once great party? I am very pleased to be here, enjoying the matter of public importance debate, to reassure the Australian people that the government is not cutting funding for health and education. All we have seen is an irresponsible scare campaign by those opposite, scaring students, teachers and families. That is so typical of this modern Labor Party—never let the facts get in the way of a good story, hey? Budget figures tell the story. Do the numbers go up in the budget? I am just checking. Oh, there is silence over there. The numbers go up in the budget every year. The funding increases every year. Opposition members interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 Order! We won't have those documents. Mr CHESTER IPZ I am surprised at the member for Maribyrnong, who is always so good with numbers. He is very good with numbers, the member for Maribyrnong. He is really good with numbers. Just ask Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. He is good with numbers. I am surprised he had trouble reading those numbers. It used to be said when we were at school that a cockroach could survive the fallout from a nuclear explosion. I am afraid the member for Maribyrnong is in danger of becoming the cockroach of the Australian Labor Party. He has survived the fallout from two Labor leadership explosions. Ms Macklin PG6 Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, that really is unparliamentary language, and I ask the member to withdraw. Mr CHESTER IPZ He is in danger of becoming the cockroach of the Australian Labor Party. Ms Macklin PG6 Withdraw. Don't repeat it—withdraw. The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 Order! The member for Jagajaga will resume her seat. The member for Gippsland would assist the chamber if he would withdraw that comment. Mr CHESTER IPZ If it would assist the chamber. I did not know the member for Jagajaga had become so sensitive. The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 No, no. Mr CHESTER IPZ But I would be sensitive as well if I knew what was coming up tonight on the ABC. I would be sensitive if I were you as well, because probably the best thing that has happened to the ABC ratings in living memory is the next episode of The Killing Season. Speaking of the ABC, I know those opposite do not like facts, but they do like their ABC. But what did the ABC Fact Check have to say about Labor's claims of a $30 billion cut to the education budget? This is on the 2014 budget, almost a year ago, and this is what came about. On May 22, Opposition education spokeswoman Kate Ellis told the media that "Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne, rather than improving Australian schools, have announced $30 billion in cuts to our schools". That is the claim that has been made. So ABC Fact Check had a look at what the budget actually says about school funding: Funding will be increasing in accordance with the existing Labor plan until 2018. The verdict from ABC Fact Check was: The Government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget. They have gone quiet all of a sudden. Hang on—ABC Fact Check's verdict was: The Government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget. ABC Fact Check went on: … in reality there is just too much uncertainty for this long-term estimate to be used as a reliable measure for cuts or savings. Ms Ellis is spouting rubbery figures. Fancy that! Your scare campaign has been exposed for what it is. It is one long scare campaign based on rubbery figures. Members opposite know it and the Australian people know it. Let's move forward to the 2015 budget, look at this year's budget figures and again consider some facts. I know that those opposite do not like the facts, but the 2015-16 budget delivers a record 15.7 billion in funding for all schools across Australia. And $69.5 billion in funding over the forward estimates will be provided for both government and non-government schools in all states and territories. Total Commonwealth funding for all schools will increase by $4.1 billion, a 27.9 per cent increase from 2014-15 to 2018-19. It is all starting to go horribly wrong for those opposite. The bitter irony is just starting to sink in. Kevin Rudd, the bloke they sacked and then brought back to try to save the furniture, has put in place rules that actually protect the member for Maribyrnong. They cannot sack him—the guy who sacked two prime ministers—and the bitter irony is starting to sink in for them. They cannot sack him. Those opposite never trusted him, the Australian people will never trust him, and as long as he leads this once-great party— (Time expired) 16:00 Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Sydney Mr Deputy Speaker, I know that you would not support the massive cuts that are proposed here in health and education. The Prime Minister was saying at question time that it does not matter what goes in; what matters is what comes out. What we know is that with these reports—the audit commission report and the new green paper on the federation—what goes in is a lot of crazy rhetoric, a lot of ideology, a lot of user pays and cuts to health and education ideology, and what comes out are funding cuts. We saw with the Commission of Audit a long list of ideas that everybody thought were terribly far-fetched. Where did they turn up? They turned up in this government's first budget. We expect that all the crazy ideas in this green paper—the user pays, the cuts to health and education—will turn up in the next budget. Before the last election, this Prime Minister said nine times that there would be no change to pensions, no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the ABC and SBS, no change to pensions and no new taxes. Every single one of those promises has been broken. So when this Prime Minister says, 'Oh, no, how could you possibly think that what is in the federation green paper is actually going to happen in real life?' we look at what he promised before the last election and what happened after that election. We know that you cannot hold this Prime Minister at his word. You can almost guarantee that if he says it is not going to happen, it will happen. He said: 'no cuts to health' and we saw cuts to health; he said, 'no cuts to education' and we saw cuts to education; he said, 'no cuts to the ABC and SBS' and we saw those cuts; he said, 'no new taxes' and we have got 17 new taxes—the highest rate of tax to GDP that we have had since the Howard years. Now we hear denials that this government will cut more than $18 billion from hospitals every single year. It is called 'hypothetical'. In question time we heard government members talking about it being hypothetical. Here is says, on page 7 of this 'hypothetical' document, 'The Commonwealth would no longer provide funding for public hospital services and would have no role in setting operational targets for public hospitals'. That is pretty hypothetical isn't it? That is page 7 of a document in black and white—a document that is going to be released this afternoon. Wow, that is pretty hypothetical. This is a document that is released by the Prime Minister's own department. I have been responsible for a green paper and white paper process— Mr Hunt 00AMV That went well! Ms PLIBERSEK 83M Yes, it did go very well, thank you very much. It went very well because I knew all that was included in the green paper. I knew every word in that green paper, I knew what it stood for and I knew that I would be responsible for delivering the promises that were made in the green paper and white paper process. What we have is state governments around the country alarmed, beside themselves, about the cuts that have already been made. I just love it when those opposite talk about these cuts as also apparently being hypothetical. It says in their budget overview, 'These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024‑25.' That is pretty hypothetical too, isn't it? State governments are beside themselves. The New South Wales Treasurer says that these cuts are unsustainable. State treasurers around the country are trying to work out how they are going to fill these enormous black holes. In fact, it is not just Labor who calls these 'enormous black holes' in the health and education system. The AMA called this a 'gaping hole' in hospital funding. What we have seen is the largest cuts to the forward health budget of any government. We have seen $50 billion cut in the first budget, up to $57 billion in the following budget and another $3 billion cut from other health programs. That is a $60 billion cut from the health budget. That means that hospitals will not be able to meet their targets for emergency waiting times and elective surgery waiting times. So what does the government do in response to that? They dump the targets. They do not increase the funding, they do not increase the support; they actually dump the targets so that hospitals will no longer be held to account for treating patients properly. We see a growth in hospital funding that will be halved over the next decade, from a growth rate of 3.6 per cent to a growth rate of 1.7 per cent over the next decade. The AMA's most recent report card says that hospitals are not keeping pace with population growth and demand, and this green paper suggestion will just be the final nail in the coffin. 16:05 Mr EWEN JONES 96430 Herbert Could I start by speaking about what a green paper is. A green paper is a list of options. When it came to the north of Australia, one of the options was to dam every river. The other option, at the other end of the scheme, was to not dam anything. The answer is going to lie somewhere in the middle. So when we are looking at the federation white paper and it comes to education and health, one option is: we move out of it completely; we cede the area completely. The other end of the scale is that we take it over. As I move around this country, the thing that gets me is that a lot of people come up to me and say, 'I don't understand why we have eight education ministers, eight transport ministers, eight health ministers, eight ministers for this, eight ministers for that. Why don't we centralise these things?' First and foremost, the federal government does not run programs. The federal government does not run these things really well. I think we have shown that with things like pink batts and school halls. Federal governments are good at handing the money to the states. The states are good on the ground with these things; this is what they are there for: implementation. One option is that we pull out of funding the health and education systems entirely. The other option is what Kevin Rudd actually took to the 2007 election. He said, 'We owe it to the Australian people to have a compact with the Australian people that, if the health system does not work, we will take it over.' So that is at one end of the system, and what did he do? He squibbed it, and we still ended up with a mishmash of systems here. We still end up with 50-50/60-40 and enough room to blame absolutely everyone and not blame anyone, and we all walk away from it. This is what happens when you do these things. So a green paper is about a list of options. Secondly, I will talk about the cuts. To cut something, there must be something there to cut. I will make a prediction and clear it all up now. I will commit this government in the financial year 2035-36 to deliver $27 trillion in today's money that financial year. There we go; it is all sorted. Is that believable? I do not think so. When these guys came out and did Gonski—because I tell you these guys wear Gonski like a badge of honour but what they delivered was nothing like Gonski—they loaded up the expenditure way out past the forward estimates in years five and six. What they did in the front was the same as the NDIS and health. They pushed it all out the back there where they did not have the control. All that money was pushed out there. When we came to the 2013 election—I was there—we said we were in lock-step with these people up until the end of the forward estimates. Of course, we broke our word straight away because the Labor Party had pulled $1.2 billion out of the PEFO. Christopher Pyne had to break his word, and we were no longer in lock-step with the Labor Party. We had to find $1.2 billion to put back into the education system. There was $795 million extra for the state of Queensland that the previous, Labor government had pulled from the education system. You can only commit to the forward estimates. You can have aspirational things out there, but Labor had no plan to fund this stuff way out beyond the forward estimates. They had no plan and they had no money. You cannot cut what is not there. You can get your scissors out, but you cannot cut air, and that is what these guys are trying to do. It just does not make sense. You have to have the funding. When it comes to the shrill attack that we are seeing here, it really does say a lot to me about where we are as a parliament. It really does say a lot to me about where awe are as a nation that, when someone comes up with a list of options, that is suddenly seized upon. I know Labor is looking for a distraction for tonight and to try to deflect from what is going to be on television tonight and I know they are not going real well, but to the member for Gellibrand and Hotham: it is okay. I have been over that side of the parliament. It is so easy in opposition just to sit there and say, 'Just vote us in, and we'll fix it all.' Once you have been in government—ask the member for Swan—it is not easy to come up with options. Sometimes you cannot deliver what you say you can—or most of the time, as the member for Swan did not deliver what he said he could— The DEPUTY SPEAKER PK6 I think you mean the member for Lilley. Mr EWEN JONES 96430 If we were to have all that stuff here, we would have been in surplus. 16:10 Mr SWAN 2V5 Lilley What we are debating here today is the Liberal Party's smash and grab on health and education—$80 billion out of health and education in last year's budget papers, in this year's budget papers. Of course, what we know is that the stench of unfairness that was in last year's budget remains in this year's budget, and today the cat was let out of the bag. Suddenly we find out that, with that cut of $80 billion hitting health, hitting education across the states, it is now going to be made up by a tax on state schools. That is where the gap comes from. This says something about the ideals and the approach of those opposite. Those opposite believe in trickle-down economics. They think that, if you give everything to everybody at the top, take away services and tax working people more, that somehow gives you growth. When you look at these cuts to health and education, what you actually see are their priorities. In their ideal world, if you have money, you can have the best; and, if you do not have money, you can go without. That is what sums up these federation papers which build on this $80 billion cut. Their aim here is to dismantle quality, affordable health and education that have made Australia one of the fairest nations on earth and given us one of the highest levels of social mobility of any developed democracy. Underpinning that, admired around the world, the envy of other developed economies, is Australia's approach to quality health and education delivered to people irrespective of their means—universally available, the whole basis of Medicare, the whole basis of our future prosperity in education. In their ideal world, if you have the money, you get the best; if you do not have the money, you can do without. If you cannot afford to send your kids to a private school, you do not deserve the best education in this Liberal trickle-down world. What we are seeing here is the survival of the fittest ideology that dominates everything this crew opposite do. They had in last year's budget a proposal to knock off unemployment benefits for six months for unemployed young Australians when unemployment was at six per cent and youth unemployment was at 13 per cent. What does that say about their priorities? What is missing from this year's budget—and it is true that there is something that is not in this year's budget that was in last year's budget—is the language of 'lifters and leaners' because there is now a pretence that somehow this year's budget is fair. What blows that away is the fact that the $80 billion cut to health and education is in this year's budget as well as being in last year's budget. And why is it there? Because those opposite actually believe that inequality is good for us. When you scratch the Treasurer, when you hear the Prime Minister talk, when you hear those trickle-down economics people opposite talk, what they really believe is that inequality is good for us. They believe that we should not have intervened during the global financial crisis to support Australians. They believe in the cleansing power of recession. The truth is that, in the Asian century, no country can afford to leave any student behind in the education system. If we have learnt anything about the future of our country in the Asian century, it is that we have to build up the capabilities of our citizens, and nowhere is that more important than in education. So a proposal which says, 'Not only are we going to junk Gonski but we're also going to vacate the field of Commonwealth funding in education,' is a recipe for making Australia a backwater in the Asian century, falling behind the increasing educational achievement that is happening in all of our major trading partners. But I do not think we should be surprised by this approach, because, after all, one of the first actions of those opposite was to rip up the Asian century white paper and put it in the rubbish bin, precisely at the time we needed forward policies and forward funding to make ourselves the best-educated developed country in the region. This $80 billion worth of cuts is not only going to happen in education; it is going to happen in health. And we are increasingly understanding that the health of your population, along with the education of your population, is the key to prosperity. (Time expired) 16:16 Mr BROAD 30379 Mallee It is certainly a privilege for humble me to offer some words of wisdom in this matter of public importance discussion after hearing from 'Australia's greatest Treasurer'! There is a saying by Winston Churchill: A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. What we have here really is a lie—the opposition trying to tell the Australian people that the federal government is seriously considering walking away from funding health and education. That is just a nonsense. This MPI should actually be about the previous government cutting funding for health and education, not the current government. I will explain why. A nation is healthy when its balance sheet is healthy. You need to understand that, when we have a strong economy, then we have the ability to build a society that we want to live in. If you look at countries across the world that have strong economies, you see life expectancy that is longer and you see better opportunities for their children. It is simply ignorant of the real world to not have that basic understanding. A strong economy does certainly invest in education. A strong economy does certainly invest in our children. But a strong economy also understands the different levels of government and how to best make those interact. I look at health—and I have an area that I represent that does have some poorer health outcomes—and I see that our government has made some significant advances in immunisation and trying to get the Australian population immunised. I see that Headspace has been opened up, in the area of mental health, to help our young teenagers as they walk through the struggle of life. I see preventative health initiatives, encouraging people to eat some of the fresh food that Australian farmers grow. It saddens me that we have not educated our population more about how to eat healthily. I see reforms, where we have moved away from Medicare Locals into Primary Health Networks, which are going to deliver better outcomes in our communities. I see medicines—and this government has not walked away from pharmacists but has actually delivered a very good outcome for pharmacists so that they can provide medicines for our population. I look at our aged-care facilities and I look at our Medical Research Future Fund. We understand that there are big challenges to face as we address an ageing population. We understand that these challenges have to be tackled and they have to be discussed intellectually, not with grandstanding over white papers and grandstanding over hypothecation. We are only 12 months out, perhaps, from an election, and yet the opposition are not providing an alternative government to the Australian people. They need to do the legwork if they expect to be a legitimate challenger come the next election. I look at education, and it is not just a case of chucking money at it. If you talk to people in schools, you will realise that there are three things that are important to a strong education. One is the home life. If the parents take an interest in a child's education, it is a big advancement for them. Another is the culture of the school. I have got country schools that are struggling to have great buildings but they have a strong culture. The third thing is the facilities. When we look at education, it is more holistic than simply throwing money at it. But we do need to have a strong economy so we can build a stronger society. Labor in this instance are failing to take the opportunity for leadership. The MPI should be a chance for them, this close out from an election, to start to lay out their vision so that they can prove to the Australian people that they are an alternative government. What we are saying is: the Federation in its current form is broken. If you go into my electorate, nothing frustrates people more than to hear state governments blaming federal governments, and federal governments blaming local governments. They just want to see service delivered. The first premise is: the closer you are to the delivery of the service, the more efficient the spend. If our state governments can administer hospitals, if our state governments can administer policing, if our state governments can deliver health and if our local governments can deliver local roads, and the federal government can provide the strategy and the defence, then this is what a good Federation should be made up of. This government is prepared to tackle the hard questions. That is why the Australian people will vote for us again. You guys are missing an opportunity in this MPI to put your vision forward. 16:21 Mr DANBY WF6 Melbourne Ports Sir Humphrey Appleby used to explain to the Prime Minister's private secretary the meanings of what the Prime Minister said as he went about the process of governing. It was, after all, from Yes, Prime Minister that we learnt the meaning of the expression 'courageous decision' and the mystery behind polling. I can imagine Bernard's confused expression when Sir Humphrey explained to him the meaning of Prime Minister Abbott's line 'Nothing is being considered, nothing has been proposed and nothing is being planned.' It means, Sir Humphrey would have patiently explained, that the policy has been signed and sealed and is just awaiting the right time for delivery. Of course, we are talking about the circulation of a document by the Prime Minister's department of a proposed green paper which the member for Warringah described during question time as a 'sensible debate'. In fact he was talking about cutting hospitals loose and cutting education loose. In February 2014 the Prime Minister used that line to dismiss talk of a GP tax. He then announced a GP tax. He used similar lines before the election to dismiss talk of a cut to pensions. Now he has made a second attempt to cut pensions, this time to part pensioners, this time with the support of the Greens political party. He tried vainly to cut back on pensioners in the previous budget with a sneaky downward movement in the indexation of pensions. I am very proud to have heard the words of the member for Maribyrnong in his initial remarks that we fought this very successfully, we will fight the change on pensions and we will fight this green paper and its crazy ideas as well. The Prime Minister used the same sorts of words to pull the wool over people's eyes about health and education prior to the last election. Nine times before 2013 he repeated 'no cuts to health, no cuts to education'. Of course universal access to health and education are, as the member for Lilley said, two of the Commonwealth's most important responsibilities and what distinguish Australia from some other advanced democracies. This government cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals in its first two budgets and is now looking to wash its hands of them altogether. According to the leaked green paper, the government is considering stripping more than $18 billion from hospitals every year. This shows that the $50 billion cut to health in last year's budget was just the beginning. I am an empiricist. I like to see the tables and add them up myself. The chart relating to hospital spending seems roughly to confirm these figures. It shows savings beginning in 2016-17, reaching about $5 billion a year in 2020-21 and rising to about $15 billion in 2024-25. The leaked green paper from the Prime Minister's office, which he insisted at question time was a 'sensible debate', also canvasses the possibility, disgracefully, of this government walking away from funding preschools and kindergartens. If it did so, fees would rise by 70 per cent, putting unsustainable pressure on all the families that make use of child care, especially in that fourth year that they made such a big fuss about providing to people. Since Labor introduced federal funding for preschools and kindergartens, the proportion of children accessing 15 hours of early education has climbed from 23 per cent in 2009 to 82 per cent today. Mr Abbott's 'sensible debate' canvassed during question time would reverse this. Sir Humphrey often told Prime Minister Hacker: … although [what he had said] was indeed simple, clear and straightforward … the precise correlation between the information [he had] communicated and the facts … is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be requested to bear. In short: You told a lie. The Australian people will see through the lies of this government. They will see this green paper for what it is. As the member for Lilley said so passionately just a minute ago, this government is characterised by social Darwinism and by trickle-down economics. The $80 billion cut proposed by this green paper would just confirm the reputation that this government already has. 16:25 Ms MARINO HWP Forrest This government is not cutting funding for health and education. The amount of money that we spend on health and education will continue to rise. Every year the amount spent will rise. So what is this motion really about? It is about pretence and deception on the part of the Labor opposition. We heard the previous speaker talk about TV shows. This whole motion reminds me of a show some years ago. A fictional government in the program The Hollowmen was looking for a centrepiece budget announcement. The 'hollowmen', a bit like the member for Lilley, came up with a future fund, literally—the amount determined by 'what gets a whistle'. The money would have to be found by some future government somehow. Doesn't that ring a bell with us? It let the incumbent government make an announcement that sounded like something but actually was nothing. That is what we got from Labor: sounds like something but actually is nothing. As the 'hollowmen' said: 'Have we got $100 billion?' 'We don't need it. We can just take 10 years of future estimates and roll it out in the one announcement.' We don't have the money; we just want to make an announcement. It sounds like Labor Party strategists at work in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. In the days of the previous Labor government, as the ALP floundered in the mire of its own incompetence, it needed an announcement to distract an increasingly angry electorate sick of Labor's broken promises. You can picture the then PM's office, complete with the 'hollowmen'. It would be like a script that even the ABC could be proud of. The member for Lilley would be saying: 'We need a distraction. Let's announce a big pot of money—say $80 billion for schools and hospitals.' 'Have we got $80 billion?' 'We don't need it. We just take 10 years of forward estimates and roll it out in one announcement. We won't be in government when someone—anyone—has to find the money or scrap the plan.' This Labor script is really no different from the first Hollowmen. It reminds us of that other interesting ABC production The Killing Season. It shows an incompetent government misleading the people of Australia. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, The Hollowmen, The Killing Season—three jokes but only one is a genuine comedy. The other two are tragedies played out before the people of Australia. This motion is an absolute embarrassment to the Leader of the Opposition and any members who were in the cabinet that so hoodwinked the Australian community. There are no cuts, because there never was any money. I found it very interesting listening to the member for Lilley pontificating here. This is the same person who threw taxpayers' dollars like confetti around this House and drove Australia to levels of debt and deficit the highest in this nation's history. He never delivered a surplus—and he actually seeks to lecture us in this place. Labor is still in Hollowmen mode, committing to, I think, $57.1 billion worth of expenditure through opposing budget savings. There was the $18 billion in foreign aid—remember that? We heard $6.6 billion announced minute by minute by the Leader of the Opposition in the budget-in-reply speech. Today we are hearing even more about another $80 billion of those claimed, mythical cuts—the Hollowmen mythical cuts—to schools and hospitals. If I add those two together, Labor's black hole now sits at around $137.1 billion and counting. Treasurer—is that what you can see in this space—$137.1 billion and counting? This will continue. I am sure we are going to hear more of this. I am sure we all remember Barry Haase in this place. I remember a conversation he had with a Labor MP—I think it might have been the member for Deakin—at the airport when Labor increased the debt ceiling to $200 billion. Barry saw him at the airport and said, 'Mate—don't you realise that $200 billion is a lot of money? Aren't you worried about paying it off?' And the member for Deakin slapped him on his back and said, 'Hey, Barry, mate, we're not worry about it because we know it won't be us who has to pay it off! It will be you!' That typifies exactly what we are seeing in this motion today. It is always going to be someone else's problem. It is okay for Labor to waltz in here for six years, throwing money around like confetti on whatever the latest you-beaut Labor scheme was. They had some wonderful surpluses delivered by the previous government and they had savings as well. And yet what did they leave? They left a mess, a mire and a disgrace for the Australian people. The DEPUTY SPEAKER M3E The discussion has concluded. BILLS 47 BILLS Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 47

Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015

First Reading 47 Second Reading 47 16:31 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I move: That this bill be now read a second time. The government is determined to build a stronger and more prosperous economy and we are determined to repair the budget. That is why we are continuing to calmly and methodically implement our budget measures over the last two budgets. Today I am pleased to say that the government has successfully reached an agreement with the Labor Party to re-introduce the indexation of fuel excise to inflation. Restoring the biannual indexation of fuel excise—first introduced by the Hawke Labor government—is a significant structural reform that will provide a stable and growing source of revenue. All the revenue raised through this measure will be linked by law to funding roads. It will provide a source of revenue to enable us to deliver our historic infrastructure growth package of over $50 billion—the biggest infrastructure spend in the history of the Commonwealth. The agreement that has been reached today will see the Roads to Recovery program receive a further boost of $1.1 billion over the next two years—$300 million, in addition to our $350 million increase, in 2015-16 and $805 million increase in addition to the existing $350 million in 2016-17. This funding builds on the additional $350 million provided under the program in the 2014-15 budget and brings total Road to Recovery funding to $3.2 billion over the five years to 2018-19. This investment will go straight to local councils around the nation to upgrade and repair local roads according to their own priorities. Allocated funding will be distributed according to a formula based on population and road length set by the Local Governments Grants Commissions in each state and territory. Payments go directly to councils and are made either on a reimbursement basis or based on the projected expenditure across the forward six months. There are no shortages of good projects for the councils to fund. That is one of the reasons that next year we actually double the funding already. And under the Roads to Recovery program councils will have to demonstrate that they have not reduced their baseline funding allocation toward roads. I do not think that either the Labor Party or ourselves would want to see any reduction in road funding by councils and the substitution of this money for that. Excise has applied to domestically produced petrol since 1929. Indexation of excise was first introduced by the Hawke government in 1983 to ensure that excise continued to grow at the same rate as consumer prices, providing more stability to businesses and consumers. From March 2001, the rate of excise was frozen at 38.143 cents per litre. This eroded the value of excise as a share of the price of fuel over time and, as a result, the real value of excise has decreased. If I may digress: I note that I was there at the time. It was in the wake of the introduction of the GST that the then Howard government decided not to continue with an increase in fuel excise with indexation with inflation. There were many good reasons for doing that at the time but, clearly, time has passed on. The policy announced in the 2014 budget is for fuel excise to increase twice a year in February and August in line with movements of the Consumer Price Index. Restoring this indexation is currently implemented by 12-month tariff proposals. These proposals took effect from 10 November 2014 and increased fuel excise from 38.143 cents per litre to 38.6 cents per litre. Fuel excise was then increased in line with Consumer Price Index to 38.9 cents per litre from 2 February 2015. These two increases total less than a cent per litre and for a typical household consuming 50 litres of petrol a week, the estimated price impact of the indexation of fuel excise has been a modest 40 cents per week. And, of course, fuel prices have come down substantially since the budget announcement last year as a result of falling global oil prices. While the impact on households has been modest, the impact on the budget is significant. The indexation of fuel excise will raise approximately $3.6 billion over the five years to 2018-19 and over $23 billion over the next decade. The reintroduction of fuel excise indexation will provide a predictable and growing source of revenue, which will be used to continue to deliver the vital road infrastructure that Australia needs. The bill will also establish the Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account. This account will ensure that the net revenue raised through the reintroduction of fuel duty indexation is invested in road infrastructure through the states and the territories. Importantly, this measure will not increase input costs for businesses using fuel in off-road operations or operating a vehicle with a gross vehicle mass in excess of 4.5 tonnes. This is because these businesses are able to receive fuel tax credits to offset the increased fuel excise paid. Consequential amendments will also be made to the Excise Tariff Act 1921 in order to simplify the burden on businesses by rounding the applicable duty rate of indexed fuels from three decimal places of a cent to one decimal place. And that is a great step for small business. A lot of small business people raised with me that they had to enter a significant number of decimal places to comply with the requirements of the law. We are simplifying that. This agreement is a further step that clearly indicates that we are listening to small business but also, at the same time, we are getting on with the job of budget repair. Once again, I do want to thank the opposition for seeing common sense in relation to this matter. We welcome their newfound commitment to budget repair and we hope that it continues. Don't stop now; good things continue with a roll, and we would like to see more support for what is necessary to repair the budget. Full details of the bill are in the explanatory memorandum. Clearly, I think the parliament wants to deal with this as quickly as possible, and that is why I have moved that this bill be now read a second time. Debate adjourned. Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour this day. Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 48

Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015

First Reading 48 Second Reading 48 16:40 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill is part of a package of bills that will give effect to the government’s commitment to reintroduce biannual indexation of fuel excise and excise-equivalent customs duties. Specifically, this bill amends the Customs Tariff Act 1995 so that the rate of excise-equivalent customs duty applying to all imported fuels, with the exception of aviation fuel, crude oil and condensate, will be biannually indexed by reference to the consumer price index. The indexation of fuel excise and excise-equivalent customs duty will contribute to the budget by raising approximately a net $3.6 billion over the five-year period to 2018-19. Consequential amendments will also be made to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to simplify the burden on businesses by rounding the applicable duty rate of indexed fuels from three decimal places in the cent to one decimal place. Full details of this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour this day. Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015 48

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015

First Reading 48 Second Reading 49 16:42 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill is part of a package of bills that will give effect to the government's commitment to reintroduce biannual indexation of fuel excise and excise-equivalent customs duties. Specifically, this bill establishes the Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account for the purposes of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. I will be responsible for making a determination to allocate funds to the special account. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development will then be able to direct that amounts be transferred from the special account in order to provide funding to the states and territories for road infrastructure investment. This account will ensure that the net revenue raised through the reintroduction of fuel duty indexation is used to assist the government to continue to deliver the vital road infrastructure that Australia needs and will be reported in Budget Paper No. 4 with each budget. Full details of this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House. Debate adjourned. Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour this day. Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015 49

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015

First Reading 49 Second Reading 49 16:44 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I move: That this bill be now read a second time. This bill is part of a package of bills that will give effect to the government's commitment to reintroduce biannual indexation of fuel excise and excise-equivalent customs duties. This bill makes consequential amendments to the COAG Reform Fund Act 2008, the Excise Act 1901 and the Fuel Tax Act 2006 as a result of the reintroduction of fuel indexation. These amendments include ensuring that the determination of future rates of the road user charge are made to one decimal place of a cent consistent with fuel duty rates. Full details of this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum. Debate adjourned. Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015, Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015, Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015, Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015 49

Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015

Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015

Second Reading 49 16:46 Mr BOWEN DZS McMahon These measures will pass the House with the support of the opposition, and I envisage they will pass the House today. I thank the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance for our discussions today. It is the case that agreement has been reached. Labor sought and received an agreement that an additional $1.1 billion in Roads to Recovery funding for local government, which is the equivalent of the first two years of revenue from the fuel indexation, will be given to local government. This is very good news for rural and regional roads and local roads right across the country. It is the case that the Abbott government has frozen the indexation of financial assistance grants which has resulted in a $925 million cut to local government over three years, but this will result in a $1.1 billion boost to local councils over the next two years, which I know is something local government will very much welcome. In fact, local has already welcomed it. The Australian Local Government Association in response to Labor's proposal to the government, before the government had announced its acceptance of Labor's proposal, said in a press release: 'The Australian Local Government Association welcomes and strongly supports the proposal today by the ALP to direct the revenue from the first two years of fuel excise indexation, estimated to be $1.1 billion, towards additional Roads to Recovery funding for local government.' The president of the ALGA, Mayor Troy Pickard, said: 'We applaud the opposition's focus on local government and their recognition in this policy initiative of local government's important role in developing economies and creating jobs through projects funded through the Roads to Recovery program.' The president goes on to say: 'This initiative is particularly welcome at a time when local government is under financial pressure, following the decision to freeze indexation of financial assistance grants costing councils an estimated $925 million in the period to 2017-18.' So it is very clearly the case that local government recognises the initiative of the Labor Party today—the agreement which the Labor Party sought from the government—and what the government has provided is very welcome. Of course mayors and councils right across the country have infrastructure programs that they have been hoping for and working towards. They have had them in the top drawer, ready for the day they would be able to fund them, a time when funding would be available from a higher level of government, federal or state. They can now be funded and built. And that is very important, because it is estimated that 11 per cent of the roads managed by councils across the country are in a poor or very poor condition. We talk about the need for infrastructure, and big infrastructure projects are very important. But what is also important is the infrastructure that is the responsibility of local government. You have bridges across the country which are falling into disrepair. Trucks have to slow down on them or trucks over a certain weight are not allowed to go on them. You have country roads, which are very important—because our agricultural and regional products are moved around the country—falling into disrepair. This extra $1.1 billion, which the Labor Party insisted upon as part of our negotiations with the government, is very welcome. When the Labor Party goes into these discussions, we make sure that we have a positive dividend for the people of Australia at the end of those discussions. That is in contrast to the Greens, who could not negotiate their way out of a paper bag. They negotiated with the government—and I use the word 'negotiated' lightly—they capitulated to the government on pensions, and in return they got six weeks extra discussion on the tax white paper, only to have the government completely rule out the thing they had asked for. That was only capped by their capitulation to the government on the debt limit—abolishing the debt limit—which they had railed against the government on. They had said, 'We want the Intergenerational report to deal with climate change'. The government agreed to that, and they got a couple of paragraphs in the Intergenerational report—one of which said, 'climate change might be good'. So: well done, Greens, for your negotiation strategy. That is not the approach taken by the Labor Party. We make sure that we have a positive benefit for the people of Australia from our discussions. In effect, from next week, these funds will be available for local government. They will be applied to the road funding backlog to fix roads and to invest in infrastructure right across the country. The national infrastructure audit released just last month made the following point with respect to rural roads in particular: Rural roads owned and operated by local councils are important for local economic activity, and are an important part of the nation's transport network, providing the 'first and/or last mile' of many land-based supply chains. There is evidence of a maintenance deficit across many of these roads. This is a particular issue for local governments in rural areas with large road networks and declining income bases. But it is not just a matter for rural roads. I note the Parliamentary Secretary to the shadow Treasurer, the member for Chifley, has joined us. Perhaps it was so that I could point out to the House that Blacktown City Council is one of the biggest beneficiaries in the country of the boost to Roads to Recovery. It is the largest council in New South Wales by population. And in fact the formula is one which particularly benefits Blacktown council. Because of population, kilometres of roads and the level of disadvantage, Blacktown council stands to be very big winner out of the announcement made by Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong and the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese and myself earlier today and of the agreement reached with the government. It is the case that the opposition will facilitate the indexation of fuel excise. That is a change of position that is readily and freely acknowledged by me and by us. Because when the circumstances change, we change our position—as was famously once said by an economist who finds favour on this side of House if not on that side of the House. Mr Robert interjecting— Mr BOWEN DZS We know the member for Fadden thinks Keynes is a communist conspiracy but actually he has played a pretty positive role in the economic management of the world over the last 80 or so years. Mr Robert interjecting— Mr BOWEN DZS Aggregate, demand, supply—who would want to be interested in all of that says the member for Fadden. Who would want to stimulate when there was a downturn? Mr Robert interjecting— Mr BOWEN DZS Old Herbert Hoover over here. Let them eat cake he says. It is the case— Mr Robert interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER M3E We could have a bit of silence, thank you. Mr Robert interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER M3E I am talking to you interjecting. Mr BOWEN DZS He is just showing the Australian people what he is made of—I am all for it. His vote goes down every time he speaks. It is the case that the budget deficit has doubled in the last 12 months. Forget about my economic statement in the last government. Even compared to this Treasurer's budget, the budget deficit has doubled over the last 12 months on this Treasurer's watch. When the budget deficit doubles, it may not be anybody's fault but the Treasurer's. But everybody has an opportunity make a contribution and that is what the parliament will do today because this Treasurer has doubled the budget deficit and that means difficult decisions are necessary. The other point to make is that the government, through their tactics, decided to implement this by a regulation, which meant that if this particular instrument, the legislation moved by the Treasurer just a moment ago, is not passed by this House and in the other place then the excise collected over the last 12 months or so would need to be refunded. That is not necessarily a bad thing but it is a matter of who it would be refunded to. Would it be refunded to every motorist who has paid it? No, that would be impossible. There are no records of who has paid this increase in excise around the country. It would be refunded to the oil companies. While some people might feel comfortable writing a cheque for $123 million or so to Australia's large oil companies, I would not. So that presents the House and the other place with a conundrum, one which we are settling tonight by voting for this legislation so the $123 million is used for the benefit of the people of Australia, not refunded to the oil companies. The final point is: as I said before, every council and every mayor has an infrastructure program ready to go, has projects ready to roll out. What we see when those projects roll out, because of these $1.1 billion, will be a stimulus package—much to the chagrin of the anti-Keynesian at the table representing the government. The government has recognised the need for a stimulus package with the instant asset write-off, which is time-limited—unlike the Labor Party's instant asset write-off when we were in office, which was permanent. The government has in effect brought in a stimulus package. We know that economic growth is in need of a boost around the country. We know that the figures, despite the Treasurer's rhetoric, were concerning on many levels in the last iteration of the national accounts and we know that there is a need to stimulate investment, particularly in the non-mining sector, as Australia moves through the economic transition. The Labor Party will facilitate that by providing just over $1 billion to local governments to engage in infrastructure spending. Infrastructure spending is very labour intensive. When a council is improving a road, building a new road, fixing an intersection or upgrading a facility, it takes workers. This is labour intensive. Consider the fact that our unemployment rate is higher than during the Global Financial Crisis; it is higher than countries which we normally compare ourselves with. When we got through the Global Financial Crisis with it lower than those countries and under this government's watch it has gone higher than those countries then there is a case for investment with a view to ensuring jobs for people right across the country in local government. So therefore the Labor Party will support this and support its passage through the House this evening. This has not been an easy decision for the opposition. We thought about it long and hard. We thought about it through our various shadow cabinet committees and we dealt with it in the caucus morning. It was not an easy decision but government is not always about easy decisions and being in parliament is not about easy decisions; it is about fair decisions. We have secured this measure in return—the Labor Party made the suggestion to the government in good faith that the $1.1 billion should be invested in Roads to Recovery—and so I welcome the fact that within a couple of hours the Treasurer, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance had issued a press release accepting Labor's condition, which means that we are now in a position to facilitate its passage through the House. We look very much forward to this boost to infrastructure for local government in metropolitan Australia and in rural and regional Australia because the people of Australia and the motorists of Australia know that the roads of Australia very much need the investment. 16:59 Mr VAN MANEN 188315 Forde It is with great pleasure that I rise this evening to talk about these four bills that bring to fruition the government's policy to reintroduce indexation to the fuel ask excise. As the Treasurer said in his remarks, this is just part of the government's continuing efforts to methodically implement our budget measures over the past two years. I would like to take this opportunity at the outset to congratulate the Minister for Infrastructure, Warren Truss, Treasurer, Joe Hockey, and the Minister for Finance, Mathias Cormann on successfully reaching an agreement today. I also thank those opposite and recognise the efforts of the shadow Treasurer and the member for McMahon for being part of bringing a solution to the table to reintroduce the indexation of fuel excise to CPI. This is a significant structural reform that supports the government's vision for a stronger and more prosperous economy. Reintroducing the indexation of fuel excise to inflation will provide a stable and growing source of revenue to the government and will enable us to deliver our historic infrastructure package of over $50 billion, the biggest infrastructure spend in the history of the Commonwealth. It is always important to recognise that this does come at a small cost to families. The average family, it is estimated, will incur a cost of some 40c to 50c a week. But, at the end of the day, that cost is worth it, given the infrastructure improvements that we are going to see that are going to allow our small business people and those who frequently use our roads increased productivity and increased business opportunities. Following this agreement, we will see the Roads to Recovery program receive a boost of some $1.1 billion over the next two years, building on the additional $350 million provided under the program in the 2014-15 budget. This investment will directly affect all road users in a positive way. Again, we are seeing that people want value for money, and we will see that delivered through this agreement. The Roads to Recovery funding will go straight to local councils around the nation to upgrade and repair local roads according—importantly—to their own priorities. Local councils are our grassroots government bodies. They know what local roads need to be fixed. I am sure that the councillors at Logan City Council and Gold Coast City Council will be all too pleased to receive the increase in funding to address local road issues, given the rapid development and population growth in both of those council areas. It is worth recognising that this will follow on from the double funding arrangement for the Roads to Recovery program in the 2015 budget. There is no shortage of good projects for our local councils to fund, and the Roads to Recovery funding will be a critical boost for infrastructure and for jobs. Under the measures proposed, the fuel excise will increase twice a year, in February and August, in line with movements in the CPI. This policy is currently implemented by a 12-month tariff proposal, and the passage of this legislation will make the policy permanent. As I said earlier, this will have a modest impact on motorists. For a typical household which consumes 50 to 60 litres of fuel per week, the estimated price impact of this fuel excise indexation will be around 40c to 50c per week. This measure will provide a predictable and growing source of revenue which will help the government boost its investment in infrastructure. I think we all recognise that it is a small price to pay for better roads, better infrastructure, more productivity and more jobs. Over the five years to the end of 2018-19, this measure is expected to raise some $3.6 billion. Implementing this important and fiscally responsible reform will contribute to our government's efforts to build a stronger and more prosperous economy and a stable, secure source of funding for road infrastructure into the future. It is this government's focus on a long-term, responsible economic plan that will help us recover from and fix the debt and deficit fiasco that was left by those opposite. Today's agreement to reintroduce the indexation of fuel excise to inflation is just one measure in a long list of achievements of this government over the past couple of weeks. Decisions made by this government to deliver lower, simpler and fairer taxes have—predominantly through the removal of the carbon and mining taxes—reduced the overall tax burden by some $5.4 billion. We have seen the parliament endorse our fair and sustainable pension measures, and last week the parliament passed the small business tax cut and the instant asset write-off. On Wednesday last week we signed the free trade agreement with China. This has the potential to add billions of dollars and thousands of new jobs to our economy. Further, we have seen the launch of the white paper on northern development, setting out a plan for jobs, investment and infrastructure in Northern Australia over the next 20 years. Our economic plan is working, and we are continuing to work towards reducing the projected debt and deficits that were left by the previous government. Every day we are getting on with building a stronger and more prosperous economy, and the revenue generated from this measure will assist in building local infrastructure identified by our local councils, thereby improving business productivity, growth and jobs. I know that, with the recent budgets handed down by our local councils, they will be more than happy to see that additional funding made available for these important road projects. Both the councils in my electorate do an enormous amount of work in rapidly growing areas, and it will significantly add to the ability for our councils to do the vital work to build, grow, develop and repair our local roads. I commend these bills to the House. 17:05 Mr ALBANESE R36 Grayndler I rise to support this legislation—the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015, the Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015 and the Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015—on the basis of the proposition that was put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and me this morning, which was adopted by the Labor caucus and then agreed to by the government. This was a difficult decision. It was a pragmatic decision, but it is the right decision. It is a compromise under which Labor is agreeing to support the government's move to reintroduce indexation of fuel excise on the basis of the investment of the first two years of the proceeds, some $1.1 billion, into Roads to Recovery. In circumstances under which the Abbott government has doubled the deficit since its election, Labor accepts the need to undertake measures which are difficult, in order to come to a better budgetary position. However, in ensuring the boost for Roads to Recovery we have ensured that this increase can have an immediate positive effect where it is needed—primarily on jobs, on local economies and on economic productivity. Roads to Recovery, in particular, drives jobs right around the nation by its very nature, because it is distributed to each and every local council and because the formula for the allocation is not subject to politics but on the basis of a proper analysis, including the length of road in a particular municipality in accordance with disadvantage. It will ensure that the overwhelming majority of the funds from the fuel excise increase over the next two years will go to outer suburban areas and to regional areas. These are precisely the areas where people drive more than in an electorate, such as mine, that has access to public transport. We do need to have this additional infrastructure investment. ABS figures show that public sector infrastructure investment fell by some 17.3 per cent in the December 2014 quarter compared with the December 2013 quarter. Private investment over that one-year period fell by 12.4 per cent. At a time where what the economy needs is investment in infrastructure to help assist the fact that there is a slowdown from investment in resources sector infrastructure as it moves to the production phase, this investment will be very much welcomed by local government and will also ensure that additional people are able to secure employment. In the 2013-14 budget, the government proposed the change that is being given effect today. Labor had concerns because of the effect it would have on consumers. In the same budget, the government froze indexation of financial assistance grants. This cost councils some $925 million over four years and represented a particular blow to the fiscal position of those councils who could least afford it—those in rural and regional areas. The local government community have been impacted by that. Indeed, mayors such as the Mayor of the City of Greater Geraldton, Ian Carpenter, said about small local government areas: They'll become unsustainable. It's a very, very serious problem and I can't stress that enough. To take away the indexation is just crazy. It is just crazy. He is right, and we certainly would not have taken away that indexation from the financial assistance grants. But with this measure we have managed to secure, from opposition, more money to be put back into local government than that which was taken away at that time. We believe this is particularly important because of the nature of the Roads to Recovery program. We looked, to be frank, at what options there were for additional infrastructure investment. If you had the allocation to a large road project then it would be difficult, I think, for us to justify, as a parliament, charging every motorist in Australia while only some benefitted. What Roads to Recovery does is ensure that every community will receive something back, and that is why, in particular, we chose to put forward this proposition. We also know that, because there is a $15 billion shortfall in local government infrastructure, every council will have a list of where maintenance is ready to be done—the widening of a road, a roundabout or a safety measure. They all have a list that will be larger than the funding increase that will result from this agreement today. It is also the case that Roads to Recovery is very labour intensive. It will maximise the employment outcome as a result of the additional investment. It is not surprising that the Australian Local Government Association welcomed Labor's initiative this morning. The president, Troy Pickard, from Western Australia, had this to say: We applaud the Opposition's focus on local government and their recognition in this policy initiative of local government's important role in developing local economies and creating jobs through projects funded through the Roads to recovery program. This initiative is particularly welcome at a time when local government is under financial pressure following the decision to freeze the indexation of Financial Assistance Grants, costing councils an estimated $925 million in the period to 2017-18. Local Government faces a huge task in managing our local roads infrastructure, which is more than 670,000 km in length and valued at more than $165 billion. This infrastructure plays an essential role in sustaining local economies by connecting freight networks across regions. The proposal underlines the continued commitment of the ALP and, in particular, of Anthony Albanese, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and transport, and Julie Collins, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government, to the Local Government sector. There is also, of course, a very important road safety outcome. In May, the NRMA warned of the need for urgent action to help New South Wales councils clear a $3.2 billion backlog on road repairs. The report said that, in the six years between 2008 and 2013, 1,480 people were killed and 100,413 injured on roads managed by NSW regional councils. The NRMA called for a greater contribution from the fuel excise to help regional and local councils fund roads. It noted that last year the fuel excise raised $15 billion yet only some $6 billion of the amount collected was spent on the nation's roads. NRMA President Kyle Loades said 'upgrading dangerous roads made a huge difference to the road toll'. After the government failed to win support last year to boost fuel excise through legislation, it made the change via regulation. But this was a short-term fix. If this decision were not put into effect by legislation in the next couple of months all the extra revenue would have had to have been paid back not to motorists but to the big fuel companies. That was a position that I think was untenable. It would simply be unacceptable that money that had been collected from motorists was paid back directly to fuel companies, which is why this proposition that has now been agreed to of putting money back into local roads is so important. I am pleased that the government has agreed to this proposal. Australians can always rely upon Labor to invest in the nation's roads. We doubled the road budget during our period in office. We also believe it is important to invest in public transport. Infrastructure Australia's updated national infrastructure audit released last month said that, without action, traffic congestion will cost the nation some $53 billion a year by 2031. That is a huge cost. Those opposite refuse to invest a cent in urban public transport. On taking office the government dumped billions of dollars that had been allocated to projects like the Melbourne Metro and Brisbane's cross river rail project. I was reminded how absurd that was two weeks ago when I attended the launch and on Sunday when commuters gained access to the new regional rail link in Victoria—a project that has added 54,000 new seats a day to the Victorian rail network and that employed 15,000 people in construction. This is the first new rail line built in Victoria in 80 years and it will add some $300 million a year of productivity benefit to the Victorian economy. It is a game changer of a project. It is a stark example of one of the great differences between Labor and the coalition. When Tony Abbott as the Leader of the Opposition said in Victoria prior to the last election that the federal government does not invest in public transport he was unaware that the regional rail link project even existed. If we are returned to government we will invest in public transport, not just roads. We make that commitment again. We put more money into public transport between 2007 and 2013 than all previous governments combined between Federation and 2007. I think that is evidence that we are very strong in this area. With regard to the so-called hypothecation in general of the fuel excise in a fund, we think that is basically a bit of smoke and mirrors. You can put money into a fund and say it is going to roads but that is only legitimate if the amount that is in that fund or allocated from fuel excise is greater than the amount that is actually spent on roads. If that is not the case then it is not additional investment, because you can just say, 'We will put $2 billion here,' but $2 billion comes out the other end in terms of expenditure. That is why we put forward a specific commitment for Roads to Recovery over a specific period of time. That is a real commitment that will make a real difference, not the so-called hypothecation. We are serious about infrastructure investment, which is why we are concerned that the government has cut infrastructure investment by 11.2 per cent over the forward estimates. This is a proposal that I believe is worthy of support on balance when you look at all of the circumstances that are there with regard to the doubling of the budget deficit and the way that the government has introduced this change by regulation. I commend the legislation to the House. We will continue to play a constructive role, unlike the former opposition. (Time expired) 17:21 Mr TEHAN 210911 Wannon Good things come to those who wait. I must say we on this side have been waiting 18 months to hear the opposition take some responsibility for the mess that they left us—some responsibility for the $667 billion in debt that we are about to rack up and some responsibility for the $120 billion of accumulated deficits. The opposition-leader-in-waiting gave it to us a couple of minutes ago when he said that the ALP realises some tough decisions need to be taken. It has taken them 18 months, but all of a sudden we have the opposition-leader-in-waiting saying that the ALP now realise that some tough decisions need to be taken. It is very interesting to see how we have got here. What has all of a sudden led to this change from those opposite? What is it? Has it got anything to do with what the Greens did last week? Did the Greens shame the opposition into taking some fiscal responsibility? That is how low those opposite got: they had to be shamed by the Greens. As a matter of fact, there was almost a double wedge with this bill here, which has led the opposition—the Labor Party—to show some fiscal responsibility. We had the Greens last week shaming them by taking fiscal responsibility when it came to the changes to the pension, which left the Labor Party looking isolated, irrelevant and completely out of touch with the fiscal repair job that this nation needs, and then, with this bill, we have had the clock ticking, as the member for Grayndler mentioned, because if the Labor Party had not acted then it was highly likely that the revenue that had been collected in the last 12 months would have returned to the oil companies. So it has taken the Greens last week and the oil companies getting the money that we have tried to save over the last 12 months to actually get the Labor Party to agree to show some fiscal responsibility. Any other spin that those opposite might put on this should be completely and utterly ignored. As for the idea that, as the member for Grayndler suggested, the ALP now realises some tough decisions need to be taken, the only reason they have realised that is that it took the Greens and the oil companies to get them to understand that message. I also would point to another thing that the member for Grayndler said, about how, in their six years of government—'government' is probably a kind word for the chaos and dysfunction that we saw when those opposite were last in power, and I think we will see episode 3 of that tonight, which will once again reinforce that message; the take-home message that I think all Australians will see will be one of complete chaos and dysfunction, and it will be rammed home again—there was a doubling of the roads budget. I can say this honestly: we saw no indication of that in my electorate, and I would dare say that if we asked many of the members, especially on the government side, whether they saw any of that then there would be a shaking of the head as well. It might have been talked about by those opposite, but it never, ever eventuated. That is the difference between the six years of chaos and dysfunction that we saw from those opposite when they were last in power and this government. I know the assistant infrastructure minister is in the House. What we do is not talk about it but actually put money into projects, get building and get delivering. I have seen it firsthand in my electorate, and I know the assistant minister has as well, because he came down so we could look at the new part of the Western Highway that was being opened. We were not there talking; we were actually looking at a road which was being opened, and we can now drive on that road. That is what government is all about. We can all talk, and we will see a lot more talking tonight, but what we want to do is act, and we are acting. We are acting across the country when it comes to road infrastructure, just as we are acting to fix the mess that we inherited when it came to debt and deficit. This bill before us will help do that, and that is why the government has put it forward. We understand what this bill is about and what it means. It means a 50-litre-per-week consumption of fuel results in 40c of additional cost. Therefore, there will be an impact on road users, especially when it comes to those in rural and regional areas, because the public transport opportunities that we have in rural and regional areas are not similar to the ones that they have in urban areas. So there will be an impact in regional and rural areas. That is why we have been very keen to increase funding to the Roads to Recovery budget. Let us put this bill aside, because we were already doing that, and it is something which had been extremely well received by local government across Australia, because we had said to local government, 'Here is money directly to you to fix your local roads.' Can I say, as a member that represents a rural and regional electorate, that there is no issue which is more of a touchstone—no issue which is more important to local residents—than the roads that they travel on to and from work, getting their kids to and from school, and making sure that the freight that they produce can get carried to and from market. That is what this government recognised and acted on, and now we are acting even further. This increased funding for Roads to Recovery will be incredibly well received. I have to say this: we will also be making sure that the extra funding goes into fixing local roads. We are going to ensure that the dollars that are collected make sure there is more bitumen being fixed or laid down, more gravel being graded and more potholes being fixed. That is what we are determined to do. We all understand that in 2015-16 we have a doubling of the Roads to Recovery funding, so that is $700 million which was going to be allocated to local governments across the nation for local roads. They will now get an extra $300 million, so that is $1 billion into local roads. In 2016-17, there will be an extra $805 million in addition to the $350 million currently planned. I think it is fair to say that this will be the largest spending envelope given to local government to address and fix local roads that we have seen in this country's history. And it fits with the message of this government because we have got an infrastructure Prime Minister, a Treasurer who is focused on improving the infrastructure of this nation, a Deputy Prime Minister who is focused on fixing the infrastructure of this nation, and an assistant infrastructure minister--who is here in the House--who is also absolutely fixated on making sure that we get infrastructure spending rolling out in this country so it actually delivers the infrastructure that this nation needs. Overall, we are looking at an increase of over three times the funding for road infrastructure for 2014 over the 2015-16 and 2016-17 period. I know that there will be residents in my electorate who will be absolutely delighted by this. I was in Skipton in my electorate—the home of a young Henry Bolte—a few months ago, and I met with some lovely ladies who were celebrating the 90th birthday of one of the local residents. There were about 14 ladies celebrating, and they asked me to sit down and join them for a quick cup of tea and a piece of homemade birthday cake—which I must say was delicious. I asked them to tell me what local issues were worrying or concerning them. Two of the ladies said to me, 'We're very worried about the local road leading up to our houses. There are some potholes that need fixing, there is some bitumen that needs repairing. If you could do one thing for us, could you write to the local council and see whether they could address the problems with these two roads?' I did that, having enjoyed the cake and coffee, and now—given this increased spending that is going to local government to see these local roads fixed—I am looking forward to seeing issues like these addressed. So next time I call in to Skipton, when hopefully the dear lady will be celebrating her 91st birthday, I will be able to get a reassuring message that the local government has been able to fix those two roads which were of concern. It really gives you a sense of how important this issue is for regional and rural areas. We should not get away from the fact that, by delivering this, we are also delivering the long-term structural change that we need for Australia's finances. This will help deal with the deficit issue that we inherited but also the debt issue that we inherited. This government is determined to ensure that that debt and deficit problem that we inherited is fixed. We have been resolute about that, and the Labor Party have stood in the way. But on this bill—and it has taken 18 months—they have finally come to the party. The member for Grayndler has said that the ALP realises that some tough decisions need to be taken. I hope that after the seven weeks of the winter recess we will see more of the same from the Labor Party—that they will understand that the time has come for them to not only act and support us on this measure but also look at other measures to support us on. Eighteen months is really too late, and when you are shamed by the Greens to have to act, surely just acting on one bill is not enough to make up for that. Surely there must be an understanding now on the other side that they need to do more to repair how the Australian people view the way that they deal with fiscal matters. It might be that it will be the Leader of the Opposition-in-waiting rather than the Leader of the Opposition who is finally able to direct the Labor Party down this path. Time will tell on that. In the lead-up to Christmas it will be very interesting to see where the ALP go with that issue. I know it is on their minds at the moment and I think it will be firmly back on their minds tonight. I support the passage of this bill for two reasons. The first reason is that it helps us to address the fiscal mess that we were left with by the other side. That is an incredibly important job that we in this parliament need to do on behalf of our children and future generations. The second reason is that it will provide much-needed revenue to local government so that they can continue to deliver the roads that local communities expect to drive on: roads that are safe and well maintained so that people can travel safely to and from work and to and from school and so that the freight that we need to carry to market can be carried in an efficient way. 17:36 Ms MacTIERNAN L6P Perth I am very pleased to be here supporting the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 because it really does help local government to get back on track. Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, you would be well aware that the cuts to the Financial Assistance Grants by the Commonwealth has cost local government in Western Australia $147 million. That is a very, very substantial figure for many of our local governments. We even have some local governments who rely on these FAG grants for more than 50 per cent of their income. We certainly have a whole host who rely on the FAG grants for in excess of 25 per cent of their grants. We have councils such as Halls Creek, Carnarvon, Manjimup, Derby and West Kimberley that really have had the rug cut from under them by the level of these cuts. There is no doubt that there had to be some pretty severe pruning done and unemployment generated as a result of these cuts. This has particularly had a major impact throughout rural Western Australia, where we have lots of small communities for whom local government constitutes a major employer. We had the CEO of Wagin Shire write to us saying: 'A decision like what has occurred will either increase shire rates and charges or reduce the services to communities. It will also have a long-term impact on programs that local government often undertake from these funds for their communities. Local government use many outside contractors to undertake works and services and, regrettably, these companies do not freeze their prices for three years. Councils will be expected to pay the increased costs that are required to undertake work; however, the freeze being enforced by federal government on all councils will force them to drop programs.' This has been the theme of local authority after local authority. It has also impacted on many metropolitan shires. We know that the City of Swan, who are here with us in Parliament House today, have had their funds cut and their ability to service their vast network of roads compromised. The City of Bayswater says that these cuts have put them under great pressure as they struggle to meet the needs of a growing and ageing population. This is a blow for local communities. So we were very mindful of the impact that these cuts were having on local governments across Western Australia. That was a major motivator for us to come to a compromise agreement with the government on the indexation of fuel excise. We were not prepared just to pass another new tax, particularly after the Prime Minister had gone to the last election, promising that there would be no new taxes—an absolutely categorical promise that there would be no new taxes—but then reimposed an indexation on the fuel excise which, in our view, really amounted to a new tax. We do understand that the reintroduction of indexation to fuel excise does have a disproportionate impact on rural communities and on outer suburban areas. Unlike Mr Hockey's projection, they are indeed required to travel more. They need to use their vehicles more and therefore disproportionately bear the burden of this increase in the fuel excise. So we thought that ensuring that we hypothecate part of this for Roads to Recovery to ensure that regional communities right across Australia and throughout Western Australia would actually receive a share of this money would be a way of ensuring that we were able to balance the disproportionate impact that these cuts have had on people from outer metropolitan and regional areas. We saw this as a great win and a way in which we could start moving forward on this matter. I am very pleased to see that the Australian Local Government Association, as the member for Grayndler has said, has come out very clearly in support of this and come out very clearly recognising that this was an initiative of the Labor Party—an initiative to solve an impasse that was occurring and also at the same time ensure that local government, which we feel very strongly about, is supported. We strongly believe that we need to have a strong and direct relationship with local government, not a relationship that is mediated by state government. For that reason, we strongly support the constitutional recognition of local government, particularly in relation to our financial capacity to deliver to local government. I note that we allegedly had somewhat of a bipartisan position on this before the last election, although we did see many members of the then opposition—not government—systematically white ant what was a bipartisan view. But let's hope that once again we can build that bipartisanship in relation to the constitutional recognition of local government. We have had some queries today from constituents asking why we did not lock this arrangement into public transport and why we did not put as an alternative to the investment to the investment of money on Roads to Recovery for local government; why wouldn't we do that on a public transport project? Our response to that is that we have to deal within the art of the possible and we were well aware that it was never going to be possible to get the Abbott government to agree to investment in urban public transport. But there is absolutely no ambiguity that a Labor government will be making a substantial commitment to urban rail across Australia, ensuring that we properly balance the infrastructure spend between road and rail. We accept that we cannot deal with the congestion problems that are currently facing our cities by road expansion alone. It is predicted that seven out of the 10 corridors that are going to be the most congested are in Perth. The Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development used his normal rantings to suggest that somehow or other this was my fault, that I was the one that did not invest in public transport and did not invest in roads. That is a truly extraordinary— Mr Briggs IYU You built over the corridors. What about the Roe Highway? Ms MacTIERNAN L6P Okay; I will just address this. Mr Briggs interjecting— Ms MacTIERNAN L6P You did actually ask me, and I am happy to answer. It is absolutely true that we did not believe the Roe Highway should be built. In fact, we determined that it was a massive waste of infrastructure funds and that the Fremantle container port needed to be moved to an outer harbour. Indeed, we did a comprehensive freight network review, a very public process that involved all the government agencies, industry, communities, anyone that had an interest, any stakeholder in this process. We made a determination that the planning required us to build a new container terminal down in Cockburn Sound. For the past seven years, the Barnett government has sat and done absolutely nothing about that. With this hastily-cobbled-together, secretive Perth Freight Link, we are going to do bits of this road, add capacity to this road, but, unfortunately, in the final kilometre or so there is actually going to be no additional work done. So what we are doing is creating— Mr Briggs IYU Say that more on the record. Keep saying it. Ms MacTIERNAN L6P All right. You are assistant minister; you are now suggesting that you have got another part to this project? Mr Briggs interjecting— Ms MacTIERNAN L6P No? I think it is interesting that he is actually acknowledging that that is a bit of a problem. Either he is going to have to tunnel under the river, which of course is going to add to the cost of this project, or he is going to have to build a new bridge over the Swan River. Either way, without dealing with that issue, you are not going to be dealing with this. The public can be absolutely assured that a Labor government will be ensuring that our infrastructure spend will be properly balanced between urban rail and road. Mr Briggs IYU Which projects? Ms MacTIERNAN L6P We will properly balance it. Certainly we will not be building the Perth Freight Link. I can tell you that. Mr Briggs IYU Aha! Ms MacTIERNAN L6P Well, I do not think there is any secret about that. We will be investing in infrastructure that goes into the port—the port infrastructure that we need into the future. I want to make one other comment, and that is that we need to look at the future of this fuel excise as the basic funder of a lot of our road projects. Over the next five to 10 years, as we see a move to more and more hybrid and electric vehicles, the funding model that is based on the fuel excise is going to become more problematic. We have to do some long-term thinking about how we ensure that we have a proper finance base for funding the road and public transport infrastructure that we will need, as some very disruptive technology is going to emerge. We probably will not see this in any numbers for five years, but I suspect that, in five to 10 years, and certainly from 10 to 15 years, we will see a massive shift away from fuel based vehicles to electric vehicles. We all have to start thinking about how then we ensure that we have the right revenue streams in place. But I am very pleased that we have been able to help local government put themselves back on a stronger financial base by agreeing to this. We still disagree with the FAGs cuts, but at least this will go, to a very significant extent, to enabling those local communities to reinstate employment at a time when it is much needed. 17:50 Mr LAUNDY 247130 Reid Last week Essential polling polled Australians' perceptions of politicians. I do not know if it surprised you, Deputy Speaker, but it did not surprise me that 90 per cent of Australians do not hold us in high regard. When today this deal was announced and I was asked to speak on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 and the associated bills, I thought I would come down and have a chat to the House about this legislation, because, in 18 months, this is one of the rare times that I have actually seen bipartisanship. I got here early and I have listened to speeches from the Treasurer, the shadow Treasurer, the member for Grayndler and the member for Perth. And I get why people are not thinking too highly of us at the moment. In a moment of supposed bipartisanship, we have the opposition standing up and rebadging this as a position of their own. I have written down some of the quotes, because I found them quite hard to comprehend. The member for McMahon, when responding to interjections from the Assistant Minister for Defence, said that we had doubled the budget deficit. When the assistant minister rightfully pointed out that their record was not too flash, his response was: 'Forget about that.' In other words: 'From 2007 to 2013, up until PEFO—forget about that.' The problem is we cannot. He went on to say, 'Difficult decisions are needed.' I know that the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure agrees with me on this. We have been trying to make them for 18 to 19 months. Difficult decisions are needed—and take the partisanship out of this. Look at our last four years' budgets, what was proposed and what was delivered. In 2011-12 a budget deficit of $22.6 billion was forecast. The actual was $43.4 billion: double. In 2012-13 the budget forecast was $1.5 billion. The actual was $18.8 billion: out by a factor of about 15. In 2013-14 the proposed was $18 billion; the actual was $48 billion. And in 2014-15 proposed was $17.5 billion and actual $35 billion. We have financial problems in this country. They are structural. And here is a newsflash from a bloke who does not come from a political background to the shadow Treasurer: yes, difficult decisions are needed. At the moment, in the budget-in-reply speech from the Leader of the Opposition, there is a $57 billion black hole in what was said on the night. The shadow foreign minister stood up— Ms MacTiernan L6P You're being bipartisan? Mr LAUNDY 247130 I will get there. The shadow foreign minister wants to reinstate $16 billion worth of foreign aid spending. In the last two days in question time we have heard—and we have heard it for the last 18 or 19 months—the allegation that we have cut $80 billion out of health and education. We want to spend $80 billion less than the previous government forecast over a 10-year period at a time in politics when the traditional four-year forward estimates and budgeting process has morphed into 'anything that costs a lot of money and we could not fund we moved into years five to 10'. That does not cut the mustard, and the results all the way through—up to and including ours, Member for Perth, show you why. That is what this House needs to get fair dinkum about and address. I am pleased that there is a bipartisan approach this afternoon. We need more of it. I noted with interest the member for Port Adelaide on the doorstop this morning being questioned about the $80 billion supposed cut—which is in fact $80 billion extra the opposition want to spend. When he got the question, 'Will you pay that money?', for the first time ever the member for Port Adelaide actually balked this morning. Why? The myth of this was exposed in question time very aptly by the Prime Minister. The member for Perth mentioned local governments. They are part of the trifecta. We have a structural budget deficit, and what we need to be considering as a parliament now is tax reform and federation reform. The two taxes that have been proposed in the last six months by those opposite add up to $23 billion—over 10 years again, not four. That is not going to change the $57 billion black hole over four years as of the budget-in-reply speech—spread out to 10 years—and the $96 billion in school education and foreign aid spending that those opposite are still attempting to bash us about on a daily basis. We need considered tax and federation reform, and they do not happen in isolation. The member for Perth is right: local government is an important arm of government. It collected $14 billion last year across Australia in rates revenue. State government is an important level of government. Between stamp duty, land tax, payroll tax and mining royalties it received $90 billion worth of revenue last year. All three are operating in the same space on a day-in, day-out basis. We need to have the discussion about who does what and who pays for what. The problem we have in this place, and the reason why 90 per cent of Australians at present hold us in such low esteem, is that when we attempt to have this conversation, which—and the intergenerational report belled the cat—is a conversation that will affect our children and grandchildren, as the member for Wannon said, over the next 40 years, both sides of politics default to a wedge position and scare campaigns. And both are complicit in it. We need a better quality of debate. The underlying number in the intergeneration report, which scares the living daylights out of me, is that over the next 40 years the 65-plus age bracket in this country will grow at three times the speed of the zero to 64 age category. Here is a newsflash. I do not know whether members have thought it this far through. The zero to 64 age bracket are our taxpayers; the 65 and over are our tax receivers. We have structural issues. Today we are doing something in a small way about it. There needs to be more bipartisanship, serious federation reform, serious tax reform, less wedge politics and fewer scare campaigns, for the sake of our children and our grandchildren. 17:58 Dr LEIGH BU8 Fraser I am pleased that the member for Reid has gone to the question of structural budget deficits—although saddened that he is choosing this moment to leave the chamber—because the IMF recently brought down a report which looked at precisely that issue. Examining 200 years of government financial records across 55 leading economies, it identifies two periods of Australian fiscal profligacy. They were, as it turns out, when the member for Mayo was the Work Choices adviser to John Howard in 2005 to 2007, and in 2003 at the start of the mining boom. The IMF's calculus is that, when you take into account spending needed to stabilise the economy, the Rudd government's stimulus spending during the financial crisis does not rate as profligate but the Howard government's overspending in 2003 and 2005 to 2007 does. Interestingly, it also notes that there was another period of profligate spending in 1960 under the Menzies government. What this points to is what Australians know well, which is that in the final period of the Howard government real government spending grew faster than in any other four-year period since the 1990s recession. As the Parliamentary Budget Office's estimates of structural budget deficits have noted, the Australian budget was in structural deficit for the final period of the Howard government. Since this government has come to office it has continued an approach of blowing out deficits. In the last budget alone we have seen the doubling of the deficit. And you do not need to believe Labor's figures on that, you simply need to compare last year's budget with this year's budget and you can see that budget deficit jump from $17 billion to $35 billion. That significant increase in the budget deficit reflects the fact that the Abbott government is all talk but no action when it comes to the deficit. That is part of what has brought us to the point where we are today. Again, the Abbott government has effectively held Australians to ransom over the increase in the fuel excise. It is not the first time. They tried to hold research funding to ransom against cuts to higher education. They are currently holding childcare funding to ransom against huge cuts to family tax benefit part B—effectively saying to Australian families, 'You can have more resources for your four-year-old so long as we can take money away from families with six-year-olds.' That is what they are saying in threatening to trade off family tax benefit part B cuts against their childcare package. But this has been the biggest ransom of all because, effectively, what would have happened had Labor not come to the table is that the additional fuel tax that had been collected from Australian motorists over the last eight months would have been returned not to consumers but to the oil companies. I think that would be unconscionable for many in this place—to see the fuel taxes that have been collected from Australian households just sloshed back into the bottom lines of oil companies. That is the result, of course, of the fact that the Abbott government has chosen to impose this fuel excise through a sneaky regulation change. They like to say, of course, 'We're just doing what the Rudd government did with the alcopops change.' But that is patiently untrue. In the case of alcopops it was clear when the regulatory change was made that parliament would later support the change. No such bipartisan agreement was in prospect at the time this regulatory change was made. Labor has determined to support this change on the condition that the additional resources are spent on roads right across Australia. We have secured an additional $1.1 billion in new funding under the Roads to Recovery program. This is an important injection of funds which go to every council across Australia. It is formula-driven, so it is not plagued by the same sorts of pork-barrelling risks that impartial observers would otherwise be concerned about when it comes to infrastructure funding under this government. Importantly, Roads to Recovery is labour-intensive. That matters, because this government came to office inheriting an economy where the unemployment rate had a five in front of it. Now, it has a six in front of it. It is important, because consumer confidence is now seven per cent lower than when this omnishambles of a government came to office. So a boost to the Roads to Recovery program is able to help in supporting the domestic economy. Interest rates have been cut now to a full percentage point below what Joe Hockey, the now Treasurer, once called 'emergency levels'. And so we have unemployment up, consumer confidence down, interest rates down and debt up. The numbers that should be going down are going up and the numbers that should be up are going down. Labor is concerned, and that is why we have called on the government, and the government has agreed, to put $1.1 billion of the additional fuel excise raised into the Roads to Recovery program. The Regional Australia Institute's analysis of unemployment data shows that not only is the national unemployment rate high but that unemployment in rural and regional Australia is now above seven per cent. That is a full one per cent higher than the national rate. You need to go back to the early 2000s to find a time when there were so many people in rural and regional Australia struggling to find work. Tony Abbott said that he wanted to be Australia's 'infrastructure Prime Minister', but on his watch infrastructure investment has fallen off a cliff. ABS figures show that infrastructure work is down by one-fifth the since the election of the Abbott government. In the first budget, the Prime Minister froze local government assistance grants for three years, effectively cutting $925 million from regional communities over the course of three years. This measure will see an additional $1.1 billion returned to councils—returned to those same councils that have had $925 million stripped away from them. That is what Labor has secured today. It will ensure that there is greater investment in infrastructure. According to independent estimates, there is currently a $15 billion local government infrastructure deficit. And because the Abbott government has no clear plan to address that this additional investment in Roads to Recovery will make a difference. It will make a difference here in my own electorate of Fraser where, for example, under a Labor government Roads to Recovery has funded a $7.6 million upgrade for Northbourne Avenue, colloquially known as Canberra's 'main street'. It has funded a $2 million injection for Sutton Road, an important transport corridor from regional New South Wales to the ACT. The member for Hume would be well aware of the number of his constituents who make use of that important transport corridor. Making sure that we have the appropriate investment in regional roads is good job-creation policy, but it is also good productivity policy. We do not need Australians choked in traffic. We need to make sure that congestion times are down so that people can spend more time at their jobs, more time with their friends and families and more time enjoying leisure. The Australian Local Government Association estimates that 11 per cent of roads managed by councils were in a poor or very poor condition. Overall, councils manage 670,000 kilometres of road, which, if you look at it by length, is about three-quarters of all roads across the country. So investing in local council road programs is, effectively, to invest in three-quarters of Australian roads. It ensures that these local councils are able to go ahead with those shovel-ready projects. As the national infrastructure audit noted in respect of rural roads: Rural roads owned and operated by local councils are important for local economic activity, and are an important part of the nation’s transport network, providing the ‘first and/or last mile’ of many land-based supply chains. There is evidence of a maintenance deficit across many of these roads. This is a particular issue for local governments in rural areas with large road networks and declining income bases. Labor believes that we need to invest in roads and we also need to invest in public transport. In this we sit at the sensible centre of Australia politics. We have on our left the Greens, who believe you should invest in public transport but not in roads, and on our right, the Liberal and National parties, who believe you should invest in roads but not in public transport. Most Australians believe that we ought to do both. Mr Fletcher interjecting— Dr LEIGH BU8 The parliamentary secretary at the table said that this is straw man. I am very much looking forward to his contribution and his extensive list, no doubt, of the number of public transport projects funded since the Abbott government came to office—that is, by new decisions of the Abbott government. I will look forward to him perhaps quoting from the Prime Minister's book, Battlelines, in which he dismisses public transport and says instead that in a car the consumer feels like a king. This anti-public transport attitude is adding to congestion in our cities. We need more investment in roads but we also need more investment in rail. This decision today, over the course of the next decade, will add over $22 billion to the budget bottom line and will see a change in government revenue, which is—let's be honest—at odds with what the government said would happen before they came to office. Before coming to office, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said there would be no new taxes. He said that the coalition would lower the tax burden on Australians. But, of course, we have seen anything but that. We have seen the Abbott government taxing Australians at higher levels than at any other time since the Howard government—that government, so aptly pinged as fiscally profligate by the IMF in its recent reports. So you do not need Labor to identify the fiscal mismanagement of the coalition; you can look to the experts in the International Monetary Fund, who are absolutely scathing when they look at the fiscal record of the Howard government. If we look at the budget papers, we see that tax receipts rise each and every year over the budget forward estimates. The coalition say that they do not believe in higher taxes, but the last budget had 17 new or increased taxes. The standard adage in politics is, 'Don't listen to what they say; look at what they do'. That is particularly true of a government that have broken so many promises since they came to office: no cuts to health; no cuts to education; no cuts to pensions; no cuts to the ABC; and no cuts to SBS. Is there any part of that which remains true today? It is hard to see it. This government cannot be trusted on tax and they cannot be trusted on keeping their promises not to cut programs that Australians depend upon. The only thing they can be trusted to do is to look after the top end of town. That is why we have seen a so-called plan on multinational taxation which raises less than one-sixtieth of Labor's carefully calibrated plan. Labor's plan of multinational tax does not get in the way of our tax treaties. It does not do anything that is not in line with what is being recommended by the boffins at the OECD. But it succeeds in adding over the course of the decade $7.2 billion to the budget bottom line. By contrast, the coalition's multinational tax plan is a series of asterisks, raising, if you only look at the amounts they have budgeted, $30 million. It is a laughable multinational tax plan, and it comes at a time when the government is cutting the wages of the cleaners who clean their offices . That is how warped the moral priorities are of this government. With inequality at a 75-year high, they think it is a higher priority to cut the wages of cleaners earning only around $20 an hour rather than to focus on fair taxation of some of the world's largest multinational firms. This government cannot be trusted on tax, and it cannot be trusted with economic management. There is barely a promise that they have made that they have not so far broken. 18:13 Mr FITZGIBBON 8K6 Hunter Occasionally this parliament works. When I have conversations around the country, ranging from schoolchildren to some of the more mature and experienced members of our community, the major complaint about our democracy is that we constantly seem to be battling with one another rather than coming together to produce and achieve the best outcomes for this country. Tonight I do not want to have any argy-bargy about who did something right or who did something wrong. I am really pleased that tonight the major parties are coming together to produce a good outcome for this country. When the Abbott government brought down its first budget, I thought it was an appalling budget and I still believe that it was an appalling budget. First of all, it breached a number of core pre-election promises. This Prime Minister stood up on national television on the eve of the election and said that, if he was elected, there would be no cuts to pensions, no cuts to health, no cuts to education et cetera. Of course we came to the first budget of this government and all those promises had been thrown out of the window as if they had no value whatsoever. That must have been a great disappointment to the Australian community—to both those who voted for the now government and those who did not vote for the now government. People everywhere around Australia are constantly and consistently frustrated that the political parties in this place do not seem to be able to better work together. Nothing exemplifies that point more than the debate we have been having around national security of late. I have been in this parliament for almost 19 years. For all of that time, whenever a serious national security issue has emerged the government of the day has thought about how it might provide a legislative response and then gone to the opposition of the day; walked from the blue carpet across to the opposition leader's office and said: 'Look, we have a problem. This is what we believe is the appropriate government response. Will you come with us? These are the details. We believe this is in the national interest.' And, more often than not, almost on every occasion, the opposition of the day—and I am referring there to both of the major parties—has agreed to or indeed suggested things to bring their party colleagues with them; and a consensus has been settled and we have moved forward as a country. I lament the fact that in more recent days, with the changes to the Citizenship Act, that has not happened. I lament that very much. I lament the fact that this Prime Minister seems to be determined to use national security as a wedge and as a political opportunity. But more broadly I am also disappointed that we do not talk about the issues ahead more often. I would like to see a day when, prior to the pointy end of budget planning, a government walks across to the opposition leader's office and talks about what they have in mind for the budget. Some might think these words might come back to bite me because I might find myself in government in the not-too-distant future. But I do not care. I think Australia is ready for a more consensual approach to some of these issues. Take the pension changes mark 1, for example. The government, against its pre-election promises, decided to change the indexations of pensions growth. Why wouldn't you walk across to the opposition leader's office and say: 'Look, we have a budget situation—as every country in the world has in the wake of the GFC and the slowing of the major economies. These are the things we believe we need to do to fix it, to turn the budget around. What does her majesty's opposition think about these proposals?' I think, if we did that more often, we could start to build a consensus model in this place. We could agree more often. We would get better outcomes. And the Australian community would give a nod of approval. Tonight we are doing something akin to that, and I welcome that. The government put forward a proposal which was a clear breach of an election promise and one which this opposition could not support. It was a proposal, after all these years—after an initiative by the then Prime Minister John Howard to freeze the indexation of petrol—to reintroduce the indexation. We were concerned that the government had massively overstated the budget situation. But—worse—it was clear in the weeks and months after that the government was determined to make the budget situation even worse. As we all know now, the budget position has deteriorated in the two years this government has been in office. We were concerned about the breach of election promise. We were also concerned—indeed, I was particularly concerned—about the spatial inequality of that move; because, as we all know, these measures, particularly petrol taxes, fall disproportionately adversely on those living in rural and regional Australia. As members of this place know, that is of particular interest to me. Indeed all those budget measures in the Prime Minister's first budget fell disproportionately on rural and regional Australia, and that is a very great concern to us. But I think it has been more than appropriate, and quite innovative, of the opposition—given that the budget situation continues to deteriorate and given that the reintroduction of excise will produce so much more revenue to the bottom line over the coming years—to come back to the table and say: 'Look, you guys have a deteriorating budgetary situation, despite your protestations pre-election that all would be rosy and good if only you were elected. And the Labor Party has taken the fiscally responsible approach and decided to join with the government to help in its efforts to turn that budget situation around'—given its failure to do so on its own—'and we have come to the table with an idea.' I think that is a very welcome proposition. Our idea—for those listening—is to say: 'We will allow the reintroduction of indexation but only if something is done to return something to the economy,' because this economy is, at best, flat-lining. We want to return to the economy something that would act as a stimulus, an initiative that all the economists say is the right thing to be doing in the economy. And I should say it is not just the economists; I think the Governor of the Reserve Bank might be saying it. They are saying we need to be injecting some cash into infrastructure projects. And I am delighted, as someone in this place who focuses so much on rural and regional Australia, that the real emphasis on that effort will be in rural and regional Australia. So it is a win-win, I like to think. We make a very sound contribution to turning a deteriorating budget situation around. We bolster the economy by doing no less than what the Reserve Bank governor has been asking us to do—that is, pumping cash into long-term infrastructure projects that produce long-term economic gains for our economy. At the same time we deal with the growing spatial inequality we have in this country. There has been a bit of debate over the last couple of years about a report yesterday produced by ACOSS which shows that the gap between the rich and the poor in this country is growing. I want to preface anything I say by reminding the House that one of the great achievements of the former Labor government was to ensure that equality actually narrowed throughout the course of the Global Financial Crisis, an achievement, I believe and the member for Rankin can confirm, probably not matched anywhere else in the world. Equality is always a problem. It is not as bad in this country but it is always a problem and something we need to tackle. There was a second report yesterday by PwC which demonstrated the growing spatial inequality we have in this country—that is, the growing divide between our capital cities and some of our regional areas. The growing gap is quite alarming. We need to act as an opposition and as a government. I would like to think that this could be a starting point of joint action on some of these issues. Obviously it starts with infrastructure. There are a number of ways that governments in this country can redistribute wealth—obviously the taxation system and the transfer payment systems—but nothing is more effective than an investment in both social and economic infrastructure, and that is what we need to do in rural and regional Australia. This becomes even more important when we consider the fact that in the government's first budget, it cut almost $1 billion out of the financial assistance grants to our local government authorities. That is a lot of money that would have been spent on infrastructure projects right around this country which will not now be spent because the government has fiddled with the indexation arrangements. In my own home town of Cessnock, the council will lose $150,000 in its first year. To those of us down here who have 'billions of dollars' rolling off our tongues all too easily, $150,000 in road resealing projects in my home town goes a long way. Given the government appears to show no interest in revisiting that issue, the initiative the opposition has put forward will offset those losses and allow those councils through the Roads to Recovery program to revisit many of those projects in those local government areas. That is good for the roads in those areas. In my home town, historically there is no bigger issue than roads. Things are on the improve, which I welcome. It is good for the roads, it is good for the local economy and, of course, it is good for jobs at a time when unemployment is rising in our rural and regional communities. Obviously in the Hunter the levelling off of the mining boom post the investment phase, after the more than halving of coal prices, is having a significant economic impact. In other parts of the country, in central Queensland and in north-west New South Wales a now three-year-long drought is biting very hard. We need to do things to stimulate the local economies in those areas. I believe there is no better opportunity and no better means of doing so than investing in local roads projects. More broadly, it prompts us to have the discussion. We have got a bond rate only just sneaking over two per cent. When the cost of government borrowing is so low, notwithstanding significant debt but still the lowest debt in the world as a percentage of GDP, it is the right time to borrow and invest in long-term infrastructure projects, which, over time, deliver a very significant return to the Australian economy and therefore the Australian community. I would urge the government to take the message out of this initiative and rethink its budget strategy and ask itself whether we could be doing more out there to stimulate jobs and growth in our local communities all around the country. These are things we can do together. Again, I welcome the fact that the government has been very quick to accept the opposition's proposition. I was a little bit surprised actually that the offer could be made so quickly and then responded to so quickly, so quickly that we find ourselves debating this issue in the chamber this evening. I think all members on both sides of the chamber will welcome the demonstration of our capacity to do just that. I know that local government councillors right around the country will be certainly welcoming that. I know that the communities they served will be welcoming that as well. I know when I return to my electorate after the cessation of our proceedings at the end of this week, people will be talking about this. They will be talking about the benefits that will flow. They will understand it was a tough decision for the Labor Party to change its position but I know they will appreciate it because I know they will welcome us working together. I know they will also welcome the fact that their local communities are going to benefit substantially. I commend the bill to the House. 18:28 Mr RIPOLL 83E Oxley The Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 is an important bill to speak on. It is important to explain to the Australian people why we are here and why we are debating this particular bill. It is one that I think Australian consumers and motorists would be looking at very closely and asking themselves how we got ourselves into this position. This bill and the agreement that the government has with the Labor opposition are a triumph of common sense over ideology and of Labor making the best out of what is a very bad situation created by the Liberal Party in government for Australian consumers and for motorists. As such, we have moved very quickly to be able to address some of the mismatch of what this government has done in fuel excise. Labor has sought and the government has agreed to an additional $1.1 billion in Roads to Recovery funding for regional roads as part of a compromise to pass the government's reintroduction of indexation for fuel excise. So much so did the government know that this was bad policy and that they needed to be saved that they immediately accepted Labor's solution to a very bad situation. The best we could do was to face a circumstance where taxpayers had paid extra indexation and that money would not be kept by Treasury but would be passed back to oil companies, not to consumers—and that was unacceptable. That is not something that could be acceptable. It is a substantial amount of money. Instead, that money will go to benefit all Australians through the Roads to Recovery program. This is good news for the regions and for local roads. The Abbott government's cuts to local government have had a devastating effect on economic activity in regional areas, with unemployment high and many regions currently experiencing youth employment of over 20 per cent. In fact, if the government were to have the mind or the care to look at what is happening in some of their own backyards in the regions, there are some real problems, some really big and deep problems, under their watch right now. They do not seem to be too concerned. They do not seem to be putting in place the sorts of projects and the sort of spending that you might expect when we see some of our regions in deep pain over economic activity. This $1.1 billion boost to the Roads to Recovery program will stimulate regional economies. It will generate much-needed jobs and be a boost for vital local infrastructure. Again, what is curious about this is that it was Labor that had to do this, and we did this from opposition. It was not the government. The government is responsible for the smashing of confidence since it came to office and has undermined our economy, which is still in transition. In the government's first budget, the Prime Minister froze local government assistance grants for three years, cutting $925 million from communities over three years. This was very, very painful and deeply felt in regional communities right across the country. If anyone cares to have a look at economic activity in some of the latest statistics and data, they will see that Australia is in pain in a range of areas—maybe not so much so in Sydney, where there is still strong economic activity; maybe not so much so in Melbourne and in the other capital cities; perhaps less so in Brisbane. But when you get out to the regions, when you get out of those economic centres in the big cities, there are some really big problems. You would think that a Liberal and Nationals government would care enough about their own backyards and electorates to be doing a little bit more, just a little bit more, whether it is talking up the economy or perhaps doing more than just talking—perhaps actually doing something concrete. That would be something that would be welcome in this place. And—more important than this place—it would be welcome in country towns and rural and regional areas, where they are experiencing the real impact of the very vicious cuts that the Abbott government have imposed on them. When Labor left office, unemployment was too high, with a five in front of it. It is now too high with a six in front of it. I do not think that is a good economic number or a good economic record. There is currently $15 billion worth of local government infrastructure deficit that would make an enormous difference to local communities. It is a lot of money. It would make a big, big difference. It is really important to local communities. You would think that a government that promoted itself and put itself forward as the infrastructure government—apparently, every minister is an infrastructure minister and every backbencher is an infrastructure backbencher—would do something, but we are seeing none of that happening. The Australian Local Government Association estimated that 11 per cent of roads managed by councils were in poor or very poor condition, and overall councils manage something like 670,000 kilometres of roads, which is about 75 per cent of all roads by length. As a result of a trick to bypass the Senate on the excise indexation, the Abbott government has threatened to return the additional fuel excise that it has collected from Australian motorists over the last eight months to oil companies. It almost beggars belief; it really does. It almost beggars belief. Out of ideology and a trick, the Abbott government would see itself returning over a billion dollars of motorists and consumers' money to oil companies. This is unacceptable. It just is unacceptable, and it has left Labor with very few options. It was certainly unacceptable to the Labor Party that this would be the case. This was a difficult decision for us to make, but the prospect of billions of dollars of consumers and motorists' funds being returned to oil companies was clearly something that Labor could not allow to happen. We much prefer that this money be spent on roads in regional and outer suburban areas rather than be handed back to multinational oil companies. The fuel excise indexation will be difficult for some people, but we are left with very little choice—in fact, I would say no choices—when it comes to this. The Roads to Recovery program, as we all accept, is very important. We know there is a huge backlog and that local government have pulled back on works because financial assistance grants were cut last year by $925 million over four years. Experience shows that these additional funds—available, in fact, from next week—will quickly be applied to that road backlog. These are good local councils in regional areas that are ready to go. These are shovel-ready projects. These are things that will happen very, very quickly and will make an enormous difference. In November 2014, the Australian Local Government Association estimated that 11 per cent of roads managed by councils were in poor or very poor condition. Again, a lot more work needs to be done. The Australian Infrastructure Audit, released last month, made the following points with respect to rural roads: Rural roads owned and operated by local councils are important for local economic activity, and are an important part of the nation's transport network, providing the 'first and/or last mile' of many land-based supply chains. There is evidence of a maintenance deficit across many of these roads. This is a particular issue for local governments in rural areas with large road networks and declining income bases. Of course, you would think that a Liberal government that promotes itself as a friend of business and regional areas would acknowledge that what it is effectively doing by not investing in infrastructure and local roads is killing small business. That is the bottom line. That is where it really hurts. It is the small businesses, not in the big capitals—not in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth—but in rural and regional areas, that feel the worst impacts of the cuts made by this Liberal government. It is those small businesses, the backbone of this country, the ones that mortgage their houses, the ones that take the risk to employ people, the ones that are 'energise enterprise', that are paying the price for this Liberal government's vicious cuts. It is them that have a downturn in activity, a downturn in confidence, which flows across the economy and in turn reduces revenues back to government. Worse than that, it means that young people who would be looking for employment cannot find it in regional communities, and the reason they cannot is that small businesses are failing because the Liberal government will not invest. They will not even invest in confidence. One thing I remember all too well is that for six years nobody in Australia was as good as Tony Abbott or Joe Hockey at talking down the economy—nobody. In the Olympics of talking down the economy they were both gold medal recipients. The only problem is you are supposed to stop when you get to government. That is the only problem. You are supposed to start talking the economy up, but they just cannot stop. They are addicted to ruining the economy. Every day we hear more talk of Greece—not about Greece, but that Australia will become the next Greece. Joe Hockey loves to go on about how Australia will become the next Greece. I met with some small business people today, yesterday and the day before that and they said to me, 'Can we do something about confidence?' I said, 'Yes, we can. Tell the Treasurer to stop talking it down.' Stop talking down small business, stop talking down the economy—give them a go. In a 'have a go' economy and in a 'have a go' government give small business a chance to pick itself up by its bootstraps, so that they can compete, not against international players and the market, but compete against their own government, who is determined to just attack Labor. That seems to be the most important thing this government has on its agenda—priority one, attack Labor, priority two, attack Labor and, by the time you get to priority 28 or something down the line, it is, 'Oh, yeah, and there is an economy we should perhaps worry about at some point in time or unemployment perhaps at some point in time.' If this were just rhetoric I could be excused for making some of this stuff up, but it is not. In the last 18 months the Liberal government has doubled the deficit. What happened to the emergency and the crisis and 'The barn is on fire'—and Tony Abbott was driving the fire truck? The problem is he turned up with fire truck full of fuel and just kept dousing the fire with more fuel. What did we have after we had an emergency in 2013? What would you call it today when the deficit has doubled from $17 billion to more than $35 billion? What do we do about that deficit, or does it not matter if it is a Liberal government deficit? So a $17 billion Labor deficit is an emergency but a $35 billion Liberal deficit is okay—another gold medal, well done! Debt seemed to be the biggest thing. We were being crushed under the weight of debt, so much so that the government decided, in its wisdom, between budgets to add a further $35 billion of debt. Who is paying for that debt? Small business, I would have to guess, and probably every other Australian—the consumer. This is a government that likes to come onto the record in here and spray fuel around the place, fan the flames of fire, and all the other things it does. But where are the real policies? Where are the things that affect small business in regional and rural communities? But it seems that even on a really bad piece of policy and legislation from the Liberal government occasionally they can be saved from themselves. That is what we are debating here tonight. Labor will pass these changes because the government have agreed that we can save them from themselves. So we will do that. We will save them from themselves, because we are saving consumers and we are saving motorists. We do not want more than a billion dollars of consumers' hard-earned money, small business' hard-earned money—in a trick from the Liberal government—to go back to the oil companies and not back to them. The only option that is available is that it goes to the Roads to Recovery program, because at least we know there will be some equity and fairness and that that money will be properly spent by local government on things that will boost the economy, help small business, help families in the regions and help the regions. I do accept that the government has very, very quickly accepted our offer on this. I have never seen a government move so fast to save itself. Perhaps while it was fanning those flames of fire it realised it was doing a little bit too much damage to itself along the way and that some of its own small business supporters might think that there is actually something wrong with what the government is doing. Australia faces many, many issues right now, but the largest one it faces is a Liberal government determined to continue to make life hard not just for ordinary people. For example, there is the new policy idea that they have got—mind you, which they have not yet rejected, it is still there on the books—where somehow they are going to take away federal funding for schools and hospitals and we are going to let the states do all of that and the federal government will abrogate itself from its responsibilities to all Australians. This seems to be the new mantra. This seems to be the new ideology that is coming forward. That is not acceptable either. Just like this was not acceptable, just like the doubling of deficit is not acceptable and just like continuing to not invest in roads and infrastructure and regional and rural communities is not acceptable, we do not believe that returning $1.1. billion of consumers' money to oil companies is acceptable. I cannot see how this government could have ever thought that was acceptable. With its little game of playing politics and its trickery in trying to get around the Senate and do a whole range of things, it thought it would be really clever and that is what it would do. We are going to go out and talk to people and make sure that they understand what led to this bill tonight and what led to their money being redirected not back into their pockets but back into local government funding, which we applaud but only because the government could not get its own bills right. 18:43 Mr SNOWDON IJ4 Lingiari I found it very difficult to come to the conclusion that I should support this legislation, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 and related bills, and I will explain why in a moment. But, having given proper consideration to all its elements, I am now in a position where I can support it. But I will be making some comments on how I think some of the money should be spent—the $1.1 billion which Labor has been able to get the government to devote to Roads to Recovery for regional roads as a result of our agreement to reintroduce the indexation of the fuel excise. I want to make it very clear that the reason for my concern is expressly around issues to do with my electorate and other parts of remote and rural Australia—but most particularly remote Australia. As we know, under this proposal, as a result of fuel indexation, fuel potentially will rise in price twice a year in line with the consumer price index. As we know, the consumer price index is determined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It takes into account a range of factors, including goods and services, transport, clothing, housing, health and food. Once the CPI is arrived at there will be an effective change in indexation. If the CPI falls, what will be the impact on fuel prices? One assumes that, consistent with the approach of the government, it would come off. Nevertheless, I understand the impact of this is inevitably to increase the price of fuel twice yearly. That will have a particular impact on communities in my electorate. There are a number of reasons for that. One of them is the dire straits that many people in rural parts of my communities feel. They live in hundreds of Aboriginal communities around the Northern Territory. Many of them are very isolated and their transport access is poor. The roads are roughly made, if at all in some cases, and require a lot of resources to maintain. They are maintained by either the Northern Territory government or local governments around the Northern Territory. There are large numbers of trunk roads that are maintained by the Northern Territory government, which will not directly benefit as a result of the decisions taken here. We know that many people in these communities are dirt poor. The Treasurer believes that poor people do not drive cars, but for these people cars are their only method of transport between their communities and major centres. As a result, they purchase fuel from their local suppliers to travel of those distances, whether it is from Yuendumu to Alice Springs, from Numbulwar to Katherine or wherever. I do not think this is properly understood by this parliament: these people will wear a disproportionate cost as a result of this fuel indexation measure because they pay significantly more for their fuel than other Australians. It is worth noting that currently the national average price of fuel is 143.4c a litre, the national metropolitan average is 145.4c a litre, the five major capitals average is 143.1c a litre and the total regional average is 139.6c a litre. If you live in Tennant Creek, which is up the Stuart Highway from where I live in Alice Springs, you pay $163.5 a litre but if you live in remote communities across the Northern Territory you pay significantly more. People are paying today at Docker River $2.35 per litre, at Lajamanu $2.15 a litre, at Finke $2.25 a litre and at Yuendumu $2.16 a litre. On the face of it people will say that is because of transportation and because there is a single provider and no competition. All that might be true, but the bottom line is that the poorest Australians have to pay that price for fuel in those communities to transport themselves to and from those communities. What does this mean in the context of this fuel excise legislation? The GST applies on the final price of the fuel so, every time there is an increase in fuel costs as a result of an increase in the CPI, people who live in these communities pay additional GST on the difference in price and that has a disproportionate impact on these communities. Even though the fuel excise might be a set level, it has an impact on the final price of the fuel and as a result there will be a disproportionate impact on the GST price being paid by people in these communities. I do not think that is commonly understood. Certainly there is nothing that the government has proposed—or the opposition for that matter—that will remedy that situation, because it is very difficult to remedy. I am looking at what might come out of this for people who live in those communities and I am looking at the $1.1 billion. I know—and I have had many years of experience watching this—that people who live in these communities are effectively forgotten when it comes to the allocation of resources across this country. We have horizontal fiscal equalisation that is supposed to provide comparative levels of services across this country as a result of local government funds and financial assistance grants. We have seen the FAGs cut by this government. The direct impact of that of course is that the people in these communities have less money to spend on the roads, which are decrepit in any event. When we are contemplating how we address these issues—and I am pleased that this $1.1 billion has been made available—I am wanting assurances that when this money is allocated the real needs of people across this country in terms of road infrastructure are actually addressed, not just the needs of those who live in urban areas because of their political clout. Let there be no doubt about it that the people most disadvantaged and most in need of improved road infrastructure are the people who live in very remote parts of this country, whether it is in my electorate of Lingiari, the seat of Grey or the seat of Durack in Western Australia. By the way, I have not seen the members representing those electorates come and make these arguments, but they are real arguments which need to be properly understood. But there are so few seats affected by this, because of the population distribution across this country, that, when it comes to making decisions about the allocation of road funding, it escapes the minds of people. There are so few seats in contest that it escapes the minds of people to actually address the funds where they need to be addressed for those most in need. This is a plaintive call, I suspect, but I am hoping that, when it comes to the distribution of these additional funds which will be coming out of this hypothecation—which, as the shadow Treasurer commented, is questionable—the additional funds will be made available to where they are most needed, because if they are not made available to those communities that are most in need then it will further exacerbate the difference in access to services for people who live in remote parts of this country. When we think about it, it is not just a question of these communities and the community members; it is a question of those people who run commerce on these roads. In the local government areas of the Northern Territory, they manage 15,240 kilometres of local roads, with the Local Government Association of the Northern Territory managing 2,117 kilometres of local roads. But only five per cent, or 700 kilometres, of the roads maintained by regional local councils in the Northern Territory are sealed. Five per cent of rural local government roads are sealed and have a kerb, from a total, as I said earlier, in excess of 15,000 kilometres. This is not something which can be just looked over. It emphasises the need for capital investment in these places. If there are benefits to be derived from these people who travel on these roads, who pay the most for fuel in this country, then those benefits ought to be derived in terms of additional capital infrastructure for these roads and roads elsewhere. I had reason to look at a comment made by the manager of a Northern Territory trucking company, Mr Mark Castagna, earlier in the week, when he was talking about the $600 million being proposed for funding the development of northern Australian roads out of the northern Australia white paper: Mark Castagna … from Tanami Transport— a company I know well— said the money would not go far. "I can't see too much bitumen coming out of it," he said. "I think they'll have to re-look at it and get a bit more money." Estimates of the cost of bituminising a kilometre of road vary enormously across this country, but if you assume, very generously, that $1 million can seal, say, three kilometres of dirt road, and you are looking at 1,800 kilometres of dirt roads, potentially, to be sealed across northern Australia, that ain't a lot. I have just talked about 15,000 kilometres of local government roads, and just two roads, the Outback Way and the Tanami Road, alone amount to 2,600 kilometres. It is unlikely, therefore, that we are going to see those roads have the investments that they require to be bituminised. Mr Castagna said the road funding was a good start and admitted he was biased because he had been "carting on these mongrel roads for 35 years". "We need to prioritise the Tanami and the Plenty Highway," he said. "That is where most of the tourists want to go and most cattle come through those two roads." But Mr Castagna said "a man will be grey and pushing up daisies before it happens". He said the Northern Territory stock routes were the only place you could drive about for a week and not see a grader. These observations are valid observations, and they highlight the dire straits and dire need of roads in the bush. So, when I came to make a decision about this piece of legislation, that is what was at the front of my mind. I am hoping, therefore, that in addressing this particular issue the funds which are made available are allocated as I have described, for those people most in need—most in economic need and most in need of infrastructure development—not those who have the most political clout. We know, as surely as night follows day, that in this place political clout determines how money is spent. Well, it should not. It should be based on a fair assessment of need and where money should be spent based on need. But that is not how it is done, and we need to change the way we do things to make sure those people who are impoverished and need access to these roads are properly resourced. I am pleased to be able to support the legislation. 18:58 Mr HUSIC 91219 Chifley Why are we here? Why are we debating this? Why are we talking about this move? What we are faced with here is a situation where, before the last election, the coalition, when in opposition, were making all sorts of commitments about what they could do. They believed that the budget did not face a revenue problem; it faced what now Treasurer Joe Hockey calls a revenue forecasting problem. They believed that they could go into an election where they did not need to raise taxes and did not need to cut spending further than the commitments raised; that confidence in the economy would be supercharged by the election of the coalition government; and that everything would repair itself. Then, having made repeated promises that they would not introduce new taxes and would not lift the total tax take—they believed that taxes would be lower under them and kept creating the impression that this would be the case—they went back on their word in the most dramatic fashion. The coalition's first budget in government saw a number of announcements made that went completely contrary to what was being promised at the election. An impression was being deliberately generated in the minds of the voting public as they went to the ballot box in September 2013 that this would be a government that would not raise taxes, everything would be rosy and they would be able to repair the budget in a way that would not impact on people. For instance, in August 2013 when the now Prime Minister was asked whether he would manufacture a reason to go back on his word, he repeatedly said, 'Absolutely not.' He said that those commitments were rock solid and that the state of the budget would not be used as an excuse to break promises. Yet the 2014 budget did that, and this government has had to recoil from the deep-seated, fiery reaction by the public that they had been misled. There were a number of commitments made in that first budget, including a re-introduction of indexation, and the government tried to make a virtue out of it. They tried to say they needed to make a tough decision, that this was important for budget repair and that was why they were doing it. We have to fast-forward to the point where we are confronted with this situation. I am here with my colleague from Western Sydney, the member for Parramatta, and another Western Sydney colleague is sitting as the Deputy Speaker, the member for Hughes, and we know full well that in Sydney people-movement is a hard and challenging thing. A lot of people rely on vehicles. A lot of people are stuck in vehicles for an extended period of time, in major motorways in Western Sydney—the M5, M4, M7 and M2. They sit there for long periods of time. A lot of people, particularly the key decision makers in the Abbott government, do not appreciate this situation for one moment, because they are not stuck in the type of traffic that our constituents have to deal with every day. They chew up a lot of petrol. They chew up a lot of money using tollways in Western Sydney as well. So costs are a big issue. These are the types of voices we brought to the debate when the Abbott government decided to introduce indexation of fuel—fuel taxation. But we are now faced with a situation where continued opposition would not see that money go back to struggling motorists, because a gargantuan exercise would have been required to identify the purchases made by individual consumers since the 2014 budget, track down those motorists and provide the rebate. What would happen is: it would go to oil companies. And no-one in the general public thinks for a moment that those poor, struggling oil companies need extra revenue handed to them in a bumper cheque from the Australian government. It is ridiculous to suggest that should happen. This is a situation manufactured as a result of deceit, frankly, by the Abbott government, suggesting that they would not need to introduce new taxes, suggesting to people that they would not be hit by new levies. The reality is that that is exactly what has happened. From our point of view, the choice we are confronted with is: do we pay oil companies? Frankly, that is ridiculous. So we as an opposition, instead of having the ludicrous situation where money is handed to oil companies, have come up with this compromise. I understand that people do not want to pay more for fuel. I have already made that reflection a few moments ago. But if there is something that can be done to improve roads—particularly in regional Australia, and particularly in the big regions like one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, Western Sydney—then we should definitely look for it. There will be motorists who will begrudgingly accept the logic that says: we will pour money—in this case over a billion dollars—into improving roads. I, along with my colleague the member for Greenway, am a representative who sits entirely within the Blacktown local government area. It is a huge council. It is the biggest council in New South Wales and, I think, the third biggest in the country. We both grew up in this area and we have seen vast tracts of rural land transformed into housing estates right before our very eyes. This council has a massive infrastructure backlog as a result of a variety of decisions, some taken at a state level, to change the way infrastructure levies are paid on new housing and the way in which infrastructure is financed. It puts pressure on councils and they rely heavily on financial assistance grants from government. We had a double whammy with an increase in fuel indexation at the same time as financial assistance grants to local government were cut. These grants are used by government in part to build new infrastructure in areas to maintain or improve existing infrastructure, but the grants have been massively cut. In Blacktown's case, Blacktown council saw a $6.7 million cut over four years to its financial assistance grants. This was a massive hit at a time when the then Liberal-controlled Blacktown council was cutting services. For instance, in Mount Druitt the local pool was being shut down. The modest level of assistance that was being provided to pensioners who were ratepayers was being eliminated. You saw all sorts of services being squeezed and new levies being introduced by the then Liberal-controlled Blacktown council. And, on top of that, they had to contend with a federal coalition government cutting the level of assistance to them. So we have a situation now, as a result of what Labor has sought, and the government has agreed to, where we have an additional $1.1 billion in Roads to Recovery funding for regional roads being used as part of the compromise to pass the government's re-introduction of indexation. This is undeniably good news for regional and local roads. When you consider, as I reflected a few moments ago, the cuts to local government and the devastating impact on economic activity—particularly in regional areas where unemployment is high and many regions are currently experiencing youth unemployment at over 20 per cent—this boost will stimulate regional economies and help generate much-needed jobs, and it is a boost for vital infrastructure. So if we can see some sort of assistance from the freezing of local government assistance grants for over three years, which represented $925 million being cut from communities over three years, we can see potential for assistance to local government in a very meaningful way. Local government, for example, currently has a $15 infrastructure deficit. This funding boost that has been extracted by the opposition will be critically needed in regional areas and has been welcomed. The Australian Local Government Association estimated that 11 per cent of roads managed by councils were in a 'poor or very poor condition'. It is worth bearing in mind that councils themselves manage close to 700,000 kilometres of roads, which is about 75 per cent of all roads by length. Bear in mind that the federal government will not fund many federal roads. In Sydney I cannot name any that are being funded other than roads around the second Sydney airport. And, by the way, there is much crowing from the coalition about the roads they are building around this airport, but all these roads will do is funnel more traffic into already congested roads. They will funnel it into the M5, which the constituents of the member for Hughes use. They will funnel it into the M4 and into the M7/M2, and these roads are already choked. You can go in at peak points in the day, and these roads that are supposed to operate much more smoothly and carry a lot more traffic are not doing it. So this roads package that we keep hearing about from the coalition is nothing more than providing a funnel for higher volumes of traffic into already deluged motorways. There is no move by this government to fund new road infrastructure that is critically needed—for instance, the M9, which would run roughly parallel to the M7 in Western Sydney. None of that! So the federal government is not funding new roads. The federal government certainly will not fund state roads. If we are already having an active debate about whether or not they will maintain support for funding schools or health care and hospitals, it is hard to believe that they will fund state roads. So the logical area where they can make an impact through this type of compromise that has been reached is through local government to ensure that some of the infrastructure backlog that is causing great concern to local government is in part addressed. Look at the way some of this has been received—for instance, the Australian Local Government Association today putting out a statement welcoming the proposed $1.1 billion in extra funding to Roads to Recovery. They say they 'strongly support the proposal today by the ALP to direct the revenue from the first two years of the fuel excise indexation, estimated to be $1.1 billion, towards additional Roads to Recovery funding for local government.' The President of the ALGA, Mayor Troy Pickard, said, 'We applaud the opposition's focus on local government and their recognition in this policy initiative of local government's important role in developing local economies and creating jobs through projects funded through the Roads to Recovery program.' Cynics on the other side would say, 'Of course the ALGA would welcome $1.1 billion in additional funding,' but, frankly, who could deny them the positive reaction that they would have to this type of announcement, particularly when, as Mayor Pickard said, 'This initiative is particularly welcome at a time when local government is under financial pressure following the decision to freeze the indexation of financial assistance grants, costing councils an estimated $925 million in the period to 2017-18.' So for them this is an important boost. As I said, there will be those who, no matter what, will not support an increase in taxation. You can understand why that exists. This government that has undertaken a massive breach of promise in the 2014 budget has maintained some fairly vicious cuts to schools and hospitals in the 2015 budget. For those people who were under the belief that the Abbott government would not increase taxes—it did so 17 times in this new budget, by the way—and who feel misled: we certainly understand your anger. But, as I also indicated in my earlier comments, there will be those motorists who begrudgingly accept that, if this is going to happen, if it can improve roads and see better outcomes particularly in congested major cities like my constituency, part of one of the fastest growing regions in the country, they will potentially accept that and will understand it. But we are trying to ensure that we do not see valuable government revenue go into the bottom line of already strong balance sheets of oil companies. Instead of providing money to oil companies, let's make a meaningful contribution to improve infrastructure in this country, particularly through local government, which has a massive infrastructure backlog. Let's see the money directed there, let's see some potential benefit to local roads and let's ensure that this is a meaningful investment for local economies, stimulating them at a time of high unemployment and making sure that we can boost economic activity in their area and provide a benefit for motorists. I certainly commend the opposition's position in this matter. 19:13 Mr CONROY 249127 Charlton I am very pleased to speak on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 and other fuel indexation and road funding bills. I am even more pleased that today Labor has delivered an additional $1.1 billion to the Roads to Recovery program. If not for this proposal from the Labor Party, the government would have provided all the revenue it has collected as a result of the fuel indexation changes to the big oil companies. That is the political reality we have at the moment. The regulation would have been disallowed, and they would have been paying off the big oil companies with the money from motorists. That is the brutal truth of where we are now, and I am very pleased that Labor has achieved a compromise where $1.1 billion is delivered to the Roads to Recovery program instead. The alternative of refunding this money to the petrol companies was not acceptable to Labor. At the outset I would like to draw the attention of the House to the comments of the President of the Australian Local Government Association, Mayor Troy Pickard, who said this morning, 'The Australian Local Government Association welcomes and strongly supports the proposal today from the ALP to direct the revenue from the first two years of the fuel excise indexation towards additional Roads to Recovery funding for local government.' This is an important point. The area of government that deals with the brunt of road maintenance and building, local government, has welcomed our sensible proposal. The Roads to Recovery program supports maintenance of Australia's local road infrastructure. This $1.1 billion boost to the program will stimulate regional economies, generating employment and boosting important local infrastructure. This is a very important point. I will go on to the infrastructure requirements in a moment, but I just want to comment on the impact of this on regional economies. Regional economies are doing it tough at the moment. We have unemployment rates significantly above the national average, and the national average is at a 12-year high. That is very well known. We have very patchy growth in these regions as mining comes off and manufacturing struggles under this government. We have recent reports that 20 per cent of the growth in the economy comes from six locations throughout this country. So our regional economies need this additional stimulus. It is a stimulus that my region welcomes. My region has a youth unemployment rate of 18.6 per cent. Any money from projects like this will be expended almost immediately because the projects are over the next two years. They are not capital-intensive; they are more manpower intensive. This is good news for my region. It is good news for unemployed people in my region and good news for the economy as a whole. There is a $15 billion local government infrastructure deficit, so this extra funding is vitally important for regional areas. It is shameful that, in their first budget, the Abbott government froze local government assistance grants, cutting $925 million from communities. Because of this, local councils have had to pull back on important roadworks. My electorate of Charlton takes in two local government areas—the City of Lake Macquarie and the City of Newcastle. These are two very large local government areas that, combined, have around 480,000 ratepayers. So almost half a million ratepayers reside in local government areas encompassed by my electorate. Because of the freezing of grants by the Abbott government, Lake Macquarie will have $5.7 million in funding cut and Newcastle will lose $4.6 million. Given these cuts, it is a great result for regional communities that this extra $1.1 billion will be invested in helping local councils address the significant roads backlog. Under the current Roads to Recovery funding, Lake Macquarie will receive $7.5 million in the five years between 2014 and 2019 and Newcastle will receive $4.9 million. The current funding model for Roads to Recovery is over a five-year period. Although it is too early to say exactly what extra support these two local councils will receive, as this proposal will inject $1.1 billion into the program in only two years it is a significant win for both the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie councils. That is why I am supporting this proposal. It is a proposal that immediately injects much-needed money into my local economy. It is a proposal that significantly increases the infrastructure investment going on in my local government areas to target backlogs in my region, a region that is expanding rapidly and desperately needs this additional infrastructure funding. It is a region that has suffered due to the cuts from the Abbott government to the tune of $11 million already. This is in addition to the $1.5 million we also lost that was allocated to the Glendale transport interchange, a project that all 11 local government areas in the Hunter region declared the most important infrastructure priority in our area. It was a project that the Abbott government saw fit to cut funding to. So the Labor proposal to inject $1.1 billion to address infrastructure backlog is great news for my region. Having identified the benefits to regional communities from this bill, I would like to draw to the attention of the House to the government's approach to this issue and what would have happened had Labor not brought forward this proposal. As I said earlier, in a bid to bypass the opposition in the Senate, principally led by the Labor Party, the Abbott government had threatened to return the extra fuel excise it had collected over the last eight months to the oil companies. This is the sort of tricky, arrogant and devious ploy that we have come to expect from this government. The people of Australia should be very clear of the different approaches to fuel indexation of the coalition and Labor. The coalition were happy for this revenue to be returned to the big oil companies. Labor could not accept this proposition. Australian motorists would have been outraged if this were to occur. That is why we have made this sensible proposal to spend the money on regional roads. I would now like to turn to the broader issue of taxation more generally. The facts are that, before the last election, the Prime Minister solemnly promised there would be no new taxes. How much garbage did we hear from Liberal spokespeople that they would be a low-taxing government? On this issue, as on so many other issues, the Prime Minister completely misled the Australian people. He was a man so hungry and desperate to win power that he was prepared to say and do anything to be elected. Upon winning the election, he immediately started to breach the promises he made to the Australian people. The Abbott government is taxing Australians at a higher rate than the previous Labor government did. It is a fact that both the Howard and now Abbott governments have taxed Australians at a higher rate than the previous Labor government did. At the same time, the government have doubled the budget deficit. So they are taxing us more and they have doubled the deficit at the same time. This puts lie to the claim that the coalition are the party of lower taxes. This is clearly false, and this is confirmed by their own budget papers. The most recent budget saw tax receipts rise each year over the forward estimates. The coalition cannot be trusted on taxation. The most recent budget includes at least $3.9 billion in new taxes, tax rises and charges. The people of Australia should be very aware that the coalition's rhetoric on taxes are not matched by their actions in government. In summary, today Labor has secured significant extra funding for the Roads to Recovery program that will be of great benefit to regional communities such as my own of Charlton. It will stimulate our economy. It will get people into work. Just as importantly, it will tackle the significant infrastructure backlog we have in our region, a backlog exacerbated by the government's heartless and short-sighted cuts to financial assistance grants to councils all throughout Australia, including Lake Macquarie City Council and the Newcastle council. On the basis of this important proposal winning acceptance from the government, I am very happy to support Labor's compromise and I commend it to the House. 19:21 Ms CHESTERS 249710 Bendigo We are here today because of a classic move by this government—a classic move that, as the previous speaker said, many in the community have come to expect. When the petrol tax, the increase in the fuel excise, first came into this House in the last budget, I was one of the most vocal opponents of it. In fact today I am still vocally against increasing the fuel excise. But in the situation we are now in, I support this bill. That is because, rather than respecting this parliament, rather than allowing the Senate to vote on this bill, the government directed the petrol companies to start collecting their increased petrol tax. They have been collecting it for a good eight months. We are now in a situation where we have to decide what we are going to do—whether we increase the petrol tax in legislation or whether the government hands the money back. Quite frankly, it is not fair to the many people in regional areas, people in my own electorate, who have already been paying the increased petrol tax, if they do not see some benefit from the extra revenue they have been paying this government. What Labor put forward—it is great to see the government has come on board to support it—is that over the next two years this $1.1 billion go into the Roads to Recovery program. My electorate, which is part of regional Central Victoria, covers the Macedon Ranges Shire Council, the Mount Alexander Shire Council and the City of Greater Bendigo Shire Council, along with part of the Loddon shire. It is a large electorate with hundreds of kilometres of roads, most of which are local government roads and some of which are state government roads. Quite a bit of work will be done to the state government roads through increases in the VicRoads budget. A few of the roads are funded by the federal government, the Calder being the main arterial from the top to the bottom of the electorate, as well as the Calder Alternate. But the majority of motorists in my electorate use local roads. The funding from this bill will be welcomed to help local governments ensure that our roads are safer. They will be able to go further down their priority lists to fix some of the trouble spots, some of the safety spots in Central Victoria. I have been out quite a lot talking to people in my local area through regular listening posts. Maiden Gully has seen significant growth in recent years, with a number of new housing estates, but the infrastructure has not kept up. Edwards Road has become a major safety concern for a number of people living in that area. Many motorists have to turn on or off Edwards Road to get to the local primary school. The Calder Alternate cuts straight through Maiden Gully, so Edwards Road is a major concern. Another local road in that area that is a major concern is Rathbones Lane. Many years ago it was just a fire access road that was used by the CFA in case of a bushfire or a farm fire. But today it is a local road and one of the only access roads that people living in a particular housing estate have. So the money that will be allocated through this bill will be welcomed by our local communities. It will ensure that our local councils, in discussions with state government, will be able to go further down their priority list. My part of the world, Bendigo, is seeing significant growth, with a number of new housing estates. Old road infrastructure and public transport infrastructure needs to be improved. We also still have significant farming areas. I spoke to the Macedon Ranges Shire Council this afternoon to explain what was happening. They said that they could see a lot of this funding going towards long-distance roads, trying to link together the small towns in many of the farming areas in the Macedon Ranges. When I first met with the Macedon Ranges Shire Council, I asked them, 'If I am successful and I go on to be your local federal member, what matters to you?' It is a question you get to ask when you are out there talking to people: 'What is it you would like to see us do?' Since that conversation many years ago, one comment has stuck with me. A councillor said that they could not match the funding they receive in one year from the Roads to Recovery budget with 10 years of rate based funding. I used to be a resident of the Macedon Ranges. It is a large geographical area with a small rate base, which means that their roads budget is small. What is allocated to them through Roads to Recovery is more than they can allocate to their roads and maintenance over 10 years. To me, that spoke to the importance of the federal government continuing to allocate funding to this program. It is very popular with our local mayors and our local council areas. It is also very popular and important to areas like Loddon shire, which is one of the largest geographical council areas in state of Victoria. Only part of it is in my electorate. Again they have the issue of a small rate base; they simply do not have enough ratepayers to keep up with the maintenance of their roads. One local councillor said: 'We just can't possibly do it. If we spent every dollar in our budget on maintaining roads, we would still be short.' We know that our local government areas are struggling to keep up with the maintenance of their roads. One figure we have heard to date is that 11 per cent of roads managed by council are in poor or very poor condition. They are trying to do their best with what they have in their rate base. So it is important that the federal government partner with the state government and help to fund road maintenance. Also, due to the government's attacks on and cuts to the financial assistance grants, it is important that this funding go specifically to our regional councils this year. This is another issue that local council areas have raised with me. Funding to local councils has been cut, because the government has frozen the Financial Assistance Grants, meaning that our local governments will struggle to maintain community assets—to maintain sporting facilities—and ensure that they have enough in their budget to pay increases in staff wages. Our local governments in regional Australia are large employers, and in some of our council areas they are the largest employer. In Mount Alexander they are the largest employer—they employ the most people. These funding cuts do put real pressure on that council—can they afford to keep the staff that they have; will they have to look at redundancies? These are the pressures that this government is putting on local councils because it has frozen indexation. Local government has also been whacked since this government got elected because the government completely scrapped round 5A of the Regional Development Australia Fund. That funding was not an election commitment like this government likes to rant about—just after the budget and before the election local governments were told that they would be allocated funding, based upon the size of their council, to spend on a project or projects in their council area. They had to put forward those projects, they had to go to the department, and then the department ticked off on those projects to make sure that they were in accordance with the rules and the guidelines of RDAF. In my area, Bendigo, they decided to prioritise the gardens—it was one of their major projects—and $1.2 million was to be allocated. Bendigo is a larger council area than Macedon Ranges, who are allocating their 5A funding to improving the Gisborne town centre. In Mount Alexander, they went to the community priority list and decided to divide the funding up between three projects that were sitting there waiting to be done—they simply did not have the dollars in the budget to do them. They did everything right—they met with the minister, they understood the brief, they received the information after the budget, they did their work at a local council level, they did the planning, they submitted the paperwork to the government of the day, the government of the day ticked off on it and issued the letters to say yes, but before the contracts could be signed we had an election and this government, on coming to office, scrapped the funding for those projects. You can understand why local government is very pessimistic about this federal government—their first act when they got into government was to scrap round 5A of RDAF. Since then we have seen attack after attack after the attack on our local governments. The problem when you attack local government is that you are attacking local regional communities—you are attacking major employers in those regions and you are attacking local communities, making things harder for those communities. This fuel excise funding going into the roads in regional areas will improve productivity and will improve safety. It will create jobs and it will ensure that people working for local government in the roads division will have ongoing and continuous employment. It will ensure that there continue to be good blue-collar working jobs in our local government areas. That is a good thing. As I said, is it is disappointing that we have got to this point. After the chaos, the madness and the disappointment that tax has already started to be collected—but the government is collecting that tax without the approval of this parliament. We can turn that into a good news story for our regional communities. I know this is my first term here and being here in parliament is all a new experience, but I never thought I would be standing here saying that we have to work out what to do with money the government have collected but that they never had approval to collect. It is ridiculous. I have been talking to local media tonight and I have been talking to the local mayors, saying, 'Look, this is going to sound crazy because it is—the government started to collect an increase in the fuel excise before it had the authority of the parliament to do so, and now we have to try and fix it.' Labor's solution is to take the money that the government took off road users and give it back to road users through local government, through better roads. I mention the member for Lingiari, because I heard his contribution, and it is true that people in regional areas pay more, as a proportion, in petrol tax simply because they drive further. They use more petrol and therefore they pay more, as a proportion, in fuel excise. And in regional areas fuel prices are higher—they just are. That all impacts on household budgets. I do a lot of driving myself, and I meet a lot of small business people who do lots of business around the Bendigo electorate and they, like me, spend a lot of time on the road. They do complain about petrol prices, and they are right—they are higher in the regions. They also complain about roads. At least when I go back to the electorate over these holidays I can say, 'It has been unfair that you have been paying an increase in the petrol price, it is unfair that the government did imposed that without having the authority of the parliament, but at least we have now linked that extra money that you have paid into improving the roads in our area.' This means we can get on with fixing Edwards Road; it means we can get on with fixing the Heathcote-Redesdale Road. That is going to help three local government areas—we might be able to bring the three local government areas together to help fix that local road. These are the issues before us. It is unfortunate we have got to a situation where we have had to bring the two together, but we are here because the government has pulled another dodgy on the Australian people by collecting a tax they did not have the authority to collect. At least today Labor has been able to clean up their mess and see that money go back to motorists through improving their roads. I support the bills. 19:36 Mr CHAMPION HW9 Wakefield It is always a great pleasure to follow the member for Bendigo, but it is somewhat daunting because she is such a good advocate for Labor and for her community. Tonight we are talking on these bills because the government has presented us with a difficult choice; they have presented the community with a difficult choice. The choice is either that we hand millions and millions of dollars back to multinational companies—not to consumers—or that we try to find some more productive way of dealing with that money. In this instance, Labor has decided that the best approach would be to hand that money back to local communities and local councils. As the member for Bendigo said, that is because this was a tax that was collected without parliamentary approval. Given the rhetoric of those opposite and given the philosophical underpinnings of those opposite, you would think that they would not instigate or collect a tax for which this parliament had not given approval to, but that is what they did—just as they implemented a GP tax by stealth, by regulation. We are left with a difficult choice—Hobson's choice. We can either hand money to multinationals for their own bottom line or for some other purpose—I suppose they might refund it to consumers, but they would find it very difficult to do so—or give it to regional councils. We know that councils need these funds because there has been a $925 million cut from local assistance grants for the next three years. That is nearly a billion dollars coming out of local communities. Those important grants help councils with their everyday operations; those grants have been an important part of council funding since the Whitlam government. They are particularly important for regional communities with very large areas, very high costs and very low populations. There are many councils north of Gawler in my electorate—councils like the Clare and Gilbert Valley or the Light Regional Council, of which I am a ratepayer, or the Barossa Council—have a very heavy burden, because they have vast road networks. Often these are graded dirt roads, like the roads I travelled in my youth for one reason or another. I have vivid memories of riding out from Kapunda to Allendale North on my bike; it was a pretty tough ride; later on I had a few old cars that I used to bash around in. These are important roads for the local community; I know that because I have travelled them. Since becoming an MP I have had cause to drive them to visit one community or another. These roads make an impact and, as a local member, you know there is no greater thing you can do for country residents than to prevail on the council to get a road graded so that it can be navigated in wet weather. It is often a difficult task. It does not matter whether you are talking about Mallala, Owen, Tarlee, Balaclava or Kapunda—these farming communities all have vast road networks and they need good roads. Every time this government hacks into the funding of local councils, that hurts city councils but it has a disproportionate impact on country councils and rural and remote locations. We know that in Australia there is a $15 billion local government infrastructure deficit across the country, where infrastructure needs fixing but it cannot be fixed. We know that councils manage 670,000 kilometres of roads—75 per cent of all the roads by length—and so we know that 11 per cent of those roads are poorly maintained. That is not because the council wants to let the local community down—they are closest to the community—but they have to work out in their works budget which roads get fixed and which roads do not. It is always a difficult trade-off. Every time this Commonwealth government cuts their funding, the choice becomes even harder. We have difficult choices in this national parliament, which cause difficulties in local communities. In South Australia we have a particular difficulty: historically, since the late 1990s we have had eight per cent of the country's population receive roughly six per cent of the road funding. That has been a difficult issue because we had a decade of Commonwealth underfunding of roads during the Howard era and up until 2004, when the rivers of gold started to flow from the mining boom mark 1. If you have a decade of underfunding and you do not maintain the top of the road every few years, then you end up wrecking the base of the road and then it is ten times more expensive and more difficult to fix. We had a very big infrastructure backlog for South Australian roads. When I got elected, I remember going down the Kapunda to Tarlee road, and it had not changed since I left year 12—15 years later it had not changed a jot. It was patched up all over the place and still taking very large trucks. I was proud when the South Australian government under Mike Rann finally got it fixed to something approximating a decent road. We know the Howard government fixed the problem by putting in an additional top-up to South Australian roads in 2004 and that funding remained all the way through the Rudd and Gillard governments. And it helped. It made a difference. It helped clean up that backlog. The councils were very, very attached to that funding, but this government cut that funding, on top of all of its other cuts. To rub salt in the wound, it was a South Australian minister, the member for Mayo as the infrastructure minister, who cut this $18 million a year that made all the difference and that recognised South Australia's population demands. You have to remember that, in South Australia, most of its very large population—eight per cent—is in Adelaide. So we have a far-flung population in this state. This state is important to this nation's mining revenues. There has been an explosion in mining in South Australia over the last few years because of the pay scheme and because of our very good state mineral resources minister, Tom Koutsantonis, among others. But we have a small population across that. So, we have very large road network that need to be maintained by councils with very low rate bases, as the member for Bendigo said. That is exactly the situation. That has a big effect on South Australia. So, it is disappointing that the government, on top of all the other cuts that they have made, have hacked South Australia again. It was not good enough for the government to just wave goodbye to the car industry or to lie openly about submarines—flat-out lie to the public of South Australia about submarines. It also had to hack a road funding measure put in place by the Howard government in recognition of our situation. David O'Loughlin is the Local Government Association president—and, yes, I know him well because he was a Labor candidate for Adelaide, a very fine one. But, with his Local Government Association hat on, he said: If this funding is not extended in the May federal budget, state council road programs will be trashed … As it only affects South Australia, it would mean the federal government is making a conscious decision to strip funds from our state while every other state retains the status quo. That is just unfair to South Australia. With this bill, we have Hobson's choice, a difficult choice, between handing this money that has been collected without parliamentary approval—in this sort of sly, double-dutch deal where you get the petrol companies to collect your tax and then present this parliament with an unfortunate, unpleasant choice—back to the petrol companies for them to do with as they please or, alternatively, finding some productive use for it. Now, the productive use that Labor have achieved for it, through negotiation, is making sure that that money goes back to local roads and local councils. That is an important thing for my electorate. It is an important deal to make. Bismarck, I think, said about legislatures: 'Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.' That would be true of this bill. Nobody would look at this bill and say it is a high point of parliamentary decision making or as an exercise. No-one would hold the government up as having done the right thing in these circumstances. That is why we opposed it—because we assumed that this government would do the right thing. After all the government's rhetoric, after all their commitments, after the elevation of trust to some sacrosanct place by the Prime Minister in the last election, we assumed that they would bring this tax to the parliament. Remember, 'no taxation without representation' was the cry of the miners at Eureka; here, all these years later, what would they say about this fix? This is indeed taxation without representation. You would expect better of the conservative parties, who like to philosophically elevate taxation to some sort of barometer of a nation's health—if not of the Prime Minister then surely of their very animated backbench. There is nothing that gets that side more motivated than a good discussion about taxation. So, to find them in here—or not in here, as the case may be—supporting taxation without representation, particularly on the bowser, every time people have to go to the petrol station, is absolutely galling. What Labor decided to do was make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We decided to make sure that the $1.1 billion boost to the Roads to Recovery program occurs and stimulates local jobs, local communities and local demand, and gives real confidence to bush areas which have been hit hard and will always be hit hard by people who want to mess with federation, with basic services and with the ordinary operations of government, as this government does—and it does not matter whether it is in this bill; in the federation white paper; or in health and education funding, with $60 billion worth of cuts that the government will not own up to. There is nothing worse than someone who will not own up to their own work, who is not proud of their own work, and that is this government: shamefaced, sneaky and, often, operating in violation of its own philosophical precepts. We support this bill, but it is not perfect. We wish that the government had behaved in a different manner, where we would have had different choices. 19:51 Ms CLAYDON 248181 Newcastle I am pleased to follow my Labor colleagues the member for Wakefield and the members for Bendigo and Charlton before him, who have all spoken of making the best of a very difficult situation—Labor coming to the table in support of this Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill. We have agreed to this because, in the end, it means an additional $1.1 billion in funding for Roads to Recovery, and that is a really significant investment in regional economies and regional areas like Newcastle and the Hunter region. That is part of the compromise that we have agreed to with the government in order to pass this reintroduced bill regarding the indexation of fuel excise. As speakers before have made abundantly clear, it would be unconscionable for those funds to be returned to the big multinational companies and deliver absolutely no benefits to the consumers who have paid this fuel excise. It needs to result in some kind of net benefit for the people that we represent here in the Australian parliament. This is a compromise that does not come lightly, but it is good news for regional and local roads, including those in my electorate of Newcastle. It is a difficult decision for Labor to come by, but the prospects of billions of dollars being returned to oil companies was clearly an unacceptable position for Labor and, I would suggest, a pretty unacceptable position for the Australian people. We would prefer this money to be spent on roads in regional and outer-suburban areas, rather than being handed back to those multinationals who, quite frankly, really do not need this money at all. Regions like Newcastle have suffered under the Abbott Liberal government. Indeed, local governments, in particular, have really felt the shift in focus, having been very much a focus of the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments, where we saw a massive injection of funds delivered to local government. It was an unprecedented partnership that was so well crafted by the member for Grayndler, the then minister for local government, who really forged a very new kind of relationship between federal and local governments. Having been a councillor on Newcastle City Council prior to my coming to this parliament, I can assure this parliament that those funds that were delivered directly into councils were indeed very welcomed by councils like Newcastle City Council, which was at the time managing an infrastructure backlog of some $130 million following the report from Percy Allan which the former New South Wales Treasury secretary delivered. The commitment that the then minister for local government made in terms of providing some much-needed direct funding into programs like Roads to Recovery, black spot road funding and the direct regional infrastructure grants assisted during that really difficult time during the global financial crisis not only was invaluable but also saved so many local governments who were simply not able to meet the demands of those times. This federal government's cuts to local government and the freezing of the financial assistance grants, in particular, have been a really savage blow to local councils right across Australia. It has had a devastating impact on economic activity in regional areas like Newcastle, where we have high unemployment, along with many other regions in Australia now experiencing youth unemployment of over 20 per cent. That is unacceptable for any community that I know of. In Newcastle, recent unemployment rates have peaked at levels not seen since the current Prime Minister was in fact the employment minister. Indeed, they are unemployment levels not seen even during the entire global financial crisis. That is the situation in Newcastle at the moment. Unemployment has touched double digits in Newcastle and this year has sat on an average of more than eight per cent, well above the national average, which is around six per cent—which in itself is too high, I should add. This $1.1 billion that Labor has secured from the government to invest in Roads to Recovery funding will stimulate regional economies. It will generate much needed jobs and will be a boost for vital local infrastructure. Indeed, the Hunter Research Foundation's analysis, post budget, of the Newcastle and Hunter regional economies makes it really clear just how necessary an investment in infrastructure really is. This is not the Labor Party speaking here; this is the independent Hunter Research Foundation, who make very clear that the Hunter region is currently experiencing the worst economic conditions that it has faced in a generation—and that includes, as I said, really unacceptably high levels of unemployment. Shipbuilding and manufacturing in my home town of Newcastle tonight released news that another 160 jobs are to be lost from the Forgacs shipyard. That is a completely unacceptable position, but I will talk at length about that on another occasion. It is this lack of investment into Australian jobs and Australian industries, the lack of a plan around that, that is making life so difficult for regions across Australia as well as, of course, near record low levels of business confidence. That is the situation that many regional economies like Newcastle and the Hunter region in particular are faced with. That is why it was so vital for Labor to be able to secure that the moneys generated from the fuel tax excise be spent in a profitable way that has some long-term social and economic benefits for those communities. The regional economies are really doing it tough, and this money will go some way to helping address some of those difficulties. This government has really smashed confidence since coming into office and has undermined the transition that was going on in our economy in Newcastle. In Newcastle, the coal industry workforce is shrinking and local manufacturing is reeling from the stalling of federal government investment. I gave the example earlier tonight of another 160 job losses from Forgacs shipyards. The government has done nothing but stall on its investment in Australian jobs and Australian industries. It is costing thousands and thousands of jobs and the possible loss of an entire shipbuilding capacity in this nation, not just in Newcastle. In the government's first budget, the Prime Minister froze local government assistance grants for three years, and that cut $925 million out of communities right across Australia—$925 million zapped out of those economies. My electorate touches four local government areas: Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland and Port Stephens. In total, the cuts from this government's freezing of the financial assistance grants left those four councils in my region $15 million worse off. These cuts were not flagged. No-one had any indication that this was on the government's radar, so they came as a very rude shock and were not at all welcome or appreciated, I can assure you, by the people of Newcastle. Newcastle City Council alone has lost more than $4½ million and Lake Macquarie City Council more than $5½ million. These are two councils that are currently battling with the consequences of the savage storms that tore through our region last April and did massive damage to infrastructure. Yes, there will be some funds made available, as is right and proper, through national disaster payments, but there is always a shortfall. These councils already have infrastructure backlogs and are faced with extraordinary circumstances of cleaning up after massive storms and wind damage. There will be a shortfall; make no mistake. Having access to at least some assistance through these Roads to Recovery grants will mean a lot to the communities in my region. I recall very well standing with the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Nuatali Nelmes, late last year on the steps of Newcastle City Council, where she outlined to the media the detrimental impact that freezing the indexation of the financial assistance grants would have in our community of Newcastle—what it meant to local swimming pools, pathways and maintenance projects that had to get pushed back in the time frames and job lists of Newcastle City Council. In an act of extraordinary duplicity earlier this year, despite these cuts, we saw the Deputy Prime Minister featured in local Newcastle media spouting that the government had handed out these fantastic 'no strings attached' grants to communities, failing to mention that these were not new dollars. This was not some new scheme or new project here. All the government was doing was handing out what remained in the financial assistance grants bucket, minus the additional dollars that should have been there for the indexation rise that, had this government not frozen it, my community would have had access to. There are currently some $15 billion worth of local government infrastructure deficits around the nation. This is a very welcome funding boost that Labor has managed to extract from the government. It is vital to the needs of regional communities, including Newcastle. In government, Labor invested $4.2 million in Roads to Recovery programs in Newcastle City Council alone. It was a massive investment, at times a tripling of funding that had not been seen from previous non-Labor governments. It was extremely welcome. We were able to look at a large number of roads that had been sitting on a list for a very long time. But of course there are new problems with local roads in the region now. I held a community office just last week, where the residents of Woodberry brought to my attention problems with roads in their area at the moment. Whilst these are issues that I will take up with the Maitland City Council and the state government, they talked about the need for really significant upgrades of roads because of massive potholes—more than just storm damage but ongoing problems with these roads. Communities like those in Woodberry, Beresfield and Tarro—where people have talked to me about the Anderson Road problems and the Thornton Road problems—will really welcome the fact that their local government areas are going to be able to have access to this $1.1 billion of funding that Labor has extracted to boost the Roads to Recovery program. Money that can be spent directly on the ground, through local governments, is money very well spent. We know that from our time in government. I am very pleased to see this government taking up Labor's suggestion of investing in infrastructure again. 20:06 Mr GRAY 8W5 Brand This is a good day. It is a day when the government and the opposition have reached agreement on a difficult area of public policy: fuel excise. Fuel excise was indexed to the consumer price index nearly 30 years ago. It was indexed in order to remove the annual budget round of increasing excise on a range of commodities from tobacco and alcohol through to petrol. The classic front-page story that ran on the morning of the second Wednesday of August every year—budget day at that time—would announce 'Fags, beer and petrol go up'. The decision to index it to CPI said to people that these excises should proceed only in a fashion that equals the rate of inflation. In the early 2000s the then Prime Minister faced difficult political circumstances at a time when the Australian dollar was plunging towards US50c and the domestic price of petrol was rapidly increasing—it went beyond, unbelievably in those days, $1.10. At 110c a litre the political pressure on the government was great. The government had lost a key by-election in Ryan, had lost its kindred spirits in the Western Australian parliament—the loss of the Court government—and found itself under extreme political pressure as a consequence of the cost-of-living impact occasioned by a collapsing dollar. The immediate response of the government brought little or no short-term pain—it was to remove the indexation on fuel excise. That seemed at the time to be a prudent measure, because in the context of one budget how could it do much damage? But over the course of the ensuing nearly 15 years that decision has cost the budget in excess of $10 billion. So it is good to see the government and the opposition reaching a compromise to restore the indexation on fuel excise. This comes at a cost to consumers. We should all know that. A consumer with an average fuel tank of 60 litres, such as my wife's vehicle has, will pay about $1 a fortnight in additional petrol costs—not much, but we should know and understand that it will cost an additional amount of money. We should also know and understand that it will generate substantial revenues over the forward estimates of the order of $3.6 billion, and over the course of the next decade of the order of $23 billion, to support the activities of the Commonwealth government. Those activities will include road funding and a whole range of other essential functions of government. It is really pleasing to see a good piece of public policy, hard fought over and hard won on both sides—tough negotiation—producing an outcome that is genuinely in the national interest. One of the reasons we know it is in the national interest is the positive reaction that we have seen in the last few hours from our community. The Australian Local Government Association has welcomed this decision, because it also delivers to Australia's local governments road funding in excess of $1.1 billion. That will go into the Roads to Recovery road funding that is administered by our local government authorities. Our local government authorities are not just excellent authorities but also the authorities with the capability to properly administer these funds. They are the authorities with the right prioritising of local community demands and needs. They are properly democratically elected, held accountable and able to ensure appropriate and proper spending of these funds. So it should be no surprise to any of us that the Australian Local Government Association says of the Labor Party that this: … underlines their capacity, even in Opposition, to put Local Government at the centre of policy initiatives aimed at enabling councils to deliver essential infrastructure for their communities, create jobs and contribute to productivity improvements across the nation. Councils across Australia will be appreciative and thankful to the Shadow Ministers for this great initiative. We should also be greatly appreciative of the government for accepting the offer that was made. I am really pleased to be speaking here today on this bill, because I think all of us in this place see the sound public policy and public administration reasons and the good taxation policy that underpin indexation of these excises. In the context of petrol I think it was an important measure long overdue. Therefore I congratulate the government on having the strength to stay in the ring and to wrangle on this, and the shadow minister for infrastructure and the shadow Treasurer for bringing it home in a way that keeps the Australian taxpayer whole. We know that if this compromise had not been reached the Australian government would have had a terrible job to conclude what to do with the revenue that it has collected, quite properly, over the course of the last year while the excise has been in place. It reasonably had concluded that it might need to give that money back to the petrol companies which originally collected this revenue. So this is a good decision—a good decision for Australia's roads, for Australia's road users, for our community and for local government. It is rare that in this place we can come together, both side of politics, and conclude an arrangement that is so manifestly in our national interest and at the same time do it in a hard-won and legitimate way. Labor has proudly sought, and the government has agreed to, an additional $1.1 billion in Roads to Recovery funding for regional roads. That decision will, we hope, go some way towards repairing the funding and activity gap left at local government level as a consequence of the cuts in financial assistance grants to our local government authorities. Throughout the country, from north to south and from east to west, from Adelaide to Darwin and from Cairns to Broome, we have had cuts in the Financial Assistance Grants to local governments. And those cuts have a profound impact on the capability of our local government authorities to act in the interests of our communities. I will read some of the funding that has been foregone as a consequence of the freeze to indexation in Financial Assistance Grants. In Albany on the south coast of Western Australia, cuts over the forward estimates will total in excess of $2 million. In Bayswater, a metropolitan, suburban local government authority in Perth, the cuts will total in excess of $1.1 million. At Chittering in the hills outside Perth we see that the cuts through this non-indexation will total in excess of $630,000. These cuts are very substantial, but they get even bigger and even worse when we get to the regional locations of Western Australia, where we see that as a consequence of these measures Dalwallinu will forego funding that totals nearly $1.4 million over the forward estimates. These are very small local government shires with small populations, lots of roads and lots of infrastructure. They have very, very small rates bases. Consider Derby-West Kimberley: this is the area of Western Australia that covers from the central part of the Kimberley, from the township of Derby, through to the Kimberley west coast and the township of Broome. That local government authority will lose, under this decision, nearly $3 million. The Shire of Donnybrook-Balingup, where I will be on the weekend at the Truffle Kerfuffle, will lose nearly $1.4 million under these measures. Local government is literally the first tier of government in our country. It is the tier of government that is closest to the people and it is the tier of government that keeps our communities working and functioning well. It is extremely important. In my own electorate of Brand, due to these freezes in Financial Assistance Grants the City of Kwinana will lose almost $800,000. The City of Mandurah will lose over $1.6 million and Rockingham will lose almost $2.4 million. There is in excess of $4 million in lost funding for key metropolitan local government authorities as a consequence of those Financial Assistance Grant freezes. Now, the decision which the government has made that unblocks in excess of $1.1 billion will restore a substantial funding stream that will materialise as Roads to Recovery funding. The reason that is important is because all of our local government authorities have priority roads, roads that are about serving the interests of our communities, and construction tasks that are often about safety, always about amenity and always about providing local contractors and local workers with good, local jobs. And that is really important, because those good local jobs are jobs on the tools. They are jobs that are building our roads, streets and pavements which create safer communities—better places to live and better amenity. It is amenity that better accords with the aspirations of our community. The government's decision to allow this additional funding stream to go to Roads to Recovery should be applauded, and I know it will be applauded by the over 550 mayors and local government authorities around our country. The reason they will applaud is because they have the people, the machinery and the capability to start work right away on Roads to Recovery programs that will deliver immediate benefits to our communities. They will deliver immediate work and immediate benefits in the course of the coming two financial years that will benefit our communities for 10, 15 or 20 years to come. There cannot be a better way to spend a dollar than by having that dollar dedicated towards enduring public assets to support our communities—to make our communities safer places and to make our communities even better places. Many of our regions are currently experiencing high youth unemployment. Just last Friday I was in Cairns with the Prime Minister and Warren Entsch, launching the North Australia white paper, the government's terrific response to the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia. In Cairns, the unemployment rate for young people, as we stand here this evening in Canberra in Parliament House, is in excess of 22 per cent. So we know that the Roads to Recovery program will not just fill an important capital works gap in our local government portfolio works but it will, most importantly, improve amenity in our communities. It will create jobs in our regional communities and it will do all of that on budget and on time in projects that will be well administered and well and transparently managed in the interests of all of our local government authorities. And it will be done on the priority ordering of capital works that our local government authorities have published, that they are prepared to stand behind, that they are prepared to fund and that they are prepared to make sure happen in a safe way to support our communities. It is a rare day when both sides of parliament can come together to agree on a revenue measure that will stay in place now in perpetuity, that will generate funds from the sale of gasoline and petroleum for generations to come and that will index this excise to inflation. It is a wise decision, it is a good decision, it is a decision that serves our community well and it is a decision of which we should we should all be proud. I commend the bill to the House. 20:21 Ms O'NEIL ( 140590 Hotham ) ( ): It is a pleasure tonight to make a contribution on the fuel indexation and excise tariff amendment bills. They give effect to a very important decision that Labor has made today, and I want to take some time this evening in the House to explain the rationale behind what has occurred and what these pieces of legislation give effect to. Today, Labor has agreed to compromise on a tax proposal that was put forward by the Abbott government, one that has been baked into the various budgetary documents that they have produced since announcing that decision about a year ago. We have done this with some critical conditions. The most important one is that we have said that the revenues that have been collected under this tax need to go into local government and be put to local roads funding, and I will talk a little bit about the importance of this priority. The critical thing at the outset to understand is that we believe that we have been able to turn what was a bit of an attack on motorists, to be frank, into something that is going to be in part beneficial for motorists and at the same time for local governments. We have seen really good support today from the Australian Local Government Association, who has come out strongly backing Labor's decision. I want to start with a central principle in this discussion that has guided a lot of Labor's decisions about how to manage what have been fairly consistent proposals to increase tax or to increase the burden on ordinary Australians. Labor does not believe that the fiscal issues in this country should be borne, in general, by ordinary Australians. What we need to remember is that when the Abbott government were elected the first two major things they did as a government were to give a tax break to the biggest polluters in this country and a tax break to big mining companies. Then we saw the Abbott government go on a tirade around the nation preaching debt and deficit disaster and going on and on about all the problems that have been caused, supposedly by us, when the first two big policy initiatives of the government were to give tax breaks to the biggest companies operating in Australia. What we have seen since is a more or less constant attempt to push that burden onto ordinary Australians. We saw in the last budget, very disappointingly, about 17 new or increased taxes. That was despite a promise made at the last election that there would be no new taxes. It sounds a little bit unbelievable given the rhetoric and everything the government says, but this government is actually the highest-taxing Australian government since John Howard was Prime Minister of Australia. That is probably not what you would think because this is not what we hear from those in the government, but the facts show us that very clearly and it is important that Australians understand this. Given the principle I have laid out here about where the burden of this issue should lie, you could imagine that when we initially heard about the proposal to increase taxes on fuel we were very opposed to this initiative, and it is an opposition that we have kept up for some time. But, coming to this point in the budgetary cycle, Labor has really faced what has been a Hobson's choice. The government has essentially said that, were Labor not to agree for this legislation to go through the House, the taxes that had been collected under regulation would be returned to fuel companies—essentially the fuel companies that Australians buy petrol from. Clearly, this would be completely unacceptable to motorists around Australia and clearly it would be unacceptable to Labor. One of the things that all of us in politics understand is that you get pretty good at making lemons into lemonade. That is why Labor has agreed to the proposal before us, but with these critical conditions that will ensure that we meet some other important objectives that Labor believes in while we go ahead with this excise increase. I spoke a bit earlier about one of the conditions of the agreement that we have made with the coalition government. The critical point here is that this proposal has been agreed to on the understanding that this $1.1 billion flows directly back into local government and, in particular, supports them in the difficult task they face in maintaining local roads around Australia. Beyond the rationale I spoke about of the tax burden, I think this does show quite a deep commitment that we on this side of the House have to local government. I am a former local mayor and a former local councillor. I was on council at the City of Greater Dandenong for three years. Having had that experience, I am critically aware of the role that local government plays. I also know that money for local governments is tight. They do not have the same revenue options that state and federal governments have. We also know that, when you add it up, local governments in Australia are responsible for an incredibly large array of activities. It is roads and it is footpaths and all of the things that we know about, but it is also things like local community groups and neighbourhood houses that dot all of our neighbourhoods, and the different services they provide like local arts, writing, theatre, community groups and all those sorts of things. I have been on a metropolitan council, but I know that the task faced by regional and rural councils is of a completely different order of magnitude. That is because they have a much narrower tax base. A local government that looks after a hundred small towns has to deal with a hundred community halls and a hundred local swimming pools and a hundred of all of the other things that we might have three or four of in a big metropolitan council with a much wider and a larger range of people who can pay rates. I remember attending lots of local government seminars when I was a councillor. You would often hear really incredible stories about local government CEOs who had to play very different roles in their local council because they just did not have the staff that they needed to fulfil all of the activities. One that sticks in my mind is a local government CEO who, on his way home, had to go and shut some critical gates in the community that shut off community facilities at the end of each night. Despite the very hardworking CEOs we had at the City of Greater Dandenong, you would not see a task like that on their lists. We know that these councils are managing regional facilities on a shoestring. In addition, these rural councils are often servicing areas of really significant need. In rural and regional Australia there is a higher incidence of poverty than we see in many of our big cities and the average age of the population outside of the cities is higher than in the cities. So we see these small councils with lots of different facilities and also communities that need quite a lot of care. This issue facing local government—the funding gap between the funding they are able to raise themselves and the various responsibilities they have—is particularly stark when we look at the issue of roads. There are 670,000 kilometres of roads that are run and monitored by local governments around Australia. That is about 760 times the difference between Melbourne and Sydney, if that brings it to a more tangible magnitude. We know that 75 per cent, by length, of all the roads in Australia are monitored and managed by local government. One of the recent reports on the state of roads in rural and regional Australia found that 11 per cent of all roads are in poor or very poor condition. That is from an Australian Local Government Association survey. So again we can see that local government has this really significant responsibility, and it is just not able to keep up with the infrastructure backlog. We are all playing the bipartisanship game today, but it is important to note that local governments have not been assisted by various decisions made by the government since they came to power. As with other areas, they talk a very big game about local government but when we look at the numbers there have been massive reductions to funding for local governments, in the form of cuts to financial assistance grants. And those cuts have affected councils all over the country. Thinking about my electorate of Hotham, the city of Glenaire was promised financial assistance grants for the council, but that promise was ripped away when this government was elected. We see that reflected right across the country. In just the first year of office, the Prime Minister cut $925 million away from communities through cuts to local government. Considering all the things I have discussed in terms of the big responsibilities of local government, those cuts were really the last thing they needed. Again, we hear big talk about roads and the importance of infrastructure investment in this country—cutting $1 billion from local governments was not going to get us any closer to managing the infrastructure backlog faced by our local councils. I want to speak a little bit about Labor's approach to infrastructure, which has very much guided the compromise we have reached with the coalition to ensure that additional funding goes into local government. All of us on this side of the House speak pretty frequently about our commitment to public transport. It is a very real and very serious commitment. The Rudd and Gillard governments spent more on public transport investment than every other Australian government—put together—since Federation. This is really important, because the money that is being put forward here in this legislation is not going to go to public transport, and I just want to make it clear that we understand that. It is certainly not reflective of stepping away from a commitment to public transport. We are fiercely in favour of that, and I say that particularly as a Victorian. We saw in the last state election a bit of a referendum—as the Prime Minister called in—on the East West Link. We saw the people of Victoria being very clear that, instead of a big road that very few people in the community actually wanted, they wanted investment in public transport infrastructure. And Labor is very keen to help them achieve that. We saw some other important reforms to infrastructure under the former government, which I want to highlight while I have the floor this evening. One of the really important things Labor did was put infrastructure right at the top of the national priority list. Because of the incredible work of the member for Grayndler when he was infrastructure minister, Australia moved from being one of the lowest-spending countries in the OECD to being the highest-spending country on infrastructure in all of the OECD. When you go around Australia—as we all get to do as members of parliament—particularly in local communities, there is rarely a person who does not know Albo and his fierce commitment to funding good public transport that cities want and to funding roads of national importance. One of the critical things that the member for Grayndler was able to do as infrastructure minister was make some really important moves towards taking the politics out of infrastructure funding decisions. Infrastructure is of course probably the most famous example of pork barrelling—you hear about 'bridges to nowhere' and those sorts of things—that is just making light of a very serious point, which is that these projects can be so politicised and they are worth really significant dollars. One of the important things that the last government did was put a really good framework around infrastructure decisions through the establishment of Infrastructure Australia. In the Leader of the Opposition's budget reply speech, we heard about some really important initiatives that Labor wants to put forward, if we form government again, to continue that important process of depoliticising infrastructure decisions. These decisions are too important—too important to our national economy—to be just the play-thing of whoever is the Prime Minister of the day. Some of the things that the Leader of the Opposition talked about were, for example, trying to bring some semblance of bipartisanship into the approach, and to provide more independence to Infrastructure Australia. I would contrast that with the approach we have seen on the other side of the House, where, for many months—I think, more than a year—Infrastructure Australia was actually without a chair. That really tells us everything we need to know about the seriousness with which they take the independence of these infrastructure decisions. There is so much more that we could talk about in this important reform. We have not talked about the employment implications of the decision that Labor has made. And that is key, because this is about $1.1 billion flowing right into local communities and building construction projects that are of local need. Let me just say that Labor has made what was a really significant impost on Australian motorists into something that we see will benefit them and local communities, and benefit local governments. I am very pleased today to support the legislation before the House. 20:36 Mr ZAPPIA HWB Makin I rise to speak on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015. Recently I was speaking with some people who live in my electorate about the very issue of petrol excise. The general consensus amongst them was that if they knew that the excise was going directly into funding roadworks then they would not be opposed to it. And that is exactly what this proposal now does. Can I say from the outset, I commend the team on Labor's side that put this package together and also the government for agreeing to it, because, effectively what we are now agreeing to is a measure that ensures that some of the money that is collected through the excise on petrol or diesel or whatever it is goes directly into funding roadworks around the country. And even more importantly, it goes into funding roadworks in a very fair and equitable way. I will come back to that in a little more detail later on. What is also important in respect to this measure is that it also goes a long way, as many other speakers on this side of the House have said, towards reinstating some of the funding that has been cut to local government across the country by the Abbott government over the last couple of years. These are real cuts made to local government because the financial assistance grants to each and every one of the councils around Australia was frozen for a three-year period, costing local government nearly $1 billion over that three-year period. By cutting $1 billion from local government, what it means is that each council then has a choice: it can either cut funding from programs and projects within its council area or it can increase rates. But either way, it has got to make a tough decision as a result of a cut made to it by the federal government. As we have seen across the country, particularly in outer metropolitan councils and in remote and rural councils, the impacts of these cuts have been felt even more. Then there was about $200 million cut from frontline community services across the country, many of which were jointly funded between local government, the federal government and the local organisation that was providing the service. Services such as counselling, legal advice, youth and aged care programs were all being provided or delivered by local governments around the country. I am aware of some of those services in my own electorate that are going to cease as a result of having their funding cut. Again, because it is local government that is delivering those services, in many cases the community will hold them responsible and the local government, knowing the benefits of the services they are delivering, will not want to cut those services but will have to pick up the shortfall of the funding cuts from the federal government. And so again local government wears the bill of federal government cuts to it. Then there was also the $1.3 billion cut to pensioners across the country as a result of the government walking away from an agreement which has existed since 1993, initiated by the federal government, to pay part pensioners a whole range of concessions when they became of pension age and were eligible for a part pension. One of the critical concessions they were entitled to was on council rates. And again, councils have been under pressure to make decisions about whether they would continue to fund the concessions. But as it has turned out, my understanding is that most of the costs have been picked up by state governments. However, when the state governments pick up that $1.3 billion, it comes at the expense of other state government priorities, which include roadworks. So again we see funding to roads and other government services either cut and the work is not done or some other level of government has to pick it up. Even if it is the state government, it still means that it comes at the expense of some other work. So this proposal effectively puts money back on the table. I have not even touched on some of the other cuts such as to health and hospitals, which were also impacted. I want to talk briefly in the time that I have about how this proposal impacts on South Australia. The first point I want to make about the impact on South Australia is this: in the 2014 state election campaign in South Australia, one of the key issues raised by the RAA, the Royal Automobile Association, was that of trying to get a commitment from the two major parties for increased road funding. The association wanted the increased road funding because the roads across the South Australia need serious investment into them. There is no doubt at all that in many cases accidents that we see across Australia quite often are attributed to bad roads, badly maintained roads, poor designs and the like. So spending money on improving the road system saves lives of people throughout our country. But it also means that you can spend money on fixing up roads because in recent decades we have allowed a growth in homes in and around the urban areas and around the CBDs but we have not matched that growth with a growth in spending on the roads that service the people that ultimately are going to live in and around those areas. But for South Australia there are some additional matters that are relevant. The first thing is: with respect to the level of infrastructure spending in South Australia, in the Abbott government's first budget, only four per cent of the $50 billion of national infrastructure spending was allocated to South Australia, only four per cent. Then in the same year the $18 million of supplementary local road funding was also cut. There was a longstanding supplementary allocation made to South Australia because some 20 or 30 years ago a formula was put in place which disadvantages South Australia because South Australia, with 11 per cent of the roads and over seven per cent of the population, only gets just over five per cent of local road funding. To make up for that, South Australia has for years picked up some supplementary funding. And then we saw in this year's budget some further cuts. There was $130 million cut from rail projects, $126 million cut from the South Road project, $62 million cut from other road projects, $4 million cut from bridges and $2.5 million cut from heavy vehicle safety improvements. Again, this was all money that would have been relevant and important to make South Australians roads safer. This proposal puts the money into the Roads to Recovery funding pool. The Roads to Recovery funding pool is distributed independently of politics under a formula that has been already worked out and is already in place and which, I believe, is very fair. In South Australia's case, under that program South Australia gets between eight and nine per cent of its share of local road funding, which is what it should be in all other respects, so it gets the right amount. So, in respect of what has been agreed on here for South Australia, it is a good outcome because it means—I have put it at roughly a figure of—an extra $100 million that will be allocated to South Australia. But, more importantly, whatever share it gets will be based on the Roads to Recovery funding share, which is an equitable distribution of road funding in this country. The last thing I say—because I notice that the Treasurer is here and he wants to wrap this matter up—is that again, importantly, putting money into road projects around the country is one of the best ways of stimulating the economy. I do not think anybody would disagree with that. Right now, at a time when we have unemployment in South Australia above seven per cent and youth unemployment much higher than that, investing in infrastructure projects in the country is the best thing we can do that can immediately create jobs and put some of those people back into employment. And it can put them back into employment having constructed projects that are essential for the state, will improve road safety and, quite frankly, will improve business efficiency throughout the state, and that means better productivity. As I said from the outset, I believe that consumers, the people who pay this money, will not object to it, will not resent paying it, if they know that the money that they pay as a petrol excise goes directly into funding the roads. That is what this proposal does, and that is why I support it. 20:46 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney I thank the member for Makin for his thoughtful contribution and recognise that, yes, a substantial part of this proposal will go to the people of South Australia and to the improvement of roads in South Australia. I would just say to him, in relation to the rest of the infrastructure, that I have repeatedly asked the South Australian government to bring forward major proposals, including through the asset-recycling scheme, and as it stands today they have not given us any proposals that meet the criteria—that is, the infrastructure proposal needs to have a reasonable cost-benefit analysis. Having said that—and the Prime Minister has indicated this—we are prepared to work in good faith with Jay Weatherill and the South Australian government to find the projects and to help fund the projects that are necessary to build the South Australian economy. I genuinely want to build a stronger South Australian economy. I genuinely do. I love South Australia. Mr Husic 91219 Some of my best friends come from South Australia! Mr HOCKEY DK6 Well, my daughter is named Adelaide, actually, so it has a very special place in my heart. But South Australia is a great state. In particular, when I was the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, I was doing everything I could to try to put South Australia on the global tourism map because I think its product is in many ways second to none in other parts of Australia. Having said that, we will work closely with the South Australian government should they put up proposals. I want to thank every member who has contributed to this debate. It is certainly a significant moment. It is a significant moment because this is a significant structural reform that will deliver $23 billion to the budget over the next 10 years. I know it is hard for many people to see petrol prices increase with inflation and, in this case, the excise increasing with inflation, but we need to pay for new roads. We need to invest in the infrastructure that is going to make us a stronger and more prosperous economy. If we can have better roads that reduce the congestion and that help to improve our productivity, that is good for Australia. Every single dollar of excise that comes from this bill, associated with the inflationary impact on excise—every single dollar—will go towards road funding. That is hugely important. In addition to the proposal put forward by the Labor Party to increase the Roads to Recovery program—and, as I said in my second reading speech, the base funding for Roads to Recovery has been $350 million a year—we had increased it next year, in 2015-16, to $700 million at any rate. So, when the shadow Treasurer contacted us and endeavoured to negotiate an agreement, we were prepared to appropriately consider the offset of an extra $1.15 billion over two years, which is the increase in the excise equivalent over the next two years, and put it into the Roads to Recovery program. I want to emphasise that I did not want to be in a position where we were putting an extraordinary amount into 2015-16, so we are putting an extra $300 million into 2015-16 and around $850 million on top of the $350 million in 2016-17, so we have a reasonably flat line, albeit an increase. And then bear in mind that it drops down to $350 million after that, which was the base funding. Why do we do so? It is because this is timely from an economic perspective. It is timely from an economic perspective to get out there and build the roads as we go through the transition from mining construction to mining production. There are large number of potential workers who have been involved in the mining industry who are coming back to other parts of the country. This is an opportunity for them to get work in road building and potentially even bridge building—because I am advised that they do qualify under the Roads to Recovery program, which is very important in country areas. But I might say that it is timely from an economic perspective. It is advantageous because it is deliverable from an economic perspective. Importantly, local government is a well-respected deliverer of these sorts of programs, so it is not as if you are trying to build an entirely new industry to roll out the roads. There is a proven track record in relation to the delivery of the money in this area and the delivery of outcomes in this area. It is outcome oriented, which is hugely important. Finally, as the member for Makin mentioned and I am sure many others have mentioned, it does cover every part of Australia, and I think that is hugely important. No part of Australia is left out of this program. It is not specific. There is a formula that is laid down by the Local Government Grants Commission and their formula will apply to this extra funding. Improving and repairing the budget should not be this hard, but it is. Despite quite a journey from the opposition, we welcome their support. I am not going to labour on the politics of the decision, nor am I going to labour on the politics of the debate. I am focused on outcomes. I have always, always been focused on outcomes. This is the right outcome for the people of Australia and it is the right outcome for the budget. Why? Because, if we have a stronger budget, we have done everything we can to prepare for the challenges of the future—and we are absolutely determined to repair the budget. This was announced in the 2014 budget. It was subject to considerable criticism, but it is the right thing to do. Like a number of other initiatives in that budget it is hugely important for Australia that, at the appropriate time, in the view of the parliament, and it is absolutely right that we pass more and more measures from that budget. That is the only way we are going to be able to properly prepare Australia for the future. In the last two weeks, we have seen a number of measures pass through the parliament that help to strengthen the Australian economy and strengthen the Commonwealth budget, and they were decisions that were made in the 2014 budget. I commend this bill to the House. I thank everyone that has contributed to this debate. In good faith, I thank the opposition for being prepared to be reasonable about this. I do not gloat about this. What I do care about is that we strengthen the budget and strengthen the Australian economy so that we leave a better Australia for our children, and that is exactly what this does. This legislation is hugely structural. It is very significant. As I said in my second reading speech, I was there when indexation was taken away. There were many factors at play at that time. The lost revenue for Australia since that time has been extraordinary. And, rather than introducing a whole raft of new taxes, it is far better to make the existing taxes work and work to the benefit of the Australian people. In this case, because every dollar of excise increase is going into roads, there is a real benefit to the Australian people. I commend the bill to the House. Question agreed to. Bill read a second time. Third Reading 84 20:55 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015 84

Customs Tariff Amendment (Fuel Indexation) Bill 2015

Second Reading 84 Third Reading 84 20:56 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015 84

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Special Account Bill 2015

Second Reading 84 Third Reading 84 20:58 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015 84

Fuel Indexation (Road Funding) Bill 2015

Second Reading 84 Third Reading 85 20:59 Mr HOCKEY DK6 North Sydney by leave—I move: That this bill be now read a third time. Question agreed to. Bill read a third time. National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2015 85

National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2015

Returned from Senate 85 COMMITTEES 85 COMMITTEES Constitutional Recognition of ATSIP 85 Membership 85 ADJOURNMENT 85 ADJOURNMENT Shipbuilding Industry 85 21:00 Mr CONROY 249127 Charlton I rise on this occasion of very sad news. Developments in the last few hours have revealed that Forgacs shipbuilding in my home Hunter region will be laying off another 160 workers from their 450 strong workforce. Unless something urgent is done they have signalled they intend to close by the end of this year. This will mean their workforce that has come down from 900 to 450 will now come down to 290 and, unfortunately, be zero by the end of the year. This is a great tragedy. This tragedy would have been avoidable if the Liberal government had taken action to combat the shipbuilding valley of death and if they had taken action to secure the security of this nation. The response from the member for Paterson was appalling. The member for Paterson showed not a single skerrick of sympathy for those workers, instead he claimed that the fault lay entirely with Labor. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me review the facts. Forgacs won AWD shipbuilding module contracts under Labor in 2008-09. It was a Labor government that chose to award those contracts to Forgacs that delivered 900 jobs to my region. Secondly, it was Labor in 2013 that had a plan to combat the shipbuilding valley of death through making the supply ships in Australia and looking at the future frigates. Any statement from the member for Paterson on this issue is a gross untruth and demonstrates yet again the incompetence of the man. He has been demoted twice in the last two years due to his gross incompetence and the gross incompetence by this government. There is a great human cost to this lack of action by the Liberal government. I met a redundant worker from Forgacs in Toronto only three weeks ago. He explained how he was doing it very tough. He was waiting for Centrelink benefits and was on the verge of living out of his car because of this great tragic event in his life, an event that would have been avoidable if those on the other side had taken action. This is a tragedy not just for Forgacs workers and their families; it is occurring throughout the nation. We have seen the tragic news with BAE shipbuilding and the loss of jobs there. That shipbuilding yard is in huge doubt as well. All this comes because of the broken promise from those opposite and their lack of action on combating the shipbuilding valley of death and their lack of action on submarines. Before the last election they made a commitment to build 12 submarines in Adelaide and they broke that promise. They broke that promise because they do not care about Australian jobs. They broke that promise because in their hearts they do not care about national security. This is the party that brought us into the second Iraq war. This is the party that brought us into Vietnam. This is the party of 'Pig Iron Bob'. They hide behind national security rhetoric. When it comes to putting our interests first they fail. They are about to put 4,000 to 5,000 shipbuilding workers out of work. Not only will that have a grievous impact on those families and the regions in which they reside, including my home Hunter region; it will have an impact on our national sovereignty. We are maritime nation. We need to be able to build, maintain and repair ships in this country. Their policies are reducing that ability. Their policies mean that it will be enormously difficult to build the next generation of submarines, let alone maintain them. Their policies mean that it will be enormously difficult to build the next generation of frigates and maintain them appropriately. The great tragedy is that our industry can compete against the rest of the world. By the time we were building the last few vessels of the Anzac class we were building them cheaper than you could do anywhere else in the world. That was a benefit of a continuous build and a continuous shipbuilding policy. It was the policy of the Liberal government around 2003 and it lasted six months before they abandoned it. I am calling on them to embrace it. It is the only solution to this problem. It is the only solution to a problem that is imperilling 5,000 jobs. It is the only solution to the undermining of the huge national defence capability that we would need to rely on, God forbid, if we came into any conflict. I am calling on the Abbott government to take action, to stop sitting on their hands, as they have done for the last year and nine months, and to start to do something about it. They cannot continue to blame the Labor government that took real action on this issue. They cannot continue to play petty games of blame when our national defence is in peril and when the jobs of 5,000 workers and their families are in peril. I call on them to put the interests of the nation first instead of their political narrow interests. Renewable Energy 86 21:05 Mr RAMSEY HWS Grey That was a disgraceful performance by the member for Charlton, who well knows his government did not order one ship in six years. If you want to know how to engineer a valley of death in shipbuilding, it is by ordering no ships. It is disgraceful. Tonight I want to round off an issue that I have spoken on a couple of times in the last two weeks and have not had the opportunity to flesh out. Unfortunately, I had to give up some time to the member for Charlton because I could not stand the Australian public to be so badly misled. Unfortunately, we heard that Alinta will be closing the Flinders power stations some time between March next year and 2018. I hope it is the later date. Unfortunately, this is the ultimate, predictable and I guess intended consequence of the renewable energy scheme that got in front of itself. Instead of supplying the new electricity load to Australia in an expanding market it has been subsidised to build electricity into a decreasing market, which has led to over generation. The baseload generators are at the bottom of the feed chain. Tonight I want to focus on the consequences and the possible way ahead for the town of Leigh Creek and the city of Port Augusta. Last week was Local Government Week and I had the Mayor of Port Augusta here with his CEO. We organised meetings with a number of ministers, including Ian Macfarlane, the Minister for Industry and Science. Leigh Creek is a government town, owned by the South Australian government—a town of about 500 people, really created solely for coalmining. If it were to lose 253 jobs, it basically would lose its reason for existence. But in the time that it has been there, of course, it has become more than just a coal supply town. It provides jobs and supplies the local pastoral industry. It has also become an important tourism step as people work their way into what is absolutely the outback of South Australia, or the outback of Australia. There is a very good school in Leigh Creek. I see the town surviving, but it will be in a smaller shape. There are some good prospects in the area. There is talk now of coal gasification. There is also an iron ore deposit in the area. It is not easy to get an iron ore project up at the moment, but of course there is a very good railway line there, so perhaps there are some synergies that will show themselves. In Port Augusta, following the meetings I had with the council, there were a number of issues raised that I had not even considered. For instance, there is a lake on the south of town in which the water is supplied by the heating ponds and the overflow from the power station; it is above sea level. It is called Bird Lake because there are lots of birds on it. It has been landscaped and there are birdwatching facilities. Of course, if there is no power station, the lake dries up and becomes basically a stinking mess on the southern side of Port Augusta. We cannot allow that to happen. The council will lose $500,000 worth of rates a year from the closure of Alinta. The council will see a loss of sales of land that they had intended to make into what was a growing city. We can hardly expect it to keep growing at the moment. A hundred and eighty-five jobs are being lost in Port Augusta, and they are pretty well-paying jobs too. There are some very bright spots around Port Augusta—including Sundrop Farms, which will be employing over 200 people in the next 12 months using solar desalination to grow truss tomatoes for the Coles supermarket chain on a 10-year contract. That is a very exciting prospect, and they are looking to use that as a training base for the world. I have also been having discussions with SolarReserve, the latest company to build a solar concentrated power station in Nevada. They are interested in constructing in the area. In fact, they have bought land. So there are some possibilities and things in the pipeline, and I guess it is my job as the member for Grey to make sure that the doors to the federal government and to the ministers are open for the proponents of these schemes and others. The mayor tells me there has already been interest in the Alinta site. I do not know what those industries are, but he said he has had discussions with some already. So my door is open. I will open up the doors to the ministers so the people who have plans for Port Augusta can get to the government and get a deal. Ethanol 87 21:10 Mr KATTER HX4 Kennedy I have seen some great deceits in my time, in 41 years in parliament, but the deceit on ethanol really gets the prize. I have never seen such a concerted effort of public lying as I have seen on this issue. This is a map of the world, with all of the countries that are on biofuels in the world. All the countries in the world are coloured in. Every single country has ethanol biofuels—all of Europe, all of North America, all of South America, China, India, Japan, half of Indonesia and Thailand. All the world has ethanol except for Australia and the countries on the African continent. Why is that? Why is this nation out of step so badly? All the world has 0.2 per cent interest rates. Australia is actually skiting about having two per cent interest rates, which drives our cost structures through the roof. Let me return to ethanol. This is a picture of a handsome-looking film star in a big white hat, filling up a General Motors car in Sao Paulo in Brazil, and the price is 74c a litre. At the present moment in Brazil, you can buy ethanol—the cost structure has gone up—for 91c a litre. In the United States, you can buy it for 64c a litre. We get the RACQ in Queensland saying that it is a train crash and it will put the price of petrol up. It is funny it has not put the price of petrol up in the United States or Brazil, but it is going to put it up in Australia. That is very curious, and it will be very curious when we disclose the reasons why the RACQ, or certain people in the RACQ, have taken this position. Let me move on. It has been decided by this government and the last government— Wyatt Roy interjecting— Mr KATTER HX4 There is a little fellow down here playing up, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you throw him out. He should really be with his toys. Let me continue and not be interrupted by children. In 2002, $1,000 million was sent overseas to buy petrol. This year, we sent $25,000 million overseas to buy petrol. Mrs Griggs interjecting— Wyatt Roy interjecting— Mr KATTER HX4 The people laughing and jeering here, the two Liberal members, obviously think that is funny. They think it is funny that we should be buying all of our petrol from overseas. Well, the NRMA in New South Wales does not think it is funny. It thinks that a country that will go without any possible way of refuelling its petrol tanks if we get into a difficult situation internationally must be crazy. That is what the NRMA thinks, but these two great geniuses here from the Liberal Party think it is funny that we are sending $25,000 million overseas instead of into rural Australia for ethanol. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you represent grain growers. There are over 3,000 grain growers in Queensland. I represent a lot of grain growers. There are 40 lot feeders. The 40 lot feeders are screaming blue bloody murder. Why? Because it puts the price of grain up, because it gives a 16 per cent benefit for your struggling grain growers. You know the number of people that have hit the deck in the grain-growing industry and that are hitting the deck as we talk. I might add that two of the five biggest grain growers in Australia are amongst that number. We saw the very great courage of George Christensen crossing the floor on this, because he just could not live with his conscience any longer. It does not seem to worry too many of the rest of them over here. In the sugar industry, the Brazilians enjoy $420 a tonne. We cannot get $340, because our cane is used for sugar and their cane is used for ethanol. We cannot compete against them. They are murdering us. They are cross-subsidising. Finally, on CO2, we have the Queensland government spending $1,000 million to solve the CO2 problem, and the answer is right there in front of them. (Time expired) Northern Australia 87 21:15 Mrs GRIGGS 220370 Solomon It is an exciting time to be a north Australian. Last week I proudly stood beside the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister Robb, Minister Joyce and a number of my colleagues—and you, Deputy Speaker Scott. How could I forget? We were all standing together while the Prime Minister launched the white paper on north Australian development. Since Federation, there has been a lot of talk about developing north Australia. There has been lots of talk about grand schemes, some practical schemes and some less so. But when all was said and done—and there has been a lot more said than done—I am really proud to be part of the coalition government which is going to be the government that actually turns these ideas into infrastructure, into industry and into jobs for the people of north Australia. Up north we have approximately one million people spread across three million square kilometres. This means that there is a lot of potential. There is a lot of room to grow: room to grow our population, room to grow our industries and room to grow food for Australia and the emerging markets in South-East Asia. There are also challenges, such as: how do we support these growing industries with the infrastructure they need? How do we get their products into the markets? How do we make sure that north Australian people have access to the same opportunities as southerners? For the first time in Australia's history, a government has met these challenges head-on and come up with a road map to really develop north Australia. But the process does not end with the plan. The process of developing the North will be a long one. It will span decades. But the wheels are now well and truly in motion. Between the white paper and the 2015-16 federal budget, more than $6 billion has been set aside for major nation-building infrastructure across north Australia. From the budget there is $5 billion in concessional loans for major infrastructure projects and $100 million to upgrade beef roads across north Australia. As part of the white paper process there will be additional investments, including $600 million in road investment across northern Australia to upgrade regional routes like the Arnhem Highway, the Barkley Highway and Tanami Road, with Indigenous employment targets on all projects funded through this initiative. There is going to be $200 million for water infrastructure across northern Australia and $110 million towards finalising all native title claims within a decade. There is $75 million for a cooperative research centre in the north to investigate climate, soils, agriculture and biosecurity, with a strong focus on increasing agricultural productivity. There is $20.4 million to better support native title holders engaging with investors. There is $10.6 million to support innovative land tenure arrangements, $5 million towards investigating the feasibility of a rail link between Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory and Mount Isa in Queensland. There is simplification of land tenure arrangements so Indigenous land owners can use their land as they see fit. I am delighted that there is going to be a 'one stop shop' for major investment approvals to be established in Darwin. There are streamlined visa processes to attract tourists from China and India, and there is going to be a major international conference held in Darwin in November, and this is going to be attracting a lot of overseas investors—something I am really, really pleased about. Mr Deputy Speaker, you can see that I am excited, and I know that you are excited too about the opportunities that are facing north Australia. Parliamentary Secretary McCormack, you should be excited because if the north is doing well it means the rest of Australia is going to do well. Once again, all the wealth in north Australia is going to be shared amongst everybody in the rest of Australia. Parliamentary Secretary McCormack, could I just put on the record my thanks to you for expediting some defence spending—which I was going to speak about but I have run out of time. Thanks again for your support to my electorate. Parramatta Electorate: Higher Education 88 21:20 Ms OWENS E09 Parramatta We all think we live in the best electorates; but, when it comes to education, I really do. I doubt that there is another electorate in the country where people are as committed to lifting themselves from where they are and putting themselves in a place with greater opportunity. I can actually prove it. You just have to look at my University of Western Sydney, where we see the extraordinary efforts by local families to build better lives for themselves and their children. My electorate is incredibly diverse. People actually cross oceans to get to Parramatta to build better lives for their children. But whether they are born here or whether they have migrated here, there is extraordinary attention to building better futures for their children. Fifty per cent of the students at the University of Western Sydney are the first in their families to go to university. There is an old saying that the greatest determinant of education level is the education of the parents. In Western Sydney and in Parramatta, 50 per cent are the first in their family to go to university. Seventy-two per cent of them have to work their way through—so they work and study. One in four students come from a low-SES background, which is the highest number in any Australian university. Thirty-two per cent are mature age. They have come in after a period of work to get additional qualifications, and 15 per cent of them did not make it out of high school. They actually came in through training pathways and education and vocational training. Again, they did it the hard way—an extraordinary cohort of students in Western Sydney who demonstrate this amazing commitment to building better lives for their children and themselves. So I was pleased when the Abbott opposition immediately before the last election committed to no cuts to education and when they committed to a unity ticket with Labor on Gonski. I doubted it at the time, but I was hopeful. But, as we all know, once they were elected, it all changed. They broke those promises and they proceeded to cut funding to early childhood education and schools; and, of course, they are still endeavouring to cut funding to universities. In fact, $30 billion was cut out of schools in that first budget, and every student in every school in Parramatta will be worse off as a result of that budget. The government's own figures show that Parramatta schools will be $231 million worse off over the next decade. That is $231 million in my electorate alone that could provide extra teachers, special music or art classes or more literacy and numeracy programs The average school will be $3.2 million worse off, and those cuts will affect every school in Parramatta—public, independent and Catholic. There are over 27,000 Parramatta schoolkids, and their parents are counting on the increased funding as recommended by the Gonski report to give our kids the best education possible. In an electorate as diverse as mine, we have a very flat bell curve when it comes to socioeconomic matters. There is quite a long tail at the poorer end and quite a long tail at the wealthier end, so we need that needs based funding to make sure that the funding goes where it can be most used. Many of my schools are extremely distressed about this. We have Delany College in Granville—a Catholic school with an extremely diverse student base from some 38 different nationalities, which adds an extra layer of complexity to teaching as that school tries to find programs that compensate for and exploit the differences that those students have had in their life experiences and their educations prior to joining Delany. It is an extraordinary school that is noticing already the effect of these cuts. But it is not just schools; we have also seen, of course, cuts to Youth Connections in Parramatta. Youth Connections was a fabulous program. We have 16.8 per cent youth unemployment in Parramatta. That is a crisis. This particular organisation worked with kids who had lost their way. These were young people who were on the street, who had dropped out of school, who were not in work or looking for work and who had essentially lost their way. It worked with those young people for sometimes up to two years. Two years after those young people had left that program, 80 per cent of them were either back in school or in work. That is an extraordinary contribution by an organisation which lost its funding in December last year. The Liberal state government is no better, with cuts to TAFE. We have seen enrolments in cert. III plummet by 18,000 students, according to the budget papers, and cert. IV by 10½ thousand fewer enrolments because of those cuts to TAFE. The Liberal Party, whether it is state or federal, has an appalling record on education. (Time expired) National Security: Citizenship 89 21:25 WYATT ROY M2X Longman I rise to speak on the critically important issue of national security. The harsh reality of modern times is that the world is often more dangerous. Since last September, we have seen two home grown terrorist attacks inspired by the Daesh death cult. Australian authorities have disrupted six planned attacks. In only nine months 23 people have been arrested as a result of seven counterterrorism operations around Australia. That is more than a third of all terrorism related arrests since 2001. The escalating security crisis in Iraq and Syria poses an ongoing terrorist threat not only to the Middle East but to Australia and our region. Our security agencies are managing over 400 high-priority counterterrorism investigations. There are 260 Australians either fighting in Syria or Iraq or supporting the conflicts from here in Australia. At least 26 and possibly as many as 35 Australians are believed to have been killed fighting with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. The coalition government will do what it can to stop people from leaving to fight with the Daesh death cult. If you do leave, we will stop you from coming back in. If you manage to come back, we will do everything humanly possible to put you in jail. Our message to people who leave Australia to fight for terrorist armies in the Middle East is a simple one: we do not want you back. The first duty of government is to keep our country safe, and the last thing any of us want to see is terrorists in our community. If you go and fight with a terrorist organisation against Australian forces and you are a dual national, we will strip you of your citizenship because you have made a decision to no longer uphold the privileges that come with being an Australian citizen. We are simply stamping your removal of that citizenship. We must respect and defend the gift of Australian citizenship. If necessary, that means quarantining it from those who seek to do us harm. Our legislation will update the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. Since 1948 Australians with dual citizenship who fight for a country at war with Australia have forfeited their citizenship. The updated law will ensure dual nationals who serve or fight for terrorist groups or engage in terrorism related conduct inspired by terrorist groups will also automatically lose their Australian citizenship. As well, the act will be amended to ensure dual nationals who are convicted of specified terrorism related offences automatically lose their Australian citizenship. Dual nationals who engage in terrorism are betraying their allegiance to our country and do not deserve to be Australian citizens. These new laws will be another measure to counter the growing terrorism threat. This is on top of the additional $630 million the coalition government is investing in boosting our counterterrorism capabilities. We are investing $13.4 million to strengthen community engagement programs in Australia, with an emphasis on preventing young Australians from becoming involved with extremist groups. We are investing $32.7 million for a multi-agency national disruption group to investigate, prosecute and disrupt foreign fighters and their supporters. We are investing $11.8 million for the Australian Federal Police to bolster its ability to respond to the threat of foreign fighters at home and abroad, including local and regional liaison officers and two new investigative teams to help reduce the threat of extremists leaving Australia. For all of us in this place it is very clear that the first duty of the government of the day is to defend the Australian people. We in the coalition government remain absolutely resolute in our commitment to keep Australians safe. The DEPUTY SPEAKER YT4 Order! It being 9:30 pm, the debate is interrupted. House adjourned at 21:30 NOTICES 90 NOTICES QUESTIONS IN WRITING 92 QUESTIONS IN WRITING Australian Competition and Consumer Commission: Oilcode (Question No.744) 92 Question No.744 Ms McGowan 123674 asked the Minister for Small Business, in writing, on 3 March 2015 In respect of fuel price regulation, (a) what arrangements are in place for when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's (ACCC's) Oilcode regulations cease on 1 April 2017, (b) have the Oilcode regulations resulted in a reduction of disparate fuel pricing between regional/rural and urban areas, (c) is the Government considering other plans to reduce fuel price asymmetry between regional/rural and urban areas; if so, can he outline them, (d) is the Government seeking to legislate in the area of fuel terminal gate pricing or have this remain within the legislative realm of the states and territories; if the former, will the Government consider implementing fuel terminal gate pricing (or a similar scheme), and (e) how will the ACCC better monitor fuel pricing (in accordance with his recent statement), and will this include the ability to stop higher pricing in rural/regional areas. Mr Billson 1K6 The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: (a) The Australian Government has regulatory requirements to undertake a review of the Competition and Consumer (Industry Codes–Oilcode) Regulation 2006 ('the Oilcode') ahead of its scheduled 'sunsetting' on 1 April 2017. As part of the review, consultation started on 11 December 2014.. (b). The Oilcode establishes terminal gate pricing ('TGP') arrangements (i.e. publishing the price at which wholesale suppliers are prepared to sell tanker loads of fuel to wholesale customers at seaboard terminals or refineries on a spot basis), fuel re-selling agreement provisions, and provides a dispute resolution scheme between wholesalers and retailers. (c) In December 2014, the Government issued a new direction under section 95ZE of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 ('the CCA') to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ('the ACCC') to monitor prices, costs and profits relating to the supply of unleaded petroleum products in the petroleum industry in Australia for the next three years. (d) The Oilcode establishes only publication of a terminal gate pricing ('TGP'). It does not set the TGP. (e) Monitoring reports will now be produced quarterly to be more informative, responsive and able to identify areas of market concern or heightened interest for the community. . If the ACCC finds evidence of anti-competitive conduct, it can investigate and take action under the current provisions of the CCA.