It is my duty to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the Senate amendments conveyed by this message raise an important point of constitutional principle.
The amendments propose to amend the definition of 'Northern Australia' in the bill. Such change in the definition would change the destination of the appropriation in clause 41 of the bill.
There is doubt that the Senate may proceed in such circumstances by way of amendment because of the requirements of section 53 of the Constitution. Among other things, this section prohibits the Senate from amending a bill so as to increase 'any proposed charge or burden on the people'.
The matter for consideration is not so much one of the privileges and rights between the two houses but of the observance of the requirements of the Constitution concerning the appropriation of revenue.
I am advised that the view has been taken, where expenditure is appropriated in these circumstances, section 56 of the Constitution requires that the proposed appropriation be recommended by a message from the Governor-General. I understand that such a message has been obtained in this case.
If the House wishes to entertain the proposal reflected in the Senate’s proposed amendments, the House may choose to proceed by alternative means.
I move:
That:
(1) the House endorses the statement of the Speaker in relation to the constitutional questions raised by Message No. 487 transmitted by the Senate in relation to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill 2016; and
(2) the message be considered immediately.
The opposition will be supporting this proposition moved by the minister, but we are somewhat bemused that this government that has just begun this term, because this is week 2, allegedly, of this current sitting of parliament, is frankly so incompetent that we have circumstances whereby we have this occurrence. It may well have occurred early on in my 20 years in this place, but certainly since I have held the position of Leader of the House or the Manager of Opposition Business it has not occurred. This is quite unusual. It has occurred because the government failed to understand what was appropriate when it put together the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill.
Due to the very strong advocacy from my colleague the member for Perth, the government has recognised that it made an error in its original drafting of the bill on the definition of 'Northern Australia'. The substantial amendments that the government has foreshadowed will have to be moved in this House first and then carried in the Senate second. That is what should occur. Mr Speaker, I know that you and I would agree on the primacy of the House of Representatives under the Constitution. It now needs to be done through this rather convoluted procedural action moved by the government.
We certainly endorse your statement, Mr Speaker, on the constitutional issues. You are quite right, of course. But we find it extraordinary that the government had to have the Australian Constitution drawn to its attention in what is week 2 of a parliament that was convened to consider two pieces of legislation, one of which it dropped. That says it all about why this government should be put out of its misery on 2 July. It simply has not been competent to act like a government. It continues to act like an opposition in exile on the government benches.
This extraordinary proposition that is before the parliament today, which as I said the Labor Party will facilitate, is a change to legislation which has been advocated primarily by the member for Perth but supported by the Australian Labor Party to try and get this right. Of course, we facilitated the passage of the northern Australia infrastructure legislation through the parliament after it was prorogued. We put it through very quickly to try and help this fledgling new cabinet minister over here, because it is in our nature to be constructive, which is why we will support this proposition. But we say that Australia does not have long to wait before it has a government that understands the way the parliament works and is actually able to govern competently. We will have that opportunity. This bill only provides for loans for northern Australia, but it is legislation which we support, but we support it being conducted in a way that is obviously consistent with the Australian Constitution. My colleague the member for Perth will speak about the substance of these changes when the minister moves his amendments subsequent to the procedural resolutions that are currently before the House.
Question agreed to.
Message from the Administrator recommending appropriation for the bill and proposed amendments announced.
I move:
That the Senate's purported amendments be disagreed to and Government amendments Nos (1) to (3) made in place thereof.
We have made these amendments after strong advocacy from the member for Durack, on our side of the fence. She has pointed out that the original definition of 'northern Australia' was first outlined by Infrastructure Australia in their Northern Australia audit. After her strong advocacy and after consideration and consultation, we have expanded the definition to include all of Exmouth and the Carnarvon region as well as the local government shires of Wiluna and Meekatharra.
The point here is that we have had a vision for northern Australia. The fledgling shadow minister for infrastructure, who would only wish to get back on the treasury bench—and I am afraid he will have to wait long after 2 July for that—did not have that vision. His party did not have the vision to develop Australia's north when they were in government for six years. Alternatively, we have recognised that that part of our country—above the Tropic of Capricorn and including some of the areas below, representing some 40 per cent of Australia's landmass but only five per cent of our population—needs critical economic infrastructure to reach its economic potential. That economic infrastructure may be transport infrastructure: roads, rail, airports and ports. It may be energy infrastructure, it may be communications infrastructure or it may be water infrastructure.
Why is water infrastructure important? Because 60 per cent of Australia's rainfall falls above the Tropic of Capricorn, but we save only two per cent of it. So we need to create the dams that can help the irrigation of the North and help the 17 million hectares of arable land we have there to become the food bowl of Asia. What is so exciting about the northern part of our country is that it is on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia. Indeed, it is closer from Darwin to Singapore than it is from Darwin to Melbourne. It is closer from Townsville to Port Moresby than it is from Townsville to Brisbane. We have these key centres in Australia's north, whether it is part of Western Australia, whether it is part of Queensland or whether it is in the Northern Territory, which are on the doorstep of these burgeoning middle classes in Asia.
We can capitalise on that, whether that is in tourism—over one million Chinese came to our country for the first time just last year, and there were nearly 150 direct flights each and every week between China and Australia during peak season—or whether it is in agriculture. The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which the Leader of the Opposition was so sceptical of—indeed, he was against it before he did another backflip—has turbocharged our exports to China. In fact, the export of bottled wine, for example, is up more than 65 per cent since that agreement came in. Exports of lobster and crayfish are up more than 270 per cent. These are numbers that you will not hear from the opposition because they have been denying the economic prosperity of the exporters in our agriculture sector.
We have world-class universities in our north and we are setting up a CRC to get closer cooperation between industry and academia. We have put more money into Indigenous rangers and to strengthen biosecurity. We have more money—$100 million—for beef roads and we have held important consultation forums across Australia's north. There is road infrastructure, water infrastructure and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a $5 billion concessional loan program which will see government partner with business as well as with the state and territory governments. This is great news for Australia's north and it is the result of a northern Australia white paper which was long overdue in this country and which it took a coalition government to implement. I thank the architects of that report, the member for Leichhardt and Senator Ian Macdonald, because they have helped put in place this infrastructure we need. This infrastructure is going to be put in place by the NAIF.
This is an important time for our country. It is an important time for the development of our north. I pay tribute to Andrew Robb, who also did an excellent amount of work. I am pleased that the definition has now been expanded, because so much more of Western Australia will now benefit along with Queensland and the Northern Territory. I commend these amendments to the House.
We are very keen to support these amendments, which will give some justice to Western Australia. It was quite bizarre that the approach to Western Australia was so different to that of Queensland or the Northern Territory. In the Northern Territory a decision had been made that the North would be taken from the 26th parallel. Although in the north-west of Western Australia the North had always been taken as being from the 26th parallel, the definition in the legislation took it as the Tropic of Capricorn with some exceptions. In Queensland the definition was from the Tropic of Capricorn, but with around 65 per cent of the area between the Tropic of Capricorn and the 26th parallel added back in. In Western Australia, it went in the other direction and actually took areas that were north of the Tropic of Capricorn out—areas like Coral Bay, the Cape Range National Park and all the little communities up there. Major horticultural areas like Carnarvon were also excised. The contrast with Queensland could not be greater.
It is true that representations had been made to the member for Durack but, unfortunately, the bill kept on its course with these discriminatory executions and exceptions for Western Australia. The matter was brought to my attention—I mentioned this the other day—when I was in China at a Northern Australia investment conference. I was approached by Tony Beard of the Gascoyne Development Commission. I then started looking in detail at the legislation and found that it was worse than people had originally thought. It had the consequence, no doubt unintended, of excluding some of the areas north of the Tropic of Capricorn. I then paid an emergency visit to Carnarvon and met with the Gascoyne Development Commission, the Pilbara Development Commission—which was supporting the Gascoyne commission on this—and Karl Brandenburg and the Shire of Carnarvon, along with the growers from that region and with Vince Catania, the local National Party MP. I put together some amendments, got support from our side of the equation, spoke with Warren Entsch and contacted the member for Durack's office as well; I am sure they backed the need for change.
The real point is that Western Australia needs to be constantly vigilant. I have no doubt that this bizarre definition somehow emerged from the bureaucracy, but how can a bill treat Western Australia in such a discriminatory way? We need to be constantly vigilant in Western Australia to ensure that our needs are properly attended to and that the metrics of legislation and policy and programs are not forged in such a way to cause our state unequal treatment. This is a plea to all Western Australian members to be vigilant and to prosecute our case harder. It is not a case of being unreasonable; we simply want fair and equal treatment with the Northern Territory and Queensland.
I do thank all those colleagues—particularly Glenn Sterle and Warren Entsch, who has chaired the Northern Australia committee in an excellent way and has encouraged the development of a bipartisan approach. I would like to add that the Labor Party has always been quite a strong proponent of development in the north. (Extension of time granted.) Just yesterday we saw the celebration of the life of the now departed Rex Patterson and the role he played to ensure Darwin was rebuilt as a modern city after the cyclone. I could nominate many other instances, but the one I would bring to the attention of the House is the very substantial investment in social infrastructure by the last Labor government which allowed the second stage of the Ord River development to go ahead.
I have previously mentioned the developments in the Kimberley, where Chinese investors are bringing a great deal of energy, creativity and contact with supply lines into horticulture in the Kimberley. I do thank the minister for seeing the good sense and agreeing to the proposed amendments. With these we have the ability to take horticulture forward and to set up connections within Asia to bring in investors from our north in a collaborative partnership to open up new markets for us. They will bring some creativity to allow, for example, a vertically integrated beef business that promotes Kimberley and Pilbara beef as specialist brands, rather than as mere commodities. We need to bring horticulture and agriculture together to achieve this and we need to have serious investment by the CRC into those areas. I really want to thank again all those people in Carnarvon who brought this to my attention and who got behind the campaign. It has been a very good outcome for everyone.
We view with considerable apprehension the proposal being brought forward today. The Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia has the reputation—and, I think, a well-earned reputation—for being open minded as well as a man of action, and he has been given a very short time frame in which to get something done. But both the ALP and the LNP have no understanding that we do not want to hear what they are 'going to do'. When I was in a government that won every single election for, I think, 35 years, we did not go to an election saying what we were going to do, because that is an advertisement against you The immediate question, then, that leaps to people's minds—and I said this many times in the Queensland cabinet—is: 'Why haven't you done it? You've been there for three years, and you've been there for 12 of the last 15 years; why haven't you done it? You've had all this time and now you tell us you're going to do it next time.' Well, 'going to do it' is not good enough. We will be having a great picnic, please God, at the expense of the majors and saying just what I am saying here. I am not in the business of playing political games. I am in the business of reality.
The reality is that we were promised $500 million for water and we have not got one cent for one single project. Of the projects that the minister for water—and I am not knocking him, because he is one of the better guys over there—named for North Queensland, one is extremely detrimental to economic development and the other is the Ord, stages 2 and 3. I will not say anything against the last speaker, the member for Perth, or the positive remarks that she was making, but as a person at a distance I say the Ord River stages 2 and 3 will easily be the biggest farming operation in Australia, and it will be foreign owned. The biggest farming operation in Australia at the moment is Tasman Farms; it is foreign owned. The third biggest operation in Australia is Cubbie Station; it is foreign owned. What the hell do we own? If you want to know where is the money is, $23 billion of superannuation money is shipped overseas and put into the roulette wheel of the American stock market. That is a wonderful use of our money! If people knew where their superannuation was going, they would lie awake at night in a cold sweat.
Before the age of 'marketisation', as the wonderful Billy Wentworth, one of my great heroes, used to call it—before free markets, market fundamentalism, globalisation, whatever words you want to use; we all know it means economic rationalisation—occurred, 60 per cent of all superannuation moneys went into government securities, and, heavens, isn't that where it should go? If I put money away for my retirement, if the government is taking it off me and off my employer, shouldn't I get some sort of guarantee that it is going to be there when I retire? If you think that investment in the Australian stock market or, even worse, the American stock market is a good, safe employment of my moneys, then I do not think you know very much about economic history, recent or past. It is appalling to think that this money is at huge risk.
So, in the past, that money went into government securities and bonds. From the government securities, it built all of the rail system into the coal industry of Queensland, which up to three years ago carried the nation's economy on its back. Queensland coal was far and away the biggest export item, something like four times bigger than its nearest rival, with the exception of iron ore. How was the coal industry created? Where did it come from? Did it just drop out of the air? In 1960, I think it was, we were a coal-importing nation. How did we suddenly become a coal-exporting nation? (Extension of time granted)How did the coal industry, which carried this nation on its back for 50 years, happen? It happened because the money was there in the superannuation funds, and that money, with a government guarantee, was spent on building rail lines into the coalfields. We build 6,000 kilometres of railway line, at a cost of about $1 million a kilometre—and that is in dollars at the time, not dollars now, so maybe you would treble that to almost $20 million.
The great Sir Leo Hielscher—of the four biggest bridges in Australia, two of them are named after Leo Hielscher—was offered the head position at the Reserve Bank three times and at the World Bank once. He was maybe the most frugal, penny-pinching treasurer in Australian history. If you were a minister in those days, you would not even think about getting an increase in your outlays, I can assure you! But he said there was never any danger. We knew the markets were there. We knew the economics of producing the coal. All we needed was a railway line and a port, and we could get the coal out.
For the last 25 years, I have not known of a developmental project financed by the government anywhere in Australia. When the Liberals announced a $12,000 billion infrastructure package to boost the Australian economy, it was roads and rail in the city. As our little party says all the time: what do you get for a $5,000 million tunnel in Brisbane? And the ALP was skiting about this. They said for a $3½ million rail across the river, in Brisbane, you would get a 15-minute saving for the commuter, so he gets home 15 minutes early to watch the television. A few thousand people in Brisbane get home 15 minutes early to watch the television!
The LNP proposed, last year, that they were going to build a $5,000 million tunnel—which would make Brisbane the most tunnelled city in the world. To quote the great economist John Quiggin: 'If there is one thing that characterises recent Queensland governments, it is tunnel vision.' It is a beautiful phrase. Queensland would have 21 kilometres of tunnels and Sydney would only have 14 kilometres of tunnels.
If that $5,000 million were given to Minister Frydenberg and used to build a railway line into the Galilee, I would give you $4,000 million a year in revenue for the Australian people. I would give you 20,000 jobs, for the next hundred years, if it were used on the Hells Gate Dam and the Upper Herbert River proposals, which are almost identical but just further north. If that $5,000 million were used for those three projects—the two water projects have an income of $4,000 million a year. That is 40,000 jobs forever. The wonderful initiatives taken by our miners, along the Northern Territory border, for getting our phosphate out with a canal would give you $4,000 million a year and 40,000 jobs for the next hundred years. It would be similar with the silicon.
If you give us $7,000 million over a period—I think we can do it with guaranteed loans but maybe we can't—Minister—through the chair—if we can be provided with $5,000 million I most certainly can give you the canal and the phosphate for $4,000 million. I most certainly can give you the Upper Herbert River proposals and Hells Gate proposals and the Galilee coal— (Time expired)
by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, I present the supplementary explanatory memorandum to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Bill 2016.
Question agreed to.
I am speaking today on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. This bill establishes a new savings fund sitting within consolidated revenue, which the government claims is needed to help the Commonwealth meet its funding obligations for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
There are a number of concerns and unanswered questions with regard to this legislation, which is why Labor will seek to refer the bill to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for further scrutiny. Labor will not oppose this legislation in the House, in order to promptly facilitate a Senate inquiry. Let us immediately dispense with the delusion that this legislation is about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is not about the NDIS. It is all about politics. It is not about funding the NDIS, because Labor has already funded it.
I am sorry to say that this legislation has a much more cynical purpose. This is a smokescreen, an alibi for the cruel cuts that this government has planned in tonight's budget and beyond. The entire case for this legislation rests on the assumption that the Commonwealth has not made the necessary budget decisions to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is a fib, a falsehood, a fallacy. It is a tired piece of propaganda repeated time and again by those opposite, particularly by the Minister for Social Services and the Treasurer. I intend to go through what is, in fact, the truth.
The former Labor government's 2013 budget set out a 10-year funding plan for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This included but was not limited to an increase in the Medicare levy. A number of other budget measures were proposed and legislated, and these funds currently sit in consolidated revenue. Together, these measures show that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is funded. Despite their serial dishonesty, deep down, those opposite must know that the NDIS is funded. How could that be?
It is because each and every one of them voted for these budget measures. That is right. The members of the coalition—National and Liberal—sat side-by-side with Labor MPs to legislate all but one of these savings measures. The coalition supported all but one measure proposed by Labor—in fact, some of the legislation giving effect to these measures passed the parliament after the last election, once the coalition had formed government. In opposition, as in government, the coalition supported budget measures specifically intended to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The figures underpinning these budget measures were, of course, developed by the Treasury—led at the time by the widely respected Martin Parkinson, now the secretary of the Prime Minister's department—and yet the government now claims the scheme is unfunded. If coalition members really did not support the legislative measures identified in the 2013 budget to fund the scheme, why did they vote for them? If the funding from these measures is no longer directed towards funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme, where is it being directed? If the government truly believes the NDIS is unfunded, why has it signed bilateral agreements with state governments committing to the full rollout and the full funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
I am very sorry to say that the answer to these questions is: politics, pure and simple. This government, which proclaims bipartisan support for the NDIS, is more than happy to use the scheme as a pretext for more budget cuts. In his speech introducing this bill, and in a crass attempt to rewrite history, the Minister for Social Services claimed that these measures were 'effectively lost for the purposes of the NDIS'. I have never heard such a pathetic excuse. Seriously, minister, you have lost the money! That is your excuse. This is not a set of car keys; this is billions of dollars specifically intended for people with disability. You cannot just lose it.
Then again, this is the minister who, as state Treasurer, was responsible for a fiscal drive-by on the people of Western Australia. He was the Treasurer of Western Australia during the height of the mining boom, but he left that state with a budget that is now more than $3 billion in deficit, so maybe it is the case that he is actually incompetent. If anyone could misplace billions of dollars, it seems it is the former Treasurer of Western Australia, who is now the Minister for Social Services here. But, of course, the truth is: this government did not lose it. This is not incompetence; it actually is thievery. They did not lose it; they are stealing it. This money is in consolidated revenue. It is there to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme, as intended, but the government is choosing not to. It is an effective theft of funds that are meant for people with disability.
Another ridiculous argument put forward by the minister is this idea that if savings measures are not locked away in a special account they are 'washed away'. Where on earth they would be washed away to is impossible to know. We are only now just beginning to understand how this minister could possibly have stuffed up the Western Australian economy so badly. He seems to have no idea how budgets work. Has the minister, in fact, set up a special account for his family tax benefit cuts which are supposedly meant to fund the government's phantom childcare package? Of course he has not. He seems to just be making it up as he goes along.
I have recently written to the minister asking him to explain this legislation and its myriad inconsistencies. I have asked him to explain what the government has done with the funding from the legislated budget measures, which were supported by coalition members of parliament. I have asked him to explain why there is a need for another special account specifically for the NDIS when one already exists. There already is the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, which the Medicare levy increase funding has been put into. I have asked the minister to clarify if this legislation allows the minister to arbitrarily take funding out of the special account to spend on purposes other than the NDIS. Unsurprisingly, I am still to get a response.
The minister either cannot or will not provide these answers. Therefore, Labor will seek to refer this legislation to a Senate inquiry, because we are determined to get the answers that this minister so far refuses to give. Of course, the government has not bothered to speak to people with disability about this legislation. I have not heard of a single organisation that has been consulted on the bill. They, too, have valid concerns—concerns that this minister has not listened to, because he has not even bothered to ask. An inquiry will allow for proper scrutiny of this bill and will give people with disability and their advocates the opportunity to provide feedback. As I said, Labor will not oppose the bill in this chamber. We do want to see a Senate inquiry conducted as soon as possible. We want answers to all these questions, and it is only in a Senate inquiry that we might have some chance to get them.
But make no mistake whatsoever: the premise for this legislation—that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is unfunded—is wrong. This legislation is just the opening salvo in the coalition's latest attack on the NDIS. The next barrage that we can expect to see will come tonight. No doubt it will be another budget full of broken promises, skewed priorities and cruel cuts. This is the most shameful aspect of the government's approach to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. They are prepared to hold the NDIS to ransom in order to secure more cuts in other areas. That is what they are going to try to do tonight. They will tell another group of Australians that they have to be hurt in order to provide support to people with disability, and they will tell people with disability that they can only be supported if other Australians are hurting, pitting one group of people against another. It is unforgiveable. We saw it in the last budget and we expect to see it again tonight.
I said at the beginning of these remarks that this legislation is not about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is not; it really is about fear. I am very sorry to say that this government wants to frighten people with disability and their families and carers by telling them that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not funded. This coalition government seems to want to say to people with disability that they should fear the future. This government is deliberately and maliciously shrouding the NDIS in uncertainty—and that is disgraceful. It is the lowest use of high office that I can recall. It is a disgraceful way to treat people with disability, who have waited all their lives for this transformational scheme.
The Liberals like to say that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is above politics—and it should be. But why do they insist on constantly trying to tear it down? Are their minds too narrow or their hearts too small to see the fundamental good in this reform? Are they so willing to tear it down just because they did not build it? I say to the minister and to the government: no matter what you throw up tonight, no matter what other attacks you have planned for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, people with disability know that Labor will always stand with them. We built the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and we will never, ever let you destroy it.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016 is the second of two bills designed to improve the governance and funding arrangements for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. If ever there were an example of why we need this bill, of why we need to quarantine funds for the NDIS, it would be the words of the previous speaker, the member for Jagajaga. It was the party opposite and the member for Jagajaga this morning who said that $19 billion was a rounding error. These are the people who do not think that to quarantine money for the NDIS is sound fiscal management.
I can assure the member for Jagajaga that I have been consulting with the sector. I have been meeting stakeholders and mentioning this bill, and I can assure her that they are delighted that the coalition government is not only determined to quarantine this money but determined to ensure the success and future financial viability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. That is how we are doing it. Through this legislation, we can quarantine the money set aside and any additional savings so that future governments know that that money is there, that the people in the scheme, the most vulnerable in our community, know that they are protected into the future from potentially incompetent Labor managers and that that money is set aside to secure their future.
This bill is further acknowledgement of the importance that the government places on the success of the NDIS and in recognition of the fact that its financial stability is crucial to its future success. The government takes its financial responsibilities for the NDIS very seriously. This bill is testament to the government's determination and commitment to establishing a sound basis for funding of the NDIS. We do not need a Senate inquiry to tell us that. Those with disability, their carers and the individuals and organisations involved in the provision of services within the disability sector depend on adequate funding for the NDIS. Indeed, one of the key questions that is regularly raised with me—as I said, I have been moving around Australia, talking to stakeholder groups—relates to funding arrangements for the NDIS and whether those arrangements will meet the needs of those with disability, particularly as demands on the scheme increase. It is obvious that no scheme, however worthy its objectives, will succeed unless it is adequately funded and those funds are secure.
Accordingly, the government is acutely aware of the need to establish a sound basis upon which the NDIS can be financed. As commitments under the scheme increase, there must be a concurrent increase in the funds available to finance the scheme. At the same time, with the possible exception of the federal opposition, few people remain followers of the magic pudding theory of economic management—that is, the more you spend the more you have left over to keep spending. The economic principles are fairly simple, and I remain puzzled that those opposite still seem unable to come to grips with the simplest of concepts. Money can only come from three places: increased taxes, increased borrowings or savings. Recognition of this and of the critical importance of adequately funding the NDIS is central to the objectives of this bill.
This bill will establish a new ongoing special account, known as the Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. Over the next 10 years, the fund will be able to receive credits which will be available to fund the continuing operations of the NDIS. This vehicle will allow for money to be quarantined so that the Commonwealth government will have an additional secure source of funds to be directed towards the NDIS. It is not a revolutionary concept, because the Howard government established the Future Fund with the initial objective of financing the superannuation obligations of Commonwealth public servants. What is critical is that it provides a secure mechanism by which funds can be preserved for the benefit of the NDIS.
What continues to appal me, however, is the economic vandalism that drives the opposition. Their single-minded determination to make a political point irrespective of the facts never ceases to amaze me. On 19 April this year, the Leader of the Opposition claimed and, indeed, the member for Jagajaga said it previously:
… the NDIS, the National Disability Insurance Scheme was properly funded when Labor left office and what we did is we increased the Medicare levy.
The truth is that the NDIS was not properly funded when Labor left office in 2013. Any savings Labor claims were to be directed to the NDIS were simply returned to consolidated revenue. They were not set aside to fund the NDIS, which is what we propose to do. Labor did not put those funds aside. Indeed, they re-spent them several times. It is for this reason that the coalition government is required to find an additional $5 billion. We think that is a lot of money. Clearly, those opposite think that $19 billion is a small rounding error. We believe that $5 billion is a significant amount of money that we need to find and quarantine for the successful future of NDIS. Whatever Labor might choose to believe, whatever smoke and mirrors they use, you cannot spend the same dollar twice. You cannot direct the same dollar towards disability funding if it has already been used to help build a surplus.
As I have indicated, the growth of the NDIS and the growth in demands on its resources over time will be the greatest challenge the scheme faces. The level of certainty that a fund of this nature provides will be crucial in maintaining public faith in the capacity of the scheme to fulfil the expectations of those who will be its beneficiaries. At the same time, this government would be derelict in its duty if it failed to maximise the possible sources of revenue for the scheme. We acknowledge the significant financial commitment required for the scheme to reach its maximum potential.
I am delighted to support this bill. It is a significant move towards establishing a stable financial base for the NDIS, which, as I have indicated, is one of the most important social reforms that Australia has seen for many years. I am particularly pleased that the fund will draw from underspends from the NDIS and other portfolio savings. This will mean that money originally intended to be spent on the sector will remain within it and not be lost to some unrelated endeavour. I believe that this is an effective way of rewarding the efforts that are made to find savings in the first place. This bill deserves the support of the House, and I look forward to its passing so that the foundations for a sound financial future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme can be laid.
I rise to echo the comments that have been made on this side of the House and by the member for Jagajaga. We all remember the photo when this legislation was introduced into the previous parliament. I was not here then, but I can remember watching it as it was broadcast live around Australia. It was stark and really demonstrated how genuine people in the Liberal and National parties are about this legislation. For all of their protests that this policy—the establishment of the NDIS—is bipartisan and that they support it, they were not there the day it was tabled in parliament. Every Labor MP was here and a lot of the crossbenchers were here, but not one coalition member was here on that historic day to talk to, to listen to and to celebrate with the families after the legislation was introduced.
Picking up on what the previous speaker said—that it is unnecessary for this to go to a Senate inquiry: if you are so sure of the figures and your argument then you have nothing to fear, and a Senate inquiry will just validate the claims that you have made. But given the concerns that have been raised and the fact that there is such a contradiction between the previous parliament and this parliament it is right that the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016 should go to a Senate inquiry so that these questions can be asked and settled.
A 10-year funding plan for the NDIS was set out in the 2013 budget. Regardless of what this government is trying to do to change history, it was set up and included a five per cent increase to the Medicare levy. So, yes, Australians did have an increase in the Medicare levy, and that was supported. I can remember talking to people on the ground who were more than happy to pay an increased Medicare levy. The government seems to think that people fear paying a Medicare levy—that it is a great big tax. People in our community support a well-funded Medicare system. They supported, wholeheartedly, increasing the Medicare levy to fund the NDIS—which was known, back then, as DisabilityCare—because so many people in our community know someone with a disability, have a disability themselves or care for someone with a disability and understand the impact this change—this system—will have on their lives.
Also set out in that 10-year funding plan were several other budget measures to fully fund the scheme. As the member for Jagajaga pointed out, coalition members should remember this because they all voted for the single measures. Perhaps that is the problem: they did not turn up for the debate so they did not realise what they were voting for. Perhaps it was one of those moments where, as it was a Labor government measure that was put forward and because they were not there in the chamber to hear the speeches, they did not understand that they had actually voted for a plan to fund it.
People in our community are sceptical about this government, and they want this inquiry to go ahead. They have a right to be sceptical because of the way this government has taken the hammer and the axe to Medicare and because of the way in which this government has cut billions of dollars from our health system. It is no wonder that people are sceptical about this government's claims when it comes to funding the NDIS.
It is also the form of this government. They are not hiding who they are. When Medicare was first introduced many decades ago—back when it was Medibank—the coalition of the day opposed it. Then, when they were in government, they did everything they could to slow down the rollout of Medicare. Since they were elected we have seen further funding cuts in their 2014 budget, in their 2015 budget and in their MYEFO. They have tried several times to push through a GP tax. They have tried to use different tactics to cut and change how Medicare works.
So we will not take the minister's word for it when he says that there needs to be a change in how we fund the NDIS. We want this legislation to be tested and for people with a disability, their carers and their organisations to be able to ask questions. This inquiry needs to be established to allow proper scrutiny of this bill. It will allow people with a disability and their advocates to provide feedback. This is complex policy, and everybody acknowledges that. So we need to allow people the chance to properly scrutinise this bill and provide their own comments. We need to make sure that the government listens to the concerns of people with a disability and their advocates. That is why it is important that we establish a Senate inquiry to look at this legislation.
There have been countless groups speaking up about the role and purpose of the NDIS and how it will fundamentally change the way disability services are delivered. But we are in a very critical stage of that. If we do not get the funding formula or the rollout right, we could end up with a system that is not true to the spirit of what we wanted. Quite frankly, not a lot of people trust this government and its ability to make sure that the NDIS lives up to expectations.
This is the most significant social form since Medicare. Currently, every state delivers disability care and support services differently. I was disappointed to hear yesterday some of the contributions in the debate around other measures in relation to the NDIS, criticising some states for working it through in a timely fashion. How disability support services are currently delivered in Queensland is entirely different to how they are delivered in Victoria. In my home state, currently it is a mix of block funding to non-government providers and the DHHS. These will be abolished and everybody will be on an individual funding package. Currently, some people in our state are on individual funding packages, and they all have mixed experiences of being on an individual support package. Some have said that it has been great. Others are struggling, particularly if they managing the package themselves in-house within the family, and they are looking for support. So there are lessons from Victoria's experience to help inform the rollout in our country. It is disappointing when you have people from the government get up, point the finger at their state governments and say 'You are slowing this down,' and, 'How dare you be playing politics?' I think that we need to allow the states the genuine space to negotiate and make sure there is a smooth transition. There are a lot of people that work in the disability sector. We need to be mindful and make sure that they are involved in this conversation, because we radically changing their workplace as well.
The new funding packages will be administered by the Commonwealth through the NDIA. From the launch sites, we know that, after a few minor issues to begin with, this is largely working well. There are lessons that we are learning. People in my part of the world are closely watching what is happening in the Barwon region in Victoria, because we are quite excited that we will be one of the first areas where the NDIS will be rolled out when it starts to be rolled out across the state. In my electorate, from 1 May next year, Greater Bendigo, Loddon, Macedon Ranges and Mount Alexander will receive the rollout, and people are excited to be in the transition phase.
The government are trying to hide how they fund the system and that is making people nervous. Now more than ever we need to be transparent. If the government are saying the money is not there, then what has happened to the money? Taxpayers, people who pay their Medicare levy, say, 'Hang on a minute; I have paid for this.' Is it the fact that we have a problem as not as many people are paying tax these days or that wages are going backwards so there is less growth in the Medicare levy because it relies upon wages? Well, be honest about that and tell us that. What is going on? Where has the money gone? This is why we need to have a Senate inquiry to look at this very factor. If the government did not have anything to hide, they would not fear this going to an inquiry so that stakeholders—whether they people are working in the sector, whether they are people with a disability or whether they are advocates—know exactly how the government are funding the system.
One of the other issues that has been raised in my area is making sure that we have a quality NDIS. With the new NDIS being market based at its heart, there is an issue of how the funding and basic price for services will be determined. Given the issues that we have in other sectors of our community when it comes to market based schemes, we need to make sure that we really test this to make sure that we do not undercut ourselves when the scheme begins. This obviously will have a major bearing on workforce remuneration, funding for training staff, the services and equipment that are provided, and the not-for-profit and government organisations in this space. The national body, the NDIA, has already established a basic price unit for services which is called the efficient price. Stakeholders across Australia believe that this price is currently set too low. These are the early stages where we are working to make sure that, across the sector, we have the system right. The price is based on the modern award, so therefore it does not take into account the different ranges of pay across our different states. It does not take into account simple things like penalty rates. One family member said to me: 'My son doesn't stop having a profound disability on a Saturday or a Sunday. He needs to have carers come in on a Saturday or a Sunday.' Another said, 'My daughter still needs assistance being washed on a Sunday.' These are some of the issues that are coming forward with this new scheme. It is a complex scheme.
We also have varying needs of the people with disabilities that will be covered by this scheme. The very nature of disability means there is diversity and that therefore different care, different equipment and different arrangements are needed. Some people thought this was just about making sure somebody had a wheelchair or a program. That is not true. There are a lot of people that work in this sector. We need to make sure that they are being consulted in this rollout. This is another area that I want to highlight in relation to making sure that we transition all of our disability support services across the country into a quality NDIS. To have a quality NDIS, we need to have a quality workforce and we need to make sure that we have a quality system in place that is open and transparent.
When in government Labor established the funding plan that was set out for 10 years to help with this transition so we could do it in a timely fashion to help those people in our community most in need. Australians have a right to be concerned if this minister is now saying the money has disappeared, given that they have already contributed towards the NDIS through an increased Medicare levy. The NDIS was designed, funded and introduced by Labor and it was being delivered on time and within the budget. Thousands of people across Australia have already had their lives transformed by the NDIS and we want to see that continue. We want to see the 3,400 people with a disability in my electorate have the same opportunity. But we need to make sure that the funding that was allocated continues to be there.
This comes back to priorities. Tonight we will learn a lot about the government's priorities in their budget. We already know that there will be a tax cut for the top end of town. That is about 15 per cent of my electorate, meaning 85 per cent of my electorate will not get a tax cut tonight. We already know where their priorities lie when it comes to taxes. We know where their priorities lie when it comes to the family tax benefit. We know where their priorities lie when it comes to Medicare. We need to know where their priorities are with the NDIS. Whilst we support this bill going through the House, it needs to go to a Senate inquiry so people with a disability and their advocates and carers can sit across from the government and the minister and question him and say: 'You committed. You sat with Labor. You voted with Labor when this was first introduced. Where is the money that is owed to the system?'
It is a pleasure to stand to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. Firstly, I come to this debate with a little bit of a vested interest. I have discussed this in other debates on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I am not going to go over those issues again, but there is no-one in this House who wants more than me to see the National Disability Insurance Scheme fully funded and operational to give our kids, our teenagers and all people in our society who are afflicted with disability a better go. It is not only for those people but for their carers as well. I see the mental strain on carers of people with disabilities as one of the most difficult issues that we need to tackle in our society.
I was hoping that I could come into this chamber and that we could have this debate above politics. Unfortunately, we have seen the contributions from the Labor members—the member for Jagajaga and the member for Bendigo—dragging this debate down into a partisan political debate, which is very disappointing.
It may come as a surprise to the member for Bendigo, who gave a wonderful speech about how the NDIS was fully funded and how Labor, as the previous government, increased the Medicare levy by half a per cent. I do not think the member for Bendigo understood the finances of this. We know that when this is fully rolled out we will be giving extra care to 460,000 Australians under this scheme. The estimated cost is $22 billion. That is not a one-off hit; it is $22 billion every year. But the half a per cent increase in the Medicare levy that the member for Bendigo said this was going to be funded by raises only $3.3 billion. Only around 15 per cent is raised by the Medicare levy. This is just typical of what we see from the Labor Party. They come in here and try to lecture the coalition on finances and budgets and claiming that the Medicare levy funds the NDIS when we know it funds only 15 per cent.
We have seen more of that today and we saw it yesterday. We have seen the Gonski reforms that they were going to fund. That was all going to be funded by increases in the tobacco tax—that is what they said. We found out late yesterday that they have made a $19½ billion mistake. Do you know what they call it, Mr Deputy Speaker? 'A rounding error.' These are the people who want to come in here and give lecture the coalition government about how to fund this most important reform.
We have seen it before. Four years ago a Labor Treasurer sat in that seat. He stood up on budget night and he said:
The four years of surpluses I announce tonight are a powerful endorsement … of our policies.
He went on:
This budget delivers a surplus this coming year, on time … after that, strengthening over time.
… … …
The surplus years are here.
That is what they said. Now they come in here and have the hide to lecture us when it comes to the accounting of this scheme.
Let's go through some of the numbers to get to that $22 billion. There is existing disability funding which will be redirected to the NDIS, which is estimated at about $1.1 billion. On top of that, there will be a redirection of funding which is currently provided to the states for specialist disability services, and that is another $1.9 billion. That takes us to $3 billion. On top of that, we have the Medicare levy of $3.3 billion, so that takes us to $6 billion. We need $22 billion. Even assuming that the states come up with half of that, the Commonwealth needs another $5 billion worth of funding.
There are only a few ways that money can be raised. Contrary to what members that sit on the other side think, Mr Deputy Speaker, you cannot just turn the printing presses on and print money out. We cannot continue to borrow money. We are going on 10 years of budget deficits. We cannot continue. It is completely unsustainable. Somebody who is on $80,000 will pay about $625 this financial year in interest on the debt—that is on the interest only. In fact, if we did not have the debt that was run up through the reckless and wasteful spending of the previous Labor government, which blew billions of dollars on pink batts, wasted billions on overpriced school halls, had to spend extra billions on their failed water protection policies and sent $900 cheques out to all and sundry, including those who were deceased and those who were living in New Zealand, if we had not had that reckless fiscal financial management the interest that we are now paying on the debt could fund the NDIS in full. But we have that debt to pay. And we know that next year someone on average male full-time earnings will pay from their taxes $700, just on the interest on that debt. It will be more next year and more the year after.
We cannot fund the NDIS from borrowed money. We must fund it in a sustainable way, and there is only one way to do that. That way is from the taxes of the hardworking people, the wealth creators, of this nation. Yet what we see put forward by members of the Labor Party are policies that attack those very wealth creators that we expect to raise the money and the wealth of this country to pay for the NDIS. We want to see and we need more investment. But what do we see the Labor Party proposing? It is proposing a 50 per cent increase in capital gains tax. How will it encourage investment and wealth creation to increase the tax on capital gains by 50 per cent? It is often wrongly said that when people pay their capital gains tax they get a discount of 50 per cent. That is not correct. The previous Howard and Costello government changed the arrangements for capital gains tax where you did not make an adjustment for inflation, because you do not make any capital gains if that is all eaten away by inflation. We changed that in the previous Howard and Costello government. But increasing capital gains tax attacks the wealth creators.
We have seen also Labor's brilliant scheme to abolish negative gearing. It is an attack on investment and wealth creation also. It is not just housing on which they will abolish negative gearing; it is everything. Anyone who wants to start up a small business and take a risk—exactly what we want if we are to create wealth in this country—and suffers a loss would no longer be able to negatively gear that against wages and salaries. Yet if you are a wealthy investor and you have money from other investment income, you can negatively gear the losses from one business activity or one investment against your other investment income. So they are punishing the very middle class of this country who want to strive and create more wealth.
We saw Labor's attack on the middle class and the workers and the wealth creators with its Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. What an outrageous scheme, to place those people who are not in a union at a competitive disadvantage to price them out of the market. What an outrage. We know that Labor plans to bring it back. If Labor gets back into office it is going to bring back the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and the 30,000 truckies that are on our roads today are operating in fear that they will be sent to bankruptcy if this mob come to office.
They don't care.
The member for North Sydney is 100 per cent correct. They do not care. It is all about being perceived to be doing good, not doing good. Then we have them wanting to bring back the wonderful carbon tax.
Mr Deputy Speaker, a point of order on relevance: as much as I am enjoying the journey of the member, at some point in time he is going to address the bill that is before the House. It beggars belief that any of the matters he has dealt with over the last five minutes go anywhere near the subject matter of the bill before the House.
There is no point of order. Please continue.
The member for down the South Coast, the workers down the South Coast—
Throsby!
that he represents—this bill is all about how we are going to fund the NDIS. Where is the money going to come from? You may think that you just have to turn the printing presses up or go out and sell more government bonds and put the future generations of this country into greater debt to finance things. That is not how the economy works. That is not how government works. I am going through the things they are proposing, the reasons why and the things that we need to do to create the wealth in this country needed to pay for the NDIS gap that we have, because the Medicare levy at the moment funds only $3.3 billion out of $22 billion.
They plan to bring back their carbon tax under the name of an ETS. That will put up the price of electricity. Higher electricity costs in this country means fewer jobs. It will destroy jobs in this country. It will destroy wealth. There will be pensioners who will struggle to pay their electricity bills in the winter because this mob over here want to put up electricity prices. That is their plan.
The other thing that will destroy wealth creation in this country is our inability to bring back the Building and Construction Commission. We need a construction industry in which people can invest their money and know they will not be victims of union thuggery and extortion. Yet what do we hear from the other side? We hear whinging, because we know that they are the mere puppets of the union movement. That is all they are. They want to do the bidding of the union movement. As the member for North Sydney said, they do not care.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. What on earth does this have to do with the NDIS?
I am happy to take that interjection. Again, the member for Canberra simply fails to realise that we cannot fund the NDIS by printing money. We cannot fund the NDIS by firing up the printing presses or by borrowing more money. The way we have to fund this NDIS is through the wealth creators of this country. I am glad that you are here and I am glad that you are listening.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is a difference between a point of order and an interjection. The member for Canberra has raised a point of order, which you, as yet, have not ruled on. It is the same point of order that I have raised. He really is testing your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker. At some point in time he is going to have to address the bill before the House.
Please continue, Member for Hughes, but please be relevant.
On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: he is being relevant because he is talking about the economic conditions that are going to be vital to be able to support a scheme like the NDIS. I think it is entirely in order for him to be talking about the government's economic strategy necessary for those preconditions.
Please continue, Member for Hughes.
It simply shows how completely out of touch you guys are. You do not understand the basics—that the government itself does not have the money. The only way that we in this chamber get money to spend is through the wealth creation of the hard working people of Australia. You seem to think that there is some magic pudding out there that we can use to fund all this. We can have all the goodwill we want in the world, but it is the wealth creators of this nation who will create the funds— (Time expired)
I rise to add my voice in support of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Funds Special Account Bill 2016. I want to start off by picking up on a point that the member for Hughes made. We had the member for Jagajaga in here yesterday talking, predicting and being a clairvoyant. Today we have had her out at the doors talking about rounding errors. She is putting her accounting expertise out there for everyone to see. I have to say: nowhere have I ever seen $19 billion referred to as a rounding error. That puts us in the position where we have the Labor Party lecturing us on how we should fund things, and they cannot even get a rounding error definition correct. I think $19 billion for a rounding error is just horrific.
During my preparations for this speech I came across—as I am sure others in this House have—the National Commission of Audit report into the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This document, which dates back to 2014, makes some points about the uncertainties and financial pitfalls associated with the NDIS that are very relevant to this debate. Under the heading 'Drivers', the report states:
The Commonwealth’s contribution to the NDIS is expected to escalate rapidly in the forward estimates as the number of clients covered increases with the expansion of the scheme. There is some uncertainty over the actual number of clients, since the NDIS is effectively a demand driven programme. Initial estimates were based on the PC Report, but there is the potential for actual numbers to be higher. In particular, it is possible that eligibility within the broad mental health disability area may be much higher than forecast.
Around half the people currently eligible for the Disability Support Pension are likely to be in the NDIS. This suggests that there are likely to be many people who attempt to test their eligibility for the NDIS.
The report continues:
Care and support costs account for over 90 per cent of the total costs of the NDIS. Any difference between the actual and estimated average package costs will have significant financial impacts. Care and support costs are expected to be highly volatile in the early stages.
Data from the first quarter of the NDIS shows that average package costs are well above the original forecast ($46,000 compared to $35,000) … However, given the early stages of implementation it is difficult to read too much into these early estimates. It may be the case that package costs have so far been tailored to people with greater disability and therefore higher needs.
The report then goes into an examination of issues around the NDIS. It says:
The NDIS is a new scheme with associated uncertainty associated around costs and participant numbers. Most of the financial risk associated with this uncertainty will be borne by the Commonwealth. Under agreements with the States and Territories, the Commonwealth will meet 100 per cent of cost overruns during the launch and transition stages and at least 75 per cent, and up to 100 per cent, in the full scheme.
The initial roll-out of the NDIS includes both a launch and a transition phase. During this latter component, scheme numbers are forecast to increase from just over 30,000 in 2015-16 to over 450,000 in 2018-19 ... This represents a significant scaling up of operations, which poses a number of risks, including for the capacity of the new agency. It also increases the likelihood of any workforce pressures being amplified, thus potentially leading to wage pressures within the scheme. These pressures are likely to be exacerbated by increased demand for staff with similar skills in other areas such as aged care.
Next, the report moves into uncertainties around the extent of demand that the NDIS will generate. The report says:
Around 90 per cent of NDIS costs are expected to result from the provision of care and support packages. This means that a small 10 per cent increase in customer numbers and/or package costs can translate into large increases in overall expenditure.
Analysis conducted by the Australian Government Actuary has confirmed that there are uncertainties around all cost elements of the NDIS, e.g. populations, severity distributions and average costs …. .
Preliminary performance data is currently showing that the number of people registering interest in participating in the scheme is 50 per cent more than the expected number of participants for the period 1 July to 30 September 2013. Plan costs are also currently exceeding modelled average costs by around 30 per cent … Since this data on costs is only based on the first quarter of operations—
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
Yesterday I spoke about the tragic plight of Behnam Satah on Manus Island, the young female African refugee who was raped on Nauru and flown to Port Moresby for a termination, and Omid, who died from his burns after self-immolating on Nauru. Today another young refugee woman on Nauru is in a critical condition after setting herself on fire.
Today the UNHCR has released a statement including the following:
There is no doubt that the current policy of offshore processing and prolonged detention is immensely harmful. There are approximately 2,000 very vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru. These people have already been through a great deal, many have fled war and persecution, some have already suffered trauma. Despite efforts by the Governments of PNG and Nauru, arrangements in both countries have proved completely untenable.
The situation of these people has deteriorated progressively over time, as UNHCR has witnessed firsthand over numerous visits since the opening of the centres. The consensus among medical experts is that conditions of detention and offshore processing do immense damage to physical and mental health. UNHCR's principal concern today is that these refugees and asylum-seekers are immediately moved to humane conditions with adequate support and services.
My constituent Tim Winton put it well in his Palm Sunday address:
Prime Minister, forget the boats for a moment. Turn back your heart. Turn back from this path to brutality. Turn back from piling trauma upon the traumatised. Because it shames us. It grinds innocent people to despair and self-harm and suicide. It ruins the lives of children. Give these people back their faces, their humanity... For the sake of this nation's spirit.
(Time expired)
My electorate, like Sydney itself, is defined by its great harbour and waterways. At the turn of the 19th century, Henry Lawson described the residents of the lower north shore as the 'harbour people'. The description remains true today, and it is not surprising that residents have a long history of activism in defence of our harbour environment.
Much has been achieved to protect and improve access to our harbour foreshores. I am particularly pleased the Turnbull government is continuing that work at a place rich in the history of the harbour—the former submarine base HMAS Platypus on Neutral Bay. Originally considered for sale and redevelopment, the site was saved by the actions of the local community, supported so effectively by my predecessor, Joe Hockey. Following a major remediation project and with the support of a $20 million commitment I worked to secure from the government, it is now ready for the next stage.
The federal government will transform Platypus into a new urban park that will be enjoyed by the entire community. The federal government's Sydney Harbour Federation Trust will be preparing a new management plan for Platypus, and they are seeking the involvement of residents in that process. I therefore want to encourage residents to attend a planning open day that will take place on Saturday, 14 May 2016, between 10 am and 3 pm on site at Platypus. It will be an important opportunity to talk to the trust about how this site will be shaped in the years ahead so we can make it a truly wonderful addition to the public domain around Sydney Harbour.
I rise to note with great sadness the reports overnight that a 21-year-old female asylum seeker is in a critical condition following injuries sustained during a self-harming incident on Nauru. It is even more distressing to note that this is the second incident of this kind to take place within a week. If it was not clear to anyone before, this should be an unambiguous sign that there is something deeply wrong with how the Australian government is managing our system of offshore processing for asylum seekers.
It should be clear to everyone in this parliament that a policy that focuses only on the chimera of 'deterrence' will not work. Leaving people in indefinite detention or otherwise in an indefinite limbo state without a feasible pathway to permanent migration in a resettlement country destroys people. It breeds desperation and despair and leaves people without hope. The kind of incidents that we have seen over the past fortnight are an unavoidable consequence of this environment.
This is why Labor has been calling for the government to secure a credible third country arrangement for the long term settlement of refugees on Manus Island and Nauru through the life of this parliament. The government must now urgently seek a viable agreement to resolve the fate of people on Manus Island and Nauru. We ought to be able to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to implement an enduring third country settlement arrangement for these people. The basic human dignity at stake here should not be allowed to become a political football in the shadow of a federal election. We can do better than that, and we must do better than that. I implore all members of this parliament to aim for this objective.
I have spent much of the last few months listening to people in my electorate of Robertson on the New South Wales Central Coast, hearing their concerns at places like train stations and shopping centres, talking to them on the phone and knocking on their doors. These families and businesses are working hard every day, many of them with a long commute to and from work. They are asking me what our government is doing to help build a more secure economic future for their children and grandchildren.
This is a government that is determined to deliver a stronger economy, a targeted social safety net, higher wages and more jobs. Local jobs have been the cornerstone of our growth plan for the Central Coast, including 600 new federal jobs in Gosford and a major upgrade to Somersby industrial estate that is forecast to enable around 3,000 jobs in the future.
But to continue to deliver we need a national economic plan. I am advised that tonight's budget will outline our government's plan, clearing the way for Australians who make our economy work. These are the Australians in small- and medium-sized businesses, those Australians out there earning average wages. We will ensure we live within our means. Australians are living within their means, and the government have to do the same.
Labor, on the other hand, is committed to $80 billion of unfunded fantasy promises that will only lead to larger deficits and higher taxes. Labor, including its own local representatives on the Central Coast, keeps making wild promises, but at no stage has it come clean and explained to Australians where the $80 billion is going to come from. (Time expired)
Last month I had the privilege of visiting the Brotherhood of St Laurence Sambell Lodge residential aged-care facility in Clifton Hill. The residents are amongst some of our community's most vulnerable, having experienced homelessness, disability, mental illness or substance abuse. Currently providing 43 beds, Sambell Lodge has plans to expand to 117 beds. This expansion will help meet an already existing shortfall in local residential aged-care beds and it will provide the capacity for more disadvantaged community members to age with dignity.
Sadly, this beneficial project has been put in jeopardy. It has been put in jeopardy by the Greens party, who have blocked it despite their own expert counsel officers recommending that the development be supported. Objections centred on the removal of one sick tree with a life expectancy of only another 10 years and one derelict building which has been unused for 10 years. The cost of this policy lunacy is being felt by real people with real needs and undermines the very values the Greens purport to represent. This is an important local development that Clifton Hill should be proud of and it should not be undermined by nimbyism. The Greens should start practising what they preach.
I wish to briefly discuss an issue that is increasingly being raised by my constituents in Menzies—namely, the missing freeway link in north-eastern Melbourne. The traffic congestion in Warrandyte on Fitzsimons Lane and through Bulleen and Heidelberg is already bad and it is growing worse. Bulleen and Manningham roads in Menzies, and Banksia and Burgundy streets and Lower Heidelberg and Rosanna roads on the other side of the Yarra River are in gridlock every morning and afternoon. Heavy trucks in particular add to the congestion as they are forced to use Bulleen, Manningham and Rosanna roads to transit between the Northern Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway.
Just as the Monash Freeway needs additional lanes and the East West Link needs to be built, as the coalition is committed to, the link between the Northern Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway East Link needs construction. It was first proposed in 1969 and remains the RACV's No. 1 transport priority for Melbourne. Three possible routes have been discussed. It is time for the state government to seriously develop a plan and a time frame for building the missing link. The Victorian Labor government must get real about the increasing traffic congestion in Melbourne, build the East West Link and commit to the construction of the missing north-east link.
Access to mobile phone coverage is a fundamental right for all Australians but particularly so in rural and regional Australia. Wherever you are in this country you should be able to use your mobile phone. Today I bring a petition from residents of my community asking this House to consider the issue of access to mobile phone services for the residents, families, friends and visitors to the Thowgla and Nariel valleys. The valleys are side-by-side geographically and neither presently has mobile phone coverage.
The valleys are in a bushfire risk area and bushfires regularly cut power to landline telephone services, removing any ability of residents or visitors to monitor their own personal safety or the level of danger to their neighbours and the surrounding community. In 2003 the principal petitioner—and I would like to acknowledge Sue Sullivan for her work—personally experienced driving out from her property through a bushfire. Thirteen years have passed and no action has been taken to improve communications in the valleys.
I call on the government to listen to the voices from the valleys of north-east Victoria and to take action to improve telecommunications in the valleys. We have had round 1, which was very successful, and we are currently working on round 2. I am looking forward to tonight's budget to hear the government's commitment to rounds 3 and 4 so that wherever you are in this great country of ours you are able to use your mobile phone.
I am very excited about tonight's budget. We have things that are going to address the challenges that Australians are going to face in the future. We want to make sure that people have the confidence that they can get up and be rewarded for their hard work. We want to make sure that we have provisions so that we can have education for our children. We want to make sure that we have money for our aged care and money for our health services. Clearly Australia is walking through some difficult times. The world has stagnation but we have growth and we have a plan to put forward that is going to make people very proud.
The National Party has a plan?
The National Party has a plan. Our plan is based on rewarding those who are going to get out of bed and those who are going to deliver hard work, making sure that they get the fruits of their labour. That is something that I think all Australians should strive for. We have a good story to tell and I have to say respectfully that I do not think that the opposition has done the legwork in opposition to ask the Australian people for another term of government. They are still the same people who delivered us $123 billion of accumulated deficit over a very short number of years. I think the Australian people will think very seriously about whether they are prepared to trust us or trust the opposition when it comes to the next election. I am very confident that our plan, our long-term commitment and our vision for the future will deliver us another term in government.
I rise today, on budget day—or at least I think it is after the spectacle of question time yesterday, when some of us were left wondering after we saw our Treasurer not quite sure what day budget day was and having trouble counting to two. In education parlance he was having difficulty with one-to-one correlation.
We also saw the Deputy Prime Minister discussing sexually transmitted infections and carp, completely disrespecting a question from his side. We had a Prime Minister being agile with the truth and demonstrating yesterday only that he is obsessed with the Labor Party and with our leader, Bill Shorten. Of course, why wouldn't he be obsessed with a party that has 100 policies in the field? Why wouldn't he be obsessed about that? And why wouldn't he be obsessed about a party that is showing unity and demonstrating everything that he cannot find on the other side in government? We have the united team that he can only dream of.
Even the word 'budget' must be sending shivers down his spine because of course the ghosts of budgets past are walking the hallways today. We know that the 2014 budget—that cruel, unfair budget—will be back. If not tonight, then if this government is returned the 2014 budget ghost will be back and visited upon the Australian people.
Merv Lincoln, born in the town of Leongatha in my electorate of McMillan on 22 November 1933, died this week. Merv was an Australian middle distance runner who won a silver medal at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games and twice competed in the summer Olympics. He recalled the day he broke the four-minute mile, saying it was a beautiful day for running. He said:
Ron Clarke was to be my pacemaker for the first two laps, and then it would be over to me. I flew home over the last two laps, with the crowd roaring encouragement. After running through the finishing line there was an anxious pause of three minutes, as the timekeepers compared their times. It was unanimous; I had run the 1 mile in 3 minutes 58.9 seconds.
Merv was sometimes referred to as 'the miler who was always second best', yet it was who he was second best to that was important. As his career took off, he was emerging as the heir apparent to John Landy, only to be overshadowed by Herb Elliot. In Dublin in 1958 Merv Lincoln ran a mile in three minutes 55.9 seconds. The time was 1.3 seconds faster than the world record, and yet he finished second to Herb Elliot, who ran three minutes 54.5 seconds in the same race! After being beaten by the two men ranked one and two in the world, Merv Lincoln was heard to say with a grin that he might as well 'take up tennis'.
I came to meet Merv after the fireworks one New Year's Eve when Ziggy his dog jumped into my lap in our backyard at Phillip Island. Ziggy stayed with us for a couple of days and was eventually returned to Merv. That is how I met Merv Lincoln. Vale Mervyn George Lincoln.
Our Prime Minister likes to tell us that we live in the most exciting time to be an Australian, but on this side of the House and across the Australian community we ask this question: most exciting for whom? Australia today is the most unequal it has been since the Great Depression. We are concerned about this; we do not find it exciting. We are particularly concerned about the generational distribution of this inequality, which is impacting particularly on young people. It is at the core of Labor's position that we are taking to this election. It is also a matter of concern to my friend, the member for Bennelong, who has made a helpful contribution in this regard in recent days.
It is also something that is concerning in the world of work. Changes in the world of work are impacting particularly on young workers. That is why I was pleased to visit in Carlton the Young Workers Centre, which is managed by a very impressive young woman, Keelia Fitzpatrick, who works with educators, organisers, researchers and lawyers to facilitate education programs, events and campaigns to empower young people across Victoria to gain more of an understanding about their rights at work, including safety at work.
We hear much talk about the sharing economy, but we on this side understand that young people are often not getting their fair share. It is a critical challenge that government must grapple with, but which this government is ignoring. On the other hand, Labor, in conjunction with unions and community organisations like the Young Workers Centre, are concerned to build a fairer future and a more equal society, in particular for young workers.
This budget and election will be underpinned by jobs and growth. Every decision we make in the national interest will be underpinned by jobs and growth. We are transitioning from the mining boom to a more innovative economy, and the fiscal and monetary settings are sound. Interest rates are as low we have seen in modern history. Unemployment data nationally starts with a five per cent and is trending down. More than 421,000 jobs have been created since the coalition was elected in September 2013. Our largest international trading partner, China, still has growth rates in the high six per cents and the American economic indicators are trending up.
We have a six-point plan. Our investment will be in innovation, and that will drive the economy and the jobs of the future. Our investment in Defence is significant—from historic low investments by those on the other side, the worst since 1938. Our trade relationships and free-trade agreements are all set to underpin jobs and growth into the future. We will have a focus on tax avoidance—stamping out those who think they can slip out the backdoor to avoid making their contribution to the nation. We will have guaranteed additional spending in health and education.
Labor, by contrast, will introduce a carbon tax. They will put a tax on investment via their capital gains tax. They have a $20 billion black hole in their tobacco tax. Unions will continue to attack small business and will introduce a SRRT to wipe out 50,000 owner-driver transport operators. We will see the people smugglers back in business.
The coalition has a plan and it is underpinned by providing the jobs of the future and growing the economy.
In a few hours' time the government will make a stack of new promises in the budget about what they will do if they are lucky enough to be re-elected at 2 July election. But millions of Australians are still waiting on the government to deliver on the promises they made before the last election.
Before the last election Malcolm Turnbull—he had a different job back then—promised that he was going to deliver a national broadband network that would be faster, cheaper and better, but nothing could be further from the truth. He promised that all Australians would get access to the national broadband network by 2016. Well, it is 2016, Prime Minister, and we are still waiting. He promised that it was going to be cheaper—$29 billion for his version of a second-rate network—but the real truth is that it is going to cost $56 billion, nearly double his figure. He promised it was going to be better, but on his watch, our standing in terms of broadband has dropped from 30th to 60th in the world.
That is why this afternoon—when millions of school kids go home and try to logon to their computer or a few hours later when small businesses try to logon and upload their takings for the day—they will all get their message, 'Still buffering.' They will know who to blame: it will be this Prime Minister. What is clear is that this Prime Minister lost a lot more than his leather jacket on the way to the Lodge; he lost his credibility.
As I have told this chamber repeatedly, thousands upon thousands of mining jobs have been lost throughout Central and North Queensland. In order to pick up the slack, the Liberal-National government has funded major job-creating infrastructure projects throughout that region, but the state Labor government does not seem to understand the urgency of the problem.
We have committed $6.7 billion to upgrade the Bruce Highway, and that includes funds for the Mackay Ring Road and the Haughton River bridge. Combined, these projects are worth more than a billion dollars and will create over 1000 jobs. But as long as the state Labor government drags its feet with the planning and design, those jobs will sit on the shelf.
Planning and design on the Mackay Ring Road began in March last year and yet construction is not expected to start for another year. Goodness knows how long we will have to wait for the unsafe Haughton River bridge to be fixed. Heaven forbid that another death occurs there while we are waiting for the state Labor government to act.
I have two petitions in my hands, signed by hundreds of local residents and calling on the state Labor government to pull their finger out and get these projects started. I say to the state Labor government: 'Enough stuffing about; pull your finger out and get the job done.' I say to the people of Dawson: 'As long as I am your local MP, I will never give up the fight for local jobs.'
Canberrans have learnt that budget nights under coalition governments are to be dreaded. Tonight we fear we will once again be in the crosshairs. This government has shown unparalleled hostility towards Australia's national institutions, most of which are in my electorate. It has made clear its views on national institutions—they are not national treasures, but ATMs.
The National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum, the Museum of Australian Democracy, the Film and Sound Archive, the National Library—all have been forced to absorb massive and misguided cuts, starting with $3 million this financial year. This is on top of $20 million worth of cuts by this regressive and reactionary government.
The idea that you can stack cut upon cut, year after year, without compromising the functioning of our national institutions is an irresponsible fiction. It is an irresponsible fiction. We should not pretend this is about cutting fat, and this is not about cutting bone. These cuts run so deep that they are hitting vital organs.
I hope this budget tonight spares Canberra from further cuts, particularly to Public Service jobs. I hope our national institutions are asked to enhance their contribution to our national story, to our national history, to what is wonderful about being Australian, and not asked to compromise it.
I rise in the House today to talk about the government's Black Spot Program. Calare's local government associations have been big winners under this program, receiving funding for 21 black spots. Calare has been allocated more than $5.2 million for fixing our local roads. I pay tribute to all the councils who have worked tirelessly on their applications, especially Orange City Council, which has received nearly $2 million to fix 11 notorious black spots.
As Chair of the New South Wales Black Spot Consultative Panel I made sure all MPs in New South Wales knew there was this great opportunity for their LGAs to identify roads needing safety upgrades. Bathurst Regional Council has received funding for two black spots, while Lithgow and Cabonne councils have both received funding for four. There is no doubt that there was a particular need for dangerous spots to be upgraded in Calare, and that has been reflected in the funding.
This program is incredibly worth while. I hope it continues at its present level. It has been a fantastic opportunity to be part of delivering funding that will save lives.
In tonight's budget, we will see almost $1.2 billion in precious federal infrastructure money allocated to the Perth Freight Link after the PM threw another $260 million at this ever more irresponsible project.
I commend the City of Kwinana, led by Mayor Carol Adams and CEO Joanne Abbiss, who have done the job the Barnett government should have been doing over the past four years instead of being sidetracked by the ideological games of Jamie Briggs and Senator Mathias Cormann. The council has carried out extensive planning for the vital development of the outer harbour in Kwinana to ease the demand on and eventually replace the Fremantle inner harbour as it reaches capacity over the next 10 years. This document I am holding shows, for example—
Order!
that Roe 8 simply does not work for the outer harbour. The Perth Freight Link fails at every turn. It stops 2.8 kilometres short of the port, moving the point of congestion, not solving it. By 2025, Fremantle port will have reached practical capacity, so the new harbour will need to be in place by then or WA risks being locked out of jobs and growth. The new port is needed to enable us to host the new workhorse container vessels that are being developed following the expansion of the Panama Canal. It is a disgrace that more than $1 billion of federal taxpayer money has been spent on this project. (Time expired)
I am delighted to inform the House about a local organisation celebrating a big milestone later this year. The Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Club will be celebrating 25 years since its foundation. The club is responsible for bringing together the Chinese community in Eastwood, one of the largest ethnic communities in my electorate of Bennelong. They hold weekly events to celebrate Chinese culture, while helping migrants to stay active and involved in their new home of Australia. These include table-tennis tournaments to keep members active, Chinese opera concerts to celebrate their cultural heritage and English language lessons to help members access the services they need.
For many years, this has been led by Eastwood stalwart Hugh Lee OAM, a local champion of whom I have spoken many times in this parliament. His leadership of the Chinese community has been essential in maintaining contact with their cultural identity whilst integrating into the broader Australian society. Bennelong's greatest asset is our diverse multicultural community, but key to their success is robust local groups like Eastwood Chinese Senior Citizens Club. I thank Hugh and his many members for everything they do in our Chinese community and for the great strength they provide for our local Bennelong region.
Someone should tell the government that what you announce prior to the budget is supposed to be good news, to get the Australian community excited about the budget! I can tell you right now there are not a lot of people that are excited about tonight's budget, particularly not about the measure the government announced that people earning over $80,000 a year will get a tax cut—but no-one else. Do you know how many people in the Bendigo area earn over $80,000 a year? I can tell you: it is less than 16 per cent. What a message to send to the people of Bendigo: 'Eighty-four per cent of you are not going to get a tax cut tonight.' Perhaps the government do not understand mathematics. If you are trying to win the seat of Bendigo, you need a bit more than 16 per cent to get across the line!
Bendigo is not the only electorate where people do not earn a lot. The average wage in Bendigo is about $49,000 a year, and that is replicated across regional Australia. If the government is trying to hold onto country seats, perhaps you need to do something about the wages of people in the country. There are only nine electorates where people earn, on average, more than $80,000 a year, and they are all in the inner city. They are seats like the Prime Minister's electorate, where people are already doing well. This government has failed the people of Bendigo and it will fail them again tonight.
I rise to lend my support for a cancer centre for western New South Wales, located at Dubbo. There is a need for an integrated cancer centre, for both diagnosis and treatment, for the over 200,000 people who live in western New South Wales. At the moment, those people have to travel to Sydney to have a PET scan for early diagnosis. In this day and age, the life expectancy of people in my electorate is eight years less than it is for people in the rest of Australia, and we need to do something to turn that around.
This area in western New South Wales covers communities such as Bourke, Brewarrina and Walgett, and many of those people will not travel to the city and are choosing an early death rather than seek the treatment that they need. I would like to congratulate the group in Dubbo who started up a Facebook page. They now have 19,000 followers calling for a cancer centre in Dubbo. On the weekend, when I was at the Dubbo Show, countless people told me about their experiences of seeking treatment, the weeks away from home seeking radiation, the costs of accommodation and the time away from their children and families. In this day and age it is equitable that the people of western New South Wales have the same facilities as everyone else. (Time expired)
I inform the House that the Treasurer will be absent from question time today as he is undertaking final preparations for the budget. The Minister for Small Business and the Assistant Treasurer will answer questions on his behalf, and the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science will represent the Special Minister of State.
The question is that the motion be agreed to. As a mark of respect, I ask all present to signify their approval by rising in their places.
Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is the Prime Minister choosing to give large multinationals and high-income earners a tax cut while he is cutting $5,000 a year from a typical family budget, including their family payments?
Government members interjecting—
Before I call the Prime Minister, the level of interjection on my right was far too high. The member for Deakin and the member for Lyons will cease interjecting, amongst others.
That's a good example!
The member for Sydney will not interject when I am trying to bring the House to order.
My government's national economic plan is setting Australia up to take advantage of the enormous opportunities on offer in this dynamic global environment of the 21st century. A strong budget is a critical part of that plan.
If we want to support jobs and growth in the 21st century—strong growth for all Australians; great jobs for our children and grandchildren, in the years ahead—if we want to have the room to make smart investments in our future prosperity, we need to make sure we have our finances under control. It is vital that plans be credible and that we get those calls right.
Labor made the wrong calls. The budget under Labor was in structural deficit every year. They accumulated more than $190 billion in deficits during office. We went from having negative net debt—that is, cash in the bank—to net debt of billions of dollars. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Labor Party implemented a mining tax that raised no money. They spent the proceeds anyway, increasing the burden of deficits and debt. Labor has learned nothing from its failures in government.
Yesterday, Australians learned that Labor has got its sums disastrously wrong again—a nearly $20 billion costing hole in its tobacco excise revenue. I know that some honourable members opposite have described $20 billion as a rounding error. I can assure honourable members that on this side of the House we regard that as an enormous amount of money. There are a few things it could buy. It could buy more than a full year of federal hospitals' funding or more than a full year of schools' funding. It could finish the duplication of the Pacific Highway.
The member for McMahon, the shadow Treasurer—the man who would be the Treasurer again—knew his sums were wrong. After the PBO warned him their costings were prepared before updated figures were represented in MYEFO, he said, in February, in line with a prudent and conservative, fiscal approach, 'Labor resubmits its policies for costing following budget updates.' He ignored those warnings. Indeed, he kept on talking about the $47.7 billion that the increase in tobacco excise would raise. He has abandoned any semblance of fiscal responsibility.
Unlike those opposite, we know a sustainable budget is absolutely critical: jobs and growth, economic growth, a 21st century economy. That is what we are building with the budget tonight.
Where's Jenny Macklin?
The Leader of the House will cease interjecting.
Government members interjecting—
Members on my right will cease interjecting.
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table an article by Heath Aston that establishes everything the Prime Minister just said is wrong.
Leave not granted.
The level of interjections is far too high on both sides.
Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—
The member for Hunter will cease interjecting. The member for Isaacs and the member for Parramatta have been interjecting continually. They were warned yesterday. They are warned again now, and I caution the member for Sydney and the member for McMahon, who might get the opportunity to go to the budget lock-up a bit early if he keeps interjecting.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the importance of the coalition's national economic plan for jobs and growth? Why is a responsible, fair and prudent budget critical to delivering economic security and new growth opportunities for Australians?
I thank the member for Banks for his question. Of course, as the chair of the House Standing Committee on Economics, the member for Banks is keenly aware of the vital need for responsible economic management as we make the transition from the mining and construction boom to a stronger, more innovative, more diverse economy. Tonight the budget will detail my government's national economic plan for jobs and growth. It will set out our carefully designed changes to create a sustainable tax system to meet the government's responsibilities to our children and our grandchildren.
An opposition member interjecting—
It will demonstrate very clearly the responsible economic management which is required to balance the budget to reduce the burden of long-term debt and deficit. The opposition, in contrast, has already failed this test of competent economic management. As I observed a moment ago, Treasury analysis shows that Labor's best practice tobacco policy will raise fully $19.5 billion less than it claims. It is a $19.5 billion black hole in Labor's policy costings. The Leader of the Opposition and the member for McMahon cannot hide, as they seek to do, behind the Parliamentary Budget Office.
An opposition member interjecting—
Let me set out why. Their best practice tobacco policy was released on 24 November last year. It stated it would raise $47.7 billion over 10 years, which was based on May 2015 budget assumptions. As every member in a House is aware, in December last year the government released the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, MYEFO, that contained the latest state of the budget's books. MYEFO explicitly noted:
Excise and excise equivalent customs duty has been written down by $4.1 billion over the forward estimates, mainly reflecting lower tobacco and alcohol excise collections and weaker forecast consumption of these goods.
That was on page 40.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney.
In December, Labor knew its costings required updating to ensure its promises were honestly fully funded. They were warned in MYEFO. What did they do? Did they have the Parliamentary Budget Office recost their policies? No. Instead, the Leader of the Opposition has gone from school to school and hospital to hospital claiming Labor's policies are fully funded, and now they have been completely caught out. They have had nearly 6 months since the release of MYEFO to update their costings and they have failed to do so. The Australians people know Labor cannot be trusted with money. It cannot be trusted to get its sums right. It cannot be trusted with the management of our economy.
Opposition members interjecting—
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what is fair about giving very high income earners a tax cut in tonight's budget, with someone earning $300,000 receiving $2,600 in tax cuts every year while a typical family loses $5,000 a year?
Mrs McNamara interjecting—
The member for Dobell will cease interjecting.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and I am glad that he has raised the issue of fairness.
An opposition member interjecting—
How fair is it to make promises to the Australian people without having the funds to pay for them? How fair is it to deny ordinary working Australians the ability to buy an investment property and claim a net rental loss against their income?
Opposition members interjecting—
And they are scoffing. They are all scoffing, including the ones who own investment properties—they are also scoffing. They are scoffing at the people who, after the first year of a Labor government, will not be able to do what they have done.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney will cease interjecting.
What their policy does is slam the door shut on aspiration. Let us talk about fairness and their negative gearing proposal. Under their proposal, a person earning $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 or $80,000 a year—average earnings are $80,000 a year—will not be able to deduct a net rental loss against their personal income. They will not be able to deduct the net loss of an investment in shares or in a business they have started to get going to stop being an employee and to be independent. They might have wanted to go into the trucking business. They might have wanted to be an owner-driver. Of course, the Labor Party has other ways of putting owner-drivers out of business.
Opposition members interjecting—
They had put 50,000 of them out of business until the coalition put them back into business. That is what Labor wants to do: slam the door shut on that aspiration. That is the absolute, inevitable effect of their policy. But if somebody has $50,000 or $100,000 of investment income from dividends, from interest or from rents, they will be able to negatively gear. Under the Labor Party's policy—
Opposition members interjecting—
They call out, 'What about the workers?' What Labor will do is deny a basic economic right, a basic freedom, to workers for people to offset against their income and allow those with massive—or, indeed, modest—investment incomes to do so. And they have the gall to talk about fairness.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
We are setting Australia up with a budget that is for jobs and growth. It is fair and will bring our finances back into balance, and that is fair to every Australian.
I did not sit the Prime Minister down through that wall of interjections, but the level of interjections is unacceptable. I had asked the member for Sydney to cease interjecting and she continued to interject right through the answer. The member for Sydney is warned, as are the members for Griffith, Wakefield and Charlton.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The member for Gorton will come to the dispatch box and withdraw that unparliamentary remark, and he is warned as well.
I withdraw.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs representing the Minister for Defence. Will the minister advise the House how the government's decision to construct the next generation of submarines locally has been received by Australian industry and other stakeholders?
I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question, and I acknowledge his tireless advocacy for a sustainable local shipbuilding industry in South Australia. The Turnbull government's decision to build and sustain 12 next generation submarines locally provides the certainty that Australia's defence industry requires so that it can invest in innovation and 21st century technology and grow its Australian workforce, and that means more Australian jobs. Our decision to build 12 submarines locally complements our recent surface shipbuilding announcements, which, combined, will create over 3,600 direct jobs and countless opportunities for small to medium local businesses across the national supply chain. Our shipbuilding programs will drive innovation, will drive competitiveness and will drive the creation of new Australian jobs.
Australian businesses recognise the massive economic boost our shipbuilding decisions will provide after the years of inaction by Labor. ASC chief, Stuart Whiley, called the Future Submarine program:
… a true national endeavour with thousands of suppliers across the country participating in the project, in addition to the creation of thousands of direct jobs.
The Australian Industry Group chief, Innes Willox, said it was:
… a true renaissance of the industry benefits which will flow to all Australians, including hundreds of companies and thousands of workers.
State Labor members are over the moon that they have in Canberra a coalition government making decisions after years of federal Labor incompetence, inaction and mismanagement. South Australian Labor Premier Jay Weatherill has called our decision:
… an amazing shot in the arm for confidence in South Australia.
… … …
And:
… a massive step forward in the transformation of the SA economy, to meet our vision for an advanced manufacturing … hi-tech manufacturing economy.
The Western Australian Labor shadow minister for defence issues said:
For the first time, Australian naval shipbuilders are about to get a sustainable and reliable workload. It’s a pivotal moment for the nation’s manufacturing industry.
This is state Labor. They know that Labor federally cannot be trusted with creating new jobs in the shipbuilding industry. So, the coalition government is delivering what our defence industry so sorely lacked after years of Labor inaction, and that is certainty to plan, to invest and to create more jobs. Due to the decisions of the Turnbull government, Australia will have a defence industry with an advanced manufacturing capability that will provide thousands and thousands of jobs for the future of this country.
Mr Danby interjecting—
Mr Hawke interjecting—
Before I call the leader of the opposition, the member for Melbourne Ports and I think the member for Mitchell will not have a conversation across the chamber, otherwise I will facilitate one outside the chamber.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Given that we now know that the Prime Minister's idea of tax reform is giving large multinationals and high-income earners a tax cut, isn't this just another example of an out-of-touch Prime Minister delivering for the top end of town? And since when did negative gearing become a basic economic freedom?
Honourable members interjecting—
Members on my right! The member for Petrie and the member for Corangamite!
In answer to the second part of the honourable member's question as to when the ability to deduct net rental losses and net investment losses against personal income became recognised in the tax code, the answer to that question is 1915. It is not a recently developed idea. Let me give an example on the question of negative gearing. As we know, most people who engage in negative gearing, who deduct net rental losses against their income, are earning $80,000 a year or less. Ninety per cent of people who engage in negative gearing own two properties or less, and almost all of them own one. The average deduction is less than $10,000 a year. So, this is not a scheme for the super rich.
Labor often says: 'Why should people be able to negative gear multiple properties?' That is a question they can pose but they have not provided an answer to it. What they have done is banned it for everybody, unless you have a lot of investment income. Let me give an example—a very typical one. Let's give an example of a nurse who earns $50,000 a year. Let's say after a Labor government and after their policy is introduced she nonetheless takes out a loan to buy an old apartment as an investment property. She rents it out and the rental income is $7,000 less than the interest on the loan and the other deductible costs. She works hard every weekend. She undertakes renovations in between her shifts so she can rent out the property and help fund her retirement. It is a very typical case. Under Labor, Katrina, the nurse, would be unable to use the $7,000 loss to reduce her $50,000 taxable income to $43,000. She will have to pay an extra $2,520 in income tax—an increase in her annual income tax bill of 42 per cent. There is Labor's fairness working. That is Labor's a approach to fairness—denying basic economic rights, basic freedoms, to ordinary working Australians while reserving them to people with large investment portfolios and investment income. I would say to every member opposite who has an investment property or several and is negative gearing it that perhaps they could put up their hands now and acknowledge the terrible wrong that they are committing.
The member for Braddon will resume his seat.
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
The member for Perth is warned.
An honourable member interjecting—
Members on my right will cease interjecting.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Innovation will not put food on the table. Innovation will not provide hospital beds, schools or warmth to a family on a cold night. Innovation in the Liberal Party means that only 42 per cent of funds raised are declared. Will the Prime Minister direct the Cabinet Secretary to answer serious questions over the use and raising of Liberal Party funds, and will the Prime Minister cause to be published audited accounts of the Liberal Party for the scrutiny of Liberal Party members and the public?
Mr Nikolic interjecting—
The member for Bass will cease interjecting.
Mr Morrison interjecting—
Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—
The minister for immigration will cease interjecting, as will the member for Herbert.
I thank the honourable member for his interest in innovation. Honourable members—all of us—would appreciate the importance of innovation. Of course, innovation does create jobs and does, in that sense, put bread on the table and produce prosperity and jobs. But I think all of us would appreciate it if the honourable member left innovation aside for a moment and focused on a very old-fashioned value—taking responsibility for the workers in Townsville.
Mr Mitchell interjecting —
The member for McEwen will cease interjecting.
My question today is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. Will the minister update the House on any recent discoveries of supermassive black holes, specifically by Australian astronomers? Is the minister aware of any other recent discoveries in this field?
I thank the member for Braddon for his interest in astronomy, which I also share as the minister for science. I am sure that all members on this side of the House focus very keenly on astronomy, which Australia is very good at. It is a world leader in astronomy.
I can advise the House of a recent and significant discovery by astronomers at the CSIRO using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope in the member for Durack's electorate and the Australian Telescope Compact Array in the member for Parkes's electorate. Dr Lisa Harvey-Smith, an astronomer at the CSIRO, discovered a supermassive black hole in a galaxy 1.7 billion light years away—a galaxy far, far away—weighing in at 3.8 billion solar masses. As Dr Harvey-Smith observed:
The black hole at the centre of our galaxy is only 4 million solar masses, so this one is a monster in comparison.
I have news for Dr Harvey-Smith: if she thinks that is a monster, she should take a look at Labor's black hole! Labor's $19.53 billion tobacco tax black hole dwarfs that supermassive black hole by comparison.
Government members: It was a rounding error!
It was regarded as a rounding error by the member for Jagajaga, who is in the witness protection program today. She was not allowed out to face the music with her rounding error remarks. Labor's $19½ billion black hole has obliterated their economic credibility on the eve of the budget and the election. The serious question we all have to ask is: if they could get this so wrong, what else is wrong? What else is wrong in the Labor's party's costings and the Labor Party's plans? We know they claimed that they had $100 billion of new taxes. We have just wiped $20 billion of new taxes off that figure, and yet they have an enormous number of promises that they have made to the electorate for spending. How will they make up that enormous black hole?
Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—
In particular, it is quite irresponsible for the member for Adelaide to continue to claim that they have this money for education spending, because that was apparently to be paid for out of the tobacco tax—and that, clearly, is not available. The shadow Treasurer's swagger and braggadocio are no substitute for common-sense policies and calm, methodical planning for the budget. Now is not the time to risk the Australian economy by a return to the Labor Party at the coming election. Now is the time for stability and consistency of government.
You guys deliver heaps of that!
The member for Chifley!
My question is to the Prime Minister. Tonight the Prime Minister will give his Point Piper neighbours, who earn more than $300,000, a tax cut of $2,600 a year. But in the electorate of Bass in Tasmania, 82 per cent of workers will get absolutely nothing. How is it fair that the Prime Minister gives his Point Piper neighbours a massive tax cut, whilst the average workers in Bass get absolutely nothing?
Mr Nikolic interjecting —
The member for Bass will cease interjecting.
The honourable member's question reminds me of the member for Reid's fine performance on 7.30 the other night, in which he observed that the Labor Party was so economically illiterate that they were not able to mount a credible class war. The question from the honourable member, which is an example of what we are going to hear a lot more of between now and the election, underlines the fundamental fact that Labor has nothing to run on except a class war, envy and attacks on the banks, companies and business—attacks on anybody except its own vested interests in the trade union movement. Well let me tell the honourable member—and she was kind enough to refer to the suburb in which I live, Point Piper—I do not think there are a lot of owner-driver truck owners there living in my street.
Mr Mitchell interjecting—
The member for McEwen is warned!
I suspect there are not. But you know something: your party put 50,000 of them out of work, and thousands of them live in Labor Party electorates. It is the Labor Party that is denying to people on average earnings the ability to save and invest and get ahead. Of course, in terms of my affluent neighbours, many of whom—most of whom, perhaps—have substantial investment income, they will not be interrupted by the Labor Party's plans. They will be fine. The people that the Labor Party professes to care about have been abandoned—abandoned in their policies, abandoned in their government and abandoned when many of them were leading the trade unions who failed so dismally to represent those people.
Let me say this: the budget we are presenting tonight, the budget the Treasurer is going to bring down tonight, is one that will drive jobs and growth in our 21st century economy. It will ensure that we have a tax system that is sustainable, is fit for purpose, meets our needs in the 21st century and is fair. Everything we commit to—whether it is in health, whether it is in schools, whether it is in roads, rail or water—will be fully funded. We will do that without raising taxes as a percentage of GDP. We will do that as we bring the budget back into balance. We will do that as we deliver the growth, the jobs, the responsibility and the prudence that Australia's future demands and the Australian people expect.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer. Will the minister update the House on the government's action to ensure multinational companies and individuals are paying the right amount of tax? How does this compare with other proposals?
I would very much like to thank the member for Bonner for his question, because he understands that this government has been acting to ensure that multinational companies and high-net-worth individuals are paying the right amount of tax in Australia. This side of the House can be trusted because we act. The other side is all talk.
The opposition had six years in government, and what did they achieve on this? Virtually nothing. We have been in government for under three years, and we have a very long list of achievements when it comes to acting against multinational companies that are trying to avoid their tax. Let us go through them. We passed legislation to tighten the thin capitalisation rules to stop multinational companies claiming excessive tax deductions. We designed and we implemented the multinational anti-avoidance law to stop multinationals with global income of over $1 billion from artificially avoiding a taxable presence in Australia. We doubled penalties for multinationals caught avoiding tax.
What did those opposite do? What did they do? It should be noted that those opposite, those in Labor, voted against this bill. We have given the Australian Taxation Office greater access to multinationals' transfer pricing policies, their income and the tax paid across the entire groups' operation, through new country by country reporting requirements. We have legislated to give force to a double tax treaty with Switzerland that allows the exchange of information between tax authorities of each country to ensure that there is not tax evasion. We have enacted legislation for the common reporting standard to detect those who are trying to hide money in overseas accounts. We on this side have established the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce, a multi-agency task force that goes after those people who are avoiding or evading their tax. Under this government, we have ensured that the ATO numbers in their public group and international business line have grown. They are higher than they were under Labor. It is going after those people who are avoiding their tax.
On this side, we get angry when people are not paying the right amount of tax. We get angry when multinational companies are not paying the right amount of tax. The Labor Party claim that they are going to do something, and they claim that that something is going to be worth billions of dollars. But they have not released their modelling, they have not released their assumptions, and I call on them to do that now. Why won't they release their assumptions? Well, I think we know why. Last night we found that there is a $20 billion hole in their tobacco policy. That is why they are not prepared to release their modelling. That is why they are not prepared to release their— (Time expired)
I inform the House we have present in the gallery this afternoon Mr Stuart Henry, the former member for Hasluck. I welcome you back to the gallery.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Prime Minister. When the Reserve Bank cut interest rates in 2013 from 2.75 per cent to 2.5 per cent, the member for Warringah said it was because the Reserve Bank had concerns about the state of the economy. Prime Minister, given that a few moments ago the Reserve Bank cut interest rates to 1.75 per cent, does the Prime Minister agree with the assessment of the member for Warringah?
I thank the honourable member for his question. I have in my hand the statement by the Governor of the Reserve Bank relating to the decision to lower the cash rate by 25 basis points to 1.75 per cent today. I draw honourable members' attention to the governor's remarks, which support the economic case that the government is making and support our commitment to strong growth and jobs and continuing the successful transition from a mining construction boom to a more diverse economy. The governor's remarks underline the risk posed by the opposition to that successful transition. I will quote from the Reserve Bank governor's statement:
In Australia, the available information suggests that the economy is continuing to rebalance following the mining investment boom. GDP growth picked up over 2015, particularly in the second half of the year, and the labour market improved. Indications are that growth is continuing in 2016, though probably at a more moderate pace.
So the successful transition is continuing.
Opposition members interjecting—
We can go on as long as you like. The statement says:
Labour market indicators have been more mixed of late.
We had very good growth last month. It goes on to talk about inflation being low. I should note, too, that the Reserve Bank governor says:
In reaching today's decision, the Board took careful note of developments in the housing market, where indications are that the effects of supervisory measures are strengthening lending standards and that price pressures have tended to abate.
This is a reminder that we have seen prices coming off in many parts of our cities and, indeed, in some states. The housing market is trending downwards—a correction, you might think. But you have to ask yourself, Mr Speaker: why would Australians risk a kick in the guts to the housing market right at the point where it is vulnerable? The value of Australians' single biggest asset is threatened by a Labor government. By contrast, the budget tonight will responsibly deliver on our economic plan for jobs and growth, a sustainable tax system for the 21st century economy, commitments to health, education and infrastructure fully funded and a return of the budget to balance. That is our commitment and that will continue—the successful transition of which the Reserve Bank governor wrote only a few minutes ago.
The member for Lilley and the member for Riverina were interjecting at each other through that answer loudly. They are both warned. The member for Isaacs will not interject again, otherwise he will not be in the chamber.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Repeatedly during the Prime Minister's answer the member for Lilley used an unparliamentary term. I ask him to withdraw.
If the member for Lilley used an unparliamentary term, I would ask him to withdraw.
No, I did not.
My question is to the Minister for Social Services, and I hope he can hear. Will the minister update the House on how the government will ensure the sustainability of the welfare system and ensure that the much-needed National Disability Insurance Scheme can be fully funded? Are there any alternatives to the government's approach?
I thank the member for Berowra for his question. In fact, I saw the Father of the House correct someone this morning quite tersely when they congratulated him on 44 years in parliament. He said it was only 43½. For the future reference of the absent member for Jagajaga, that is a rounding error—$20 billion worth of imaginary revenue is not a rounding error. The member for Jagajaga has fallen into the pit of making a few rounding errors recently, particularly with respect to the NDIS. In fact, tonight, after this very question time we will be debating the future of the NDIS with a bill into which the government will go with the hard work of savings to ensure that it is fully funded. For the benefit of members opposite, the NDIS will cost the Commonwealth $11.3 billion—$1.1 billion comes from existing Commonwealth funding on disabilities, $1.9 billion from redirecting moneys that would otherwise go to the states and $3.3 billion from the increase in the Medicare levy, leaving an amount close to $5 billion. That is another rounding error, for members opposite, but one that we are going to fix by the hard fiscal work of savings.
An opposition member interjecting—
I hear the member for Lilley interjecting. At the time the NDIS first appeared in the budget, the member for Lilley was predicting a surplus of $1.5 billion, which turned into a deficit of $18.8 billion.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member said I was interjecting; I was not. I ask him to withdraw.
That is not a point of order. The member for Lilley well knows that. He has already been warned.
The point is this: members opposite are not, it appears, attempting support our excellent efforts to find savings—
Opposition members: Withdraw!
I have warned the member for Griffith and she has continued to interject. She will leave under 94(a). Those who have been warned and who continue to interject will be following very shortly.
The member for Griffith then left the chamber.
The only solution that members opposite have for funding the NDIS is to borrow and to tax. They are like the cowboy bar in The Blues Brothers that has both types of music: country and western. Their approach to spending is taxing and borrowing—both types of fiscal approach. We are going through the hard work of savings. I might add that back in September 2014 before the National Press Club, the shadow Treasurer said, 'We will go to the next election with savings proposals which will ensure that our election commitments are fully funded.' Understanding that a revenue measure is not a savings proposal and understanding that declining to support a government's spending measure is not a savings proposal, how many savings proposals in 969 days since the last election have they put forward? Zero. Not a single savings proposal. The member for Adelaide said this in November 2015:
We have repeatedly pointed out that we think that there are a number of areas across Government where there are savings that can be found … we are continuing to identify and point out savings measures …
Maybe they are secretly identifying them, but they are not going so well on the pointing out of the savings measures. This evening you will see several.
What about the stupid carbon scheme?
The member for Sydney has been warned. I have asked her to cease interjecting and I cannot keep warning her. She will leave under 94(a).
The member for Sydney then left the chamber.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Should value capture to fund infrastructure apply to existing properties that have their value increased by the provision of new infrastructure?
That is an interesting question, but it certainly, from the—perhaps I can explain the concept of value capture to assist the Leader of the Opposition. The honourable member is presumably referring to the way in which state and local governments have at different times applied betterment levies or adjustments to rates to fund infrastructure. I remember the Pitt Street Mall was financed in that way, for those old enough to remember that, many years ago. The cross-city rail in London is being financed in that way. There are many ways in which value capture can be approached. It is a matter of very live debate. It is a very relevant consideration to ensure that taxpayers get the best bang for the buck for the money that is put into projects by grants, and it is certainly something that is being considered in the context of the discussions around City Deals and the government's cities policy. The member for Grayndler and I have spoken about this at length in the past.
Can I say, however, that the clear point of our cities policy and the clear point of every policy that we have is this: we need to drive jobs and growth here in the 21st century economy. We need to ensure that our children and grandchildren have those great opportunities as our economy transitions, as the Reserve Bank governor observed, from the mining construction boom to one that is more diverse, taking advantage of the great opportunities, for example, opened up in Asia by the former trade minister, Andrew Robb.
Every element in the budget tonight will drive jobs and growth and a sustainable tax system and ensure that every commitment of spending is fully funded.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on what impact alternative climate change policies would have on my electorate of Cowper? How is the government's plan to deliver jobs and growth benefitting not only the people of Cowper but the entire Australian economy?
I thank the honourable member for his question. He is a fellow CPA and he understands business perfectly well. He understands business because he has worked in businesses and understands how important it is, especially around the aspects of private ownership.
It is with quite some dismay that we see the Labor Party, and the member for Adelaide Ports—
A government member: Port Adelaide.
Port Adelaide, has suggested that they bring forward a new form of federal policeman into the private lives of people on the land. We have a position now where they are quite proudly announcing that not only will we have state vegetation management laws we will now also have federal vegetation management laws enforced by the Australian Labor Party, and no doubt supported by the Greens and their Independent friends. This will lead to the scenario where if you have a tree on your place you have to pay the rates for where it is, you have to pay the public liability insurance for where it is and you also have to pay the bank back for the land which it is on but you do not own it. If you touch it you will end up, I imagine, with not only a state criminal conviction but a federal criminal conviction. This is the new world order that the Labor Party is proposing.
They have form on this. We saw Labor, the Greens and the Independents in the last period of their government more than double the power prices. We know that power prices hurt. We know that power prices hurt in Kurri Kurri, they hurt in Aberdeen, they hurt in Willow Tree, they hurt in the seat of Cowper and they hurt in Cunnamulla, because people who are doing it tough do not need the price of their power to be increased. But that is their policy. It is the policy of Labor, the Greens and the Independents that they want to make people poorer. That is the policy they are taking to the Australian people, that they will make people poorer if they win, because they believe, even by their own analysis, it was by 20, 30 or a 78 per cent increase in power prices, if they take it up to 45 per cent—and they have form, because they more than doubled it in their previous term of government.
Their economic analysis sometimes leaves something to be desired. We saw recently that they were left just one item, a packet of cigarettes, to analyse. They were more than $3.25 billion out over the forward estimates. The member for Jagajaga put it down to a rounding error. The member for Cowper would know that in accountancy when you just do not quite know where to put things you put them under 000 for suspense—put them in suspense. You will find all manner of things—paper clips, coffee mugs, tea, sugar—but you will not find $3,250 million with the Labor Party mistakes. That is not a rounding error; it is a complete and utter cock-up of their capacity to have fervent economic oversight over the affairs of the nation, which leads us to one thing. We had the former Treasurer: 'The four surpluses I deliver tonight.' What a load of rubbish! What an absolute load of rubbish. And their economic policy is a load of rubbish. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his previous answer and also to the call by the Property Council of Australia for clarification of his cities policy, and I ask: should value capture to fund infrastructure apply to existing properties that had their value increased by the provision of new road or rail infrastructure?
Why don't you ask it on notice?
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has the call.
I assume that what the honourable member is talking about is the concept which we certainly embrace in terms of being an element that must come into the financing of infrastructure. The concept of value capture, by which we mean that where new infrastructure—and this is typically linear transport infrastructure: rail, light rail, heavy rail, or indeed potentially a road, but it is particularly applicable to rail—adds value to property and enables it, for example, to be rezoned so that you can get greater density around a transport stop, a rail station and so forth, then some of that value can be captured as part of the overall deal to ensure that that contributes to the cost of the infrastructure. The alternative is simply to finance all of the infrastructure out of the public purse. The reality is, as honourable members know, and the honourable member for Grayndler knows this as well as any of us, I would imagine, if not more so, that the way infrastructure, and particularly urban rail, is financed around the world, and has been financed historically, is by accessing some of the additional value that is created in real estate. That is how the MTR in Hong Kong is financed, for example. That may apply in cases where the railway company owns some land, is granted land or acquires land which it can then redevelop. It may be part of a deal between the private sector, state and local government and, indeed, the federal government. But the federal government has no ability to levy any sort of betterment levy or tax of this kind, as you know.
I will give an example that is close to the honourable member's heart—the Gold Coast Light Rail. The City of Gold Coast council made a substantial contribution, in terms of its budget, to the Gold Coast Light Rail. It did so, as the mayor openly acknowledges, because of the uplift in rates—the increase in value in the land and the properties contiguous to the rail line—gave him additional revenue. The fact of the matter is that this is an important element in the debate, and the alternative is having less infrastructure and higher taxes.
What the honourable member has to recognise is that what we are seeking to do is have, as I have said: jobs and growth and a sustainable tax system, ensuring that we can fund all our commitments and bring the budget back to balance. That is what Australians expect: responsibility.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Will the minister outline how the government is tackling climate change without attacks on electricity? Are there any alternative plans for a new tax on manufacturers like the steelmaker Arrium in my electorate of Grey?
I want to thank the member for Grey, who commented to me just before question time that, on this of all days, when Arrium is in emergency talks and they are in administration, he could not imagine a worse time for a new manufacturing and electricity tax—a tax on the workers, a tax on the firm and a tax on jobs.
It comes against a background of two very different choices for Australia and South Australia. We have an economic plan, which was laid out by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, successively, over recent weeks and which will reach its culmination this evening, which, in particular, includes the defence and innovation work which we will be so vital to jobs in South Australia—work that was welcomed not just by us but by the South Australian Treasurer last week, who said, 'Minister Pyne has done exceptional work for South Australia in the last seven days.' This was not one of ours; one of yours. The minister was too modest—characteristically modest—to mention it himself.
We can compare that with the alternative that the other side has put forward. We know, because we announced the Department of the Environment figures to the United Nations only a week and a half ago, that Australia will meet and beat our target by 78 million tonnes in terms of managing our emissions. There have been two very successful auctions. I hope a third successful auction will be announced before the end of this week. We are doing our job. We are doing our part. We are doing this as part of a broader, national narrative of our responsibilities; but we are also building jobs and reducing the pressure on households.
The comparison is that last week Labor announced a new tax on electricity, a new tax on manufacturing and a new tax on jobs. What does it mean for families in South Australia? We know from Labor's own modelling of Labor's own policy that it is a 78 per cent increase in wholesale electricity prices—their modelling by Treasury, and you know how much they love Treasury modelling. This is their modelling of their policy. What does it mean beyond that? It also means, though, that there is a tax on Arrium, manufacturing and similar firms right around Australia.
Let's look at what their own union leaders have said about this. Tony Maher has said their policy would 'increase the cost of electricity for manufacturing and ordinary households.' Geoff Dyke, also of the CFMEU, said he had 'concerns about potential job losses.' Gary Wood of the CFMEU said that it was 'half-baked.' Bill Shorten tells us that he wants to govern like a union leader. When it comes to the carbon tax not even the union leaders want him to govern like a union leader.
I again remind the Minister for the Environment to refer to members by their correct titles.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his two previous answers in which he indicated that his model for value capture would apply to existing properties. Will he rule out increased taxes and charges for existing property owners as a result of his value-capture model?
An honourable member interjecting—
Members on my right!
The honourable member, as he knows very well, has misrepresented what I said. I made it quite clear that the federal government does not have the means to impose taxes on land of the kind that he describes. His reference to existing property is quite unclear, because all property—all of the real estate in Australia—is in existence. Some of it, plainly, is in greater stages of development than others. Perhaps, when he asks his next question, he can explain what he means by existing property.
All of the property, all of the real estate and all of the acreage in Australia is in existence. Some of its value can be dramatically improved by the construction of infrastructure, and some of that value—it may be value occasioned by the increase in land taxes; it may be the value created, as I said, in the Gold Coast Light Rail from council rates—can be brought to bear to support infrastructure. The honourable member understands this very well.
This rather pathetic gotcher effort, or would-be-gotcher effort, is simply a demonstration of his determination to avoid scrutiny of that which nobody can avoid—the $20 billion black hole on the tobacco tax. I know that the honourable member and his colleagues regard it as a rounding error. We have been very unkind—or not unkind; we have been critical of them calling it a rounding error. But of course, when you think of the scale of Labor's spending, and when you consider—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I almost do not need to say what it is on, Mr Speaker, but it is relevance. There is a very clear question which the Property Council of Australia and other people in the sector involved in urban policy want to know about. They want clarification of the policy that he announced last Friday.
As I have said previously, the Prime Minister and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition have extra tolerance from the chair; that is my practice. The Prime Minister can compare and contrast, and he certainly has been on the subject of the question until recently. He is entitled to compare and contrast, but I am sure he will bring himself back to the detail of the question before he concludes.
The honourable member understands very well that the construction of infrastructure can, and very often does, add considerable value to real estate, and that value can be captured to support the cost of the construction of the real estate in many ways, and there are many options for doing that, some of which, as I said earlier, involve the party constructing the railway, for example—and I refer to some of the proposals the member for Bennelong has been an enthusiastic advocate for—owning that real estate and developing it themselves. There are many different models that have been practised in Australia but especially around the world. It is an important issue which is a matter of discussion in the urban planning universe, if you like, and is one where you need collaboration between landowners, developers, state government and local government. That is the importance of the city deals: rather than trying to imagine all wisdom resides in Canberra, having genuine collaboration.
My question is to the Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia. Will the minister update the House on the government's commitment to lower electricity prices to promote jobs and growth, including in Australia's manufacturing? Is the minister aware of any alternatives to this approach?
I thank the member for Bass for his question and acknowledge that he is a fierce advocate for jobs and growth in his electorate, particularly in the manufacturing sector.
When it comes to electricity prices, the coalition has not only talked about lower electricity prices—it has actually delivered them. After Labor's time in office, electricity prices went up around 80 per cent. The coalition came in and got rid of Labor's carbon tax, and we saw electricity prices fall for the first time in a decade and by the largest-ever single amount. We have also reined in network spending, and network spending is important because it can make up some 50 per cent of household electricity bills.
I am asked: am I aware of any alternative approaches? Well, we are aware of the alternative approach from the Labor Party, because it is to bring in the rehashed, rebooted, reheated carbon tax 2.0—and we know how successful it was the first time! I have to confess: after it crashed at the box office last time, we are surprised to see the sequel here so soon. As the Minister for the Environment outlined, Labor's own modelling on their carbon tax showed that wholesale electricity prices will increase by 78 per cent, that activity in the construction sector will be down 11 per cent, and then, importantly, activity in the aluminium sector will be down 46 per cent. Why that is important is because Bell Bay Aluminium is in the member for Bass's electorate and it employs nearly 500 people directly and around 1,000 people indirectly. So what does the Labor Party say to those workers—to the welders, to the painters, to the truck drivers?
The Leader of the Opposition went on Jon Faine's program, and Jon Faine said to him, 'You would have to say that the carbon tax makes things harder for Australian manufacturing.' Bill Shorten's answer: 'It's never hard'—
The minister will refer to members by their correct titles.
It is never hard for the Leader of the Opposition because he has never run a business. He has never employed someone. He has never put his own capital at risk. And that is why it is never hard to see an increase in electricity prices.
So, under the coalition, electricity prices are lower. Under the coalition, jobs are safer. Under the Labor Party, with their reheated, rehashed, rebooted carbon tax 2.0, electricity prices will increase dramatically and jobs will be lost.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to recent budget leaks which have confirmed the Prime Minister will splash taxpayers' cash for a massive election advertising campaign. Given that the Prime Minister has been caught out spending taxpayer money on the eve of an election before, gifting $10 million in federal grant money for his Point Piper neighbour and Liberal donor's discredited cloud-seeding scheme in 2007, will the Prime Minister commit to no taxpayer-funded election advertising campaign between now and the election writs being issued?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The government has been very tolerant of the opposition's wide questions, but, quite frankly, this is a question full of assertions, speculation and made up stories and therefore has no place being asked, and I suggest that we move on.
I thank the Leader of the House. The very last sentence of the question was in order, in relation to government advertising.
I thank the honourable member for his question and the entirely false premise upon which it is based, and he will simply have to await events.
My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister outline to the House how the coalition is delivering strong and consistent border protection policies? Are there any risks to maintaining a strong border in the future?
I thank the honourable member for her question. I would like to take the opportunity first to provide an update to the House on the status of the woman brought from Nauru to Australia who was self-immolated—the second person to commit such an act in recent days. The lady remains in a critical condition and efforts, obviously, are being made to meet her medical needs. We can, of course, hope for the best possible outcome, but it is a dire situation. In both recent incidents, the patients have received the utmost care, treatment and consideration, both in Nauru and here in Australia. I want to thank the medical staff at the hospital of Nauru, the IHMS clinic, those who assisted on the scene and the government of Nauru for dealing with what is an extremely distressing situation.
I can also inform the House that the government has strengthened the existing healthcare staff of 52 health professionals on Nauru, which includes 22 mental health staff currently on the island. An additional eight health staff, including four mental health professionals, were deployed last week, and another 12, including mental health staff, are being sent to Nauru this week. This builds on the $11 million the Australian government provided for the medical clinic at the Nauru RPC and the $26½ million that we have provided to upgrade Nauru hospital.
It is of course of grave concern that this person would resort to such an extreme act of self-harm, but these behaviours have intensified in recent times and, as we see, have now turned to extreme acts with terrible consequences. I have previously expressed my frustration and, frankly, anger at some advocates who are speaking and communicating with some within the regional processing centres, encouraging them to resist offers from the government to help them return back to their country of origin or, indeed, to a third country. The government has been absolutely clear. We do not want to see any self-harm. We do not want to see the boats restart, because we know, if they do, the deaths at sea will recommence. Twelve hundred people drowned at sea when Labor lost control of our borders, and we have worked tirelessly since the day we were first elected to make sure that we could keep the people smugglers out of business and close the detention centres.
I am pleased to announce ahead of the budget tonight that we will close 17 detention centres, resulting in 17 detention centres having been opened by Labor and 17 closed by this government. We have reduced the number of children in detention from 2,000 under Labor down to zero. We do not want to see new boat arrivals and we absolutely are determined that we are not going to see men, women and children drowning at sea ever again in this country. That is why this government will remain absolutely resolute to help those people return home from Nauru and from Manus. But our determination to keep the boats stopped, to keep kids out of detention and to stop the drowning at sea is stronger than ever.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
I discern from the member for Grayndler's questions that he was inquiring as to the government's intentions with respect to taxing land. I can assure the honourable member that the government has no intention—no plans whatsoever—to impose taxes on land of the kind that he describes, and I would doubt very much whether there was any constitutional ability to do so in any event.
The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is entitled to add to an answer.
Yes, but he can't verbal me.
You can use other forms of the House later.
I'm trying to do so.
Now is not the time. After documents have been presented, if you would like to make a personal explanation, you can.
Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the member for Grayndler claim to have been misrepresented?
I do.
The member for Grayndler may proceed.
When the Prime Minister added to his answer, he sought to characterise a question that I did not ask. What I asked, very simply, was: would his model of value capture apply to existing properties? That is what I asked and the Hansard records that.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the following reports: the annual report 2013-14 and the Human rights scrutiny report: Thirty-eighth report of the 44th Parliament.
Reports made parliamentary papers in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—Before I proceed to my other statement, let me say that it is a pleasure to be able to speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' 38th report to this parliament.
The committee's report examines compatibility of bills and legislative instruments with Australia's human rights obligations. This report considers bills introduced into the parliament from 18 to 19 April 2016 and legislative instruments received from 18 March to 14 April 2016. The report also includes the committee's consideration of three responses to matters raised in previous reports.
One new bill is assessed as not raising human rights concerns and the committee will seek further response from the legislative proponent in relation to one bill. The committee has also concluded its examination of one bill and two regulations.
This report includes consideration of the Road Safety Remuneration Repeal Bill 2016. This bill sought to repeal the Road Safety Remuneration Act 2012 in order to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and all orders made by it. By abolishing the tribunal and repealing its orders, the bill engages and limits the right to just and favourable conditions of work by removing the minimum protections provided by the tribunal and its orders. The statement of compatibility acknowledges that the bill may limit the right to just and favourable conditions of work and states that the bill was necessary to prevent any unnecessary and irreversible negative impact on the road transport industry caused by the tribunal and its orders.
The committee considered that removing a negative economic impact on owner-drivers and small transport operators may be a legitimate objective for the purposes of international human rights law. However, the committee seeks additional information as to the nature and extent of the negative impact and, accordingly, will write to the minister seeking that information.
This report also concludes the committee's consideration of the Building Code (Fitness for Work/Alcohol and Other Drugs in the Workplace) Amendment Instrument 2015. The instrument requires building contractors on certain building projects to which the Commonwealth is making a significant contribution to have a policy to manage alcohol and drugs in their workplace. The committee recognises the importance of ensuring that building and construction workplaces are drug and alcohol free and that random drug and alcohol testing is an important determinant. The committee, however, has sought more information as to the safeguards that exist, as part of the alcohol and drug testing regime, to protect the right to privacy. The minister's response did not provide information on this point.
The committee notes that the Australian Border Force (Alcohol and Drug Test) Rule 2015 sets out rules for alcohol and drug testing of officers of Australian Border Force and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and includes a suite of safeguards, including that:
These are matters that have been addressed elsewhere. In the absence of advice or reasoning from the minister as to safeguards which are currently in place, the committee has concluded that the instrument provides insufficient safeguards to ensure that the requirement that construction workers undergo drug and alcohol testing is a proportionate limitation on the right to privacy.
I will now speak to the other report that I have tabled. It provides information about the work of the committee during 2013-14, including major themes and scrutiny issues arising from legislation examined by the committee. I encourage fellow members and others to examine the committee's reports to better inform their understanding of its deliberations. I think sometimes this is very necessary. With these comments I commend the committee's 38th report of the 44th Parliament to the House.
Mr Speaker, on indulgence, I thank you for the courtesy that you have provided to members of my family—my wife, Heather; my two daughters, Kirsty and Caitlin; Geoff and my grandchildren. I am delighted that not only are Quiana, Kalia and Archie with us but also Blythe. Blythe, I have to tell you, was born six weeks ago, and if she had been born naturally she would have been born today. My family are very special to me. It is a real pleasure that you have allowed them the privilege of being here with me and to join my friend Bernard Wright, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Defence, whom I thank for being here.
Before I begin, can I just say to my friends in the opposition: thank you for being here. I understand the difficulty that it has presented to some of your colleagues who have to be in another place. I do understand that.
I will speak of my family first, because often we do not think about them when we are here. Heather has been enormously supportive of me. We were married some 12 months before I was elected on 22 September 1973. We have been married now some 45 years and I am particularly proud of her. I might say that she probably would have made a better member than me.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
She has supported me enormously and we have been a team over all of that time. Can I say how proud I am of both my daughters. They have achieved at extraordinarily high levels. Each of them in their respective fields has done extraordinarily well. It is often said that children of members of parliament have difficulty. They have managed not to. I might say—in case people ask me, particularly my friends in the media—I never brought them up to be parrots. Those who remember the events of the past and Australian Story will understand what I am saying.
Prime Minister: thank you for being here. I think it is particularly important, before I proceed, to mention that.
Our father was taken from us at a relatively young age, 62. I was born in Canberra; many do not realise that. Dad was a very senior official in the Commonwealth Public Service. He was unable to serve in the war because of a disease, muscular dystrophy. It is one of the reasons I like the question I put today. He had a very severe impediment but still sought to volunteer with members of his family. His brother was in the Battle of the Coral Sea, his father was running the booms on the Hawkesbury and on Sydney Harbour to protect them, and Great-grandfather was an admiral, I think, in the British navy—we wanted to be involved. But Dad was down here, seconded to the Commonwealth Public Service, and he worked under Sir Douglas Copland running price control. He was appointed Deputy Prices Commissioner and in 1949, when Prices was abolished, he was appointed secretary of the Grants Commission. My mother's mother was dying of cancer, we went back to Sydney, and Dad took off in a different direction.
Dad was friends with some of the great 'gnomes' of Canberra, as the very senior bureaucrats in the economic area were known. Dad had a master's degree in economics. He was absolutely convinced that the price control that he had to operate was not the way forward and that a much more liberal approach to managing economic issues was required. He later became a minister in the state government of New South Wales under the late Tom Lewis, who promoted him to that office. He was a minister up until just before he was taken from us.
I mention that because there are relatives of the Prime Minister who were very much involved in my early interest in politics. His father-in-law, Tom Hughes, the former member for Berowra—I was his Young Liberal chair. I worked with him and had such enormous respect for him—for his contribution to public life but also his great mind as a lawyer.
I might say that there were two great minds. Bob Ellicott, who also stood for a Berowra preselection and missed and later became the member for Wentworth, is another whom I include.
But I might say that my mother always used to say my future was in my father's hands. Nobody would really understand this, but when I stood for preselection I had been the President of the Young Liberals in New South Wales and later President of the Young Liberals Australia wide. I nominated for Parramatta, and I found that I had 30 opponents. Oh, we wish you could get 30 candidates for preselection these days! One of them was a great Australian, Sir Nicholas Shehadie. Two other people became judges, one of the Family Court; another of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Two others became federal members and served with me: Maurie Neil SC and also John Spender SC. It was a pretty formidable field. You might wonder how a Young Liberal could beat candidates of such note.
Well, in part, my future was in my father's hands. He had stood for preselection for Parramatta in 1958, and there had been a campaign to ensure that one of our great jurists won the seat. Sir Garfield Barwick beat my father by 27 to 23 for preselection in Parramatta. There were some very notable Australians who campaigned to get Sir Garfield Barwick in. It may surprise you to know that there were four people on the preselection for Parramatta in 1973 who had voted against my dad and who voted for me on that day. I always said that my future was in my father's hands, and it was very much so. I would not have been selected were it not for those who had acted in that way.
Can I just say of my dad that he was still very surprised. He did not even come to the preselection. It was held in the Sofitel in Sydney. We went down to a Liberal Party event later in the day at one of the hotels in Elizabeth Bay, the Sebel Townhouse. Sir Robert Southey was there, and my father turned up in his bowling creams, having been at the West Epping Bowling Club until the preselection was resolved at about seven or eight o'clock at night. He was somewhat in his cups when he got there, and he came and said to Sir Robert Southey, 'I just don't know how he did it.' Such was his confidence that he was not even prepared to be there!
But I had, as you have probably detected, an enormous respect for my dad. He was a member of parliament for some 14 years before he died in 1976. He was a person who gave service to the electorate and, with the disability he faced, that was extraordinarily difficult at times. I can remember one occasion when he turned up at the Eastwood Masonic Hall. There was a large crowd there, and he wanted to avoid it. He clumped down. Those who knew him—Bronwyn will remember him—know that he had those club feet. He knew he was not going to be able to get up the stairs, so he went to the door at the side of the stage. He did not read the sign on it that said 'Gents', and everybody was rather amused as he came out, somewhat embarrassed, and then was able to clamber up the stairs later on.
As I said, for me in those early years there were a number of exemplars: Tom Hughes, Sir John Carrick—if you look back at those who were in the Liberal Party at that time—John Howard, and Billy Snedden, who campaigned extraordinarily hard for me. There are others here, I might say. I should mention John Dowd and Chris Puplick because, when I was thinking about running for the parliament, I was in part persuaded by friends who were very active as Liberals in the party in New South Wales. They went down to our apartment at Neutral Bay, clambered down the stairs and said to Heather, 'The country needs him.' She was not sure, but I thank them for the confidence they had in me.
I am very conscious that there are some people here today who were involved in my campaign: Jane Prentice; Jeanette Farrell, who was in the Parramatta Young Liberals; and there are no doubt others that I remember well involved working for me at that time. I only want to single out two others, because they were not actually working for me at that time. If Michael Photios is here, all those who know him so favourably will know that I recruited him for the Liberal Party. Some thank me! But it was during that campaign.
And I might say Laurie Bennett. I do not know whether I can see him. Yes, I can. He accosted me at the Uniting Church hall in Parramatta during that by-election and quizzed me on every possible issue. He is my most severe critic. He is a man who is pledged to Parramatta, its history and what it means, and is not always happy with a lot of the developments that go on, but I have to say that he has driven me, at every election since, around every one of the 40 polling booths that we have had to do on polling day, and I thank him enormously for it.
Can I just say that for me the Liberal Party family has been particularly important. When I was first elected, Phillip Jeffrey had been the president of the conference, but he was in his 80s by that time and was a grand figure. Many others followed. Arthur Inglis, who is here today, was a conference president for me in Parramatta at that time. We had, I might say, also Bill Barrett, who passed away. We had another very dear friend, a solicitor, who actually passed away at a conference meeting that we were having in Eastwood. And John Hartigan was my conference president in Dundas for quite some time. John, tragically, is afflicted by a condition now that has meant that he had to go into a nursing home at an age much younger than most of us would anticipate.
And we have people like Lance Barrett, Rick Forbes, Tony Chappel and Felicity Findlay, who I mention because they have given me, in my conference, leadership beyond what you would regard as duty. They have served us very generously. I look at those who have ensured that the fundraising that I have been associated with was always appropriate, lawful. And, beyond doubt, there was the late Ern Watson, who was a banker during the war and later; Peter Graham, the mayor of Ryde, and Brian Carney, who has only just relinquished that role, and without them I would not have been able to undertake the task.
I hope you all forgive me for concentrating on some of the individuals before I move to matters of substance, because it would not be appropriate for me to ignore the way I have been served by outstanding staff over a long period of time. Jeanette Farrell, whom I have already mentioned, has been with me for almost 40 years. Either we pay them too much—and I never heard that allegation!—or she gives just extraordinary service. And I know it is the latter. And there are many of my more present staff, not all of whom I will name. Looking back, I started with Dorothy Steele BEM. I have had Sonia Gatfield with me for more than 20 years; I have had Robyn Kerr with me for more than 10. People who serve you in that way are extraordinary, and I have been extraordinarily well served by my electorate staff.
But I want to mention particularly those who have worked with me when I have been a minister. And I hope not-undue note will be taken of what I am about to say, because I was unhappy about an event that impacted on one of my former staff. My first chief of staff as a minister was Andrew Metcalfe. Andrew Metcalfe later became a senior officer in the Department of Immigration after he had served me. He later became a deputy secretary, in the Prime Minister's department, and later departmental secretary. He was a very honourable and thoroughly professional Australian public servant, who served the government of the day, and I regret very much the way in which his service to this nation came to an end. Can I just say that I was well served, because he was with me at a time when I had very particular additional responsibilities early in the Howard government. I would not have survived as a minister were I not served by Andrew Metcalfe, who ensured that I was able to deal with the difficult issues involving transport and pecuniary interest statements that I know were very much in the mind of former Prime Minister Abbott when he looked at the way in which we should deal with those issues. But it was Metcalfe who ensured that I was able to manage those maters in that way.
I thank Ann Duffield for her service to me as a chief of staff, and she has served others since that time. I thank Steve Ingram, who was my chief of staff when I was Attorney-General and, I might say, continues to serve the government. I would not have known anything of his politics when he came to work for me as a media adviser, and I would have imputed nothing to his motives. I can only say that he has been an extraordinary servant of the government of the day, as you would expect, and very worthy of the trust that has been given to him.
I cannot mention all those who served with me as a minister. I would like to. But I will single out a couple. There is Janet Mackin, who has recently left Immigration but worked for me as a senior officer for a time. Tom Calma, who became the Social Justice Commissioner, worked for me and advised on Indigenous issues. Karim Barbara and others worked advising me in relation to communities. I could not have asked for a more outstanding team of people to work with me in that way over that time. I want to acknowledge my state parliamentary colleagues: Matt Kean and Damien Tudehope, who today sent me a message of goodwill, and David Elliott, Dominic Perrottet and Ray Williams, but particularly Barry O'Farrell and Bruce Baird, both of whom worked with me as state colleagues.
Can I just say that I am particularly impressed with our Australian bureaucracy. There are a number of people I have seen over the past few days—people like Helen Williams and Bill Farmer, who is here today, as well as Dennis Richardson, Rick Smith, Ed Killesteyn, Jane Halton and Rob Cornall. These are names that may mean something to all of you, but, I have to say—and I say this very deliberately; I said it at an event I had last night—we are extraordinarily well served by very fine public servants. Sometimes—and I say this as a word of advice—ministers have certain expectations, and there are public servants who sometimes have to give courageous advice and say, 'Minister, that won't work', and sometimes that advice is not liked. I have found that if you get beside them and say, 'Can you help find me another way?' it is amazing what they are able to deliver. I have had some difficult policy issues to deal with from time to time and I would not in any way sell short the people who had to administer those policies and ensure all of that was done.
I thank those around the parliament. I mentioned the Speaker, but I mentioned also his predecessors. I acknowledge the Clerk, but I have also mentioned Bernard, who is here. I think of other clerks: Pettifer, Parkes, Blake, Browning and Lyn Barlin. I worked with Ian Harris, who still sends me messages at Christmas. I am always in awe of the people who assist us, but particularly the clerks. I want to add the librarians, the attendants, the transport officers, our Comcar drivers and our committee secretariats.
I am not going to offer a lot of advice today, but I say to you, Mr Speaker, that one of the great concerns I have about the way in which our committee system operates today is that the specialised advice that was there when I first joined this parliament 40 years ago no longer exists. I lament reports that merely categorise the evidence from those who just came to see you and then draw a conclusion from the evidence that you received. You need sound advisers. I look at people who were judges and advised me when I was inquiring into the Family Law Act back in the 1970s. I look at the people who were working in relation to Indigenous affairs and advised me. My adviser in relation to Indigenous affairs and anthropology became the Vice-Chancellor of Western Sydney University, just to give you an idea of the quality of the people who were working with those committees. In one way we have restructured the budgets so that the service is not available today, and it is something that needs to be redressed.
I want to take the opportunity to say something about the media. We all have a lot to say about the media. I think the media have changed the way in which they report on this parliament. There was a time in which a speech like this may even have been reported. I am not sure it will be. There was a time when question time was reported. All of it has changed because the print media are always too late; everything is broadcast on another medium beforehand. So we do not get the reporting; we have much more commentary.
That leads me to want to comment on a couple of journalists, if I may. I find that Michelle Grattan is the most difficult lady to work with because she has your number and she will ring you any hour of the day or night to check the accuracy of any comments you may have made! I must say to any media members who are listening: if you need to emulate anybody in terms of thoroughness of preparation, model yourself on Michelle Grattan. Paul Kelly is extraordinary. I have enjoyed working with people like Malcolm Farr. I hope you will excuse me if I single out a couple of people in the ABC. Mark Colvin received a kidney from a very dear friend of mine and is still broadcasting today. I might say, Emma Alberici befriended my friend when she was in London before she came back here. I have a very warm affection for each of them as well as Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlmann. Even though Chris is related to the other side by marriage, I think he is an extraordinarily professional broadcaster and I single him out. That enables me to thank some others you might not want me to say thanks to. I want to thank Alan Jones, Ray Hadley, John Mangos and John Gatfield because each of them have been willing to use their broadcasting skills to help on important anniversaries of mine. I acknowledge that and thank them for their friendship and their willingness to help in that way.
I want to take this opportunity to mention some other matters. I rarely prepare notes and I am going to have to move to them, if I may. It seems to me that it is appropriate that I should say something of some friendships that I have developed over time. They are unusual friendships for many, but they are friendships that reflect the cultural diversity of Australia. Some people do not necessarily understand why I have such a strong linkage. I went to Barker College. Paul Hong Lee and Jackson Seto were two Chinese students studying and I got to know them fairly well. When I lived in the suburb of Pennant Hills, I became very close to a particular Lebanese village, the village of Bane, because all of the people from the village of Bane settled locally and made an enormous contribution. They were friends to me and my family. Mary Brown—that was not her maiden name; she was a Bainey—took her sons down to Our Lady of Lebanon to campaign for me in 1973. I might say, they were not alone. I was helped by a very dear friend—a man for whom I have enormous respect; a man who was, perhaps, hard done by by some comments that were made at a later point in time: Karim Kisrwani. He is no longer with us. He was a travel agent in Harris Park who went to enormous difficulty to help me, aided by an alderman of Parramatta, the late Joe Barakat. They built up linkages within the Lebanese community that are reflected in the linkages I still have today. I think of Anwar Harb and Bishop Tarabay because in the Lebanese Christian community they play a very particular and important role. But they are not alone. I have known people of every faith—every Christian faith and Muslims of different backgrounds, as well people who come from other religions, such as Buddhists and Hindus, as it should be.
Those who have worked for me—and some of them are here, such as Yves Elkouri,the Tsakis family, Anthony Sicari—have been enormously supportive. Beyond them, I have friends, as John Alexander does, in the Armenian community. I have friends in the Vietnamese community. It started with Ian Macphee, who was minister for immigration. He said to me: 'We are settling a lot of people from Vietnam in and around Cabramatta and we would like you to work with Dick Klugman'—who was then the member for Prospect—'on actually helping the Vietnamese to settle.'
I built up linkages. I do not want to mention them all. There was a beautiful lady, Kim Ngoc Dang, leader of the Vietnamese Women's Association of Australia. She got me involved with that group, which wanted to obtain freedom for the Vietnamese.
Equally I have had linkages over time with the Chinese community. When I look around—and this may surprise you—I see that there are numbers of them here today, such as Ben Chow, Amen Lee, Kevin Liu and Frances Lim. What more can you say? When people you have built up these linkages with still want to know you when you are no longer in any particular area of influence, it is something that is uniquely special.
I will just say to all my friends in the parliament that 25 per cent of Australians are overseas born. Some of them are born in New Zealand and some of them are born in the UK, but most of them are born elsewhere. If you want to ignore that 15 or 20 per cent, in my view, you do so at your peril. Those linkages are not made overnight. They are not made just because you are thinking of your next election. They can only be developed over time when you have friendships.
I want to share with you today some thoughts about broad policy issues. I have an intense interest in human rights questions. I always have. There was a time in which I was characterised as having perhaps lost some of my passion. It is important that you know how in this parliament we became interested in the death penalty issue and an organisation called Amnesty International.
It was one of my Labor friends, a dear lady from Victoria named Lenore Ryan, who campaigned to have Amnesty International recognised in the Australian parliament and to form the first parliamentary group of Amnesty International. What I came to the parliament, there were still the 49ers, the people who went through the war and had some very strong views about communism and the Eastern Europeans and what they had fled. One of them was a former member for Mackellar. His name was Billy Wentworth. Anybody who knew Billy Wentworth would know that he was a strident anti-communist. He came to me after Tony Lambert approached us and said: 'I think it's all right. They hate the communists just as much as they hate those right-wing dictators. We can join.' We got involved in building up Amnesty to be the largest and first support group in this parliament. Many try to emulate and follow, but it has been an extraordinary organisation. I thank Bill Wentworth for his encouraging me to be involved. I became chair. Others followed, particularly the late Alan Missen. It has played a very significant part in this parliament. I thank colleagues who are still involved to this day.
I was particularly encouraged by an organisation that the former Labor leader Kim Beazley Sr was involved in. It was called Moral Re-Armament and is now Initiatives of Change. The late Dr Malcolm Mackay as well as Fred Chaney and Kim Beazley encouraged me to get involved. I think many do not know of the work that that organisation has undertaken in trying to resolve conflicts around the world. It was Moral Re-Armament that encouraged me to take an interest in Cambodia and Vietnam. In the 1980s they sponsored me, Ric Charlesworth and Chris Schacht. All of us went to Cambodia. Cambodia was not easy to go to then. You would fly in one day and there would not be another plane until the next week. We were there just after the killing fields had been freed by the Vietnamese.
I played a part in focusing on refugees. It is very important to understand my personal involvement with the Khmer, the Vietnamese. I visited people in places like Hong Kong and Pulau Bidong in Malaysia and focused on what was happening in the Philippines and Indonesia. All of this commenced with Moral Re-Armament. I had the later opportunity to visit Afghan refugees in Pakistan and refugees in Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. It is no accident that I came to a view that Australia should be focused on helping refugees who need help most. I played a part later as a minister in visiting Kakuma in Kenya and camps on Lake Victoria and in Tanzania and in putting in place the programs to bring people from South Sudan, Burundi and later, from Western Africa, Sierra Leone here as part of our commitment to resettlement. I thank my friends in Moral Re-Armament for the work they did.
I will just mention, because it is perhaps not well understood, that their focus has always been on reconciliation. If you remember John Bond, who played a part in promoting reconciliation amongst Australians with our First Australians, he brought the message of Moral Re-Armament to Australia, and never really recognised that they were involved in that way. He has gone back to Chur in Switzerland, or is living in the United Kingdom, and is still organising Moral Re-Armament conferences today.
Before I became a minister, I was approached by a committee to visit South Africa when it had an apartheid regime. I would never take up the invitation. I had the great privilege of going to South Africa in 1994 as a Commonwealth monitor to see the campaign. Mine was a critical view of some aspects of the campaign. It almost got me into trouble, because everybody wanted to endorse the outcome. I wanted to draw attention to some of the difficulties. But, beside that, I was there with John Cain, Janine Haines and Professor Duncan Chappell, the chief electoral commissioner. For me, it was extraordinary insightful at a time when we were making history.
For me, in the work that I was able to do recently in the parliamentary group Australians against capital punishment, I want to thank Chris Hayes for his co-chairmanship and to acknowledge its importance. It says something about us that we have a group like this. I hope that within a day or so we will have something more to say about the death penalty before we leave this parliament.
I have a couple more points I want to make. Parliamentary committees can be important in preparing you for issues that you have to deal with. For me, I was involved in the area of Aboriginal affairs. It was almost by accident. When I arrived in this place, there were some very notable members of parliament, and the chair was Jimmy Cope. Colleagues opposite may not be prepared to remember as much. He was an independent Speaker, and we saw what happened. I can remember when I first arrived I had Jim Killen befriending me. I had Freddie Daly welcoming me in Jimmy Cope's office. He said to Heather, 'I am terribly sorry. Welcome, but I can't wish you a long stay.' He was one of the characters. But one of the other characters was our Whip. He said to me, 'You have to go on a parliamentary committee. You've been elected in the by-election.' I said, 'Which ones do you recommend?' He said, 'We'll wait until there is a vacancy.' The first vacancy was in Aboriginal affairs. For me, even though I had taken a lot of interest in Indigenous issues—I had befriended people around Sydney university; people like Charlie Perkins and so on; contemporaries—nevertheless, working on the Aboriginal affairs committee equipped me in a way that I did not understand until much later. Dealing with some of the issues like alcohol problems and empowering Indigenous people to take some responsibility for those issues, in my view, were important recommendations that we were making almost 35-40 years ago.
I chaired a joint select committee on the Family Law Act. Unless you think that you can do all that work inquiring into important areas of public policy, let me just tell you: some may criticise me for it, some may thank me for it, but it was as a result of that committee's work that we had the Child Support Scheme to ensure that parents, as they were able, properly looked after their children when there were matrimonial issues involved. Particularly the work on that committee framed the approach I took to family law when I later became the Attorney-General. It seems to me that the more we can get people out of the courts and to deal with issues without litigation, the more effective we will be. That was etched in my memory at that time. I had the opportunity of serving on committees that implemented the Northern Territory land rights legislation. For me, that was unique.
I never really had great expectations of being on the frontbench. Malcolm Fraser did not give me preferment. Another 15 or so years later, Andrew Peacock gave me the chance to be the shadow minister for the ACT. They would not even trust me with territories! The ABC helped me enormously because immediately before AM they had a little slot—five minutes to eight. I could get on to it almost every day as the de facto 'mayor of Canberra'. There was a dear lady—whose name has escaped me for the moment, but it will come back to me—who was Greek and was involved in the ACT Liberal Party. She said to me, 'You're going to need an ethnic affairs policy for the ACT.' I said, 'That's a great idea. I'll work on it.' She said, 'No, no. Don't worry. I've got one here for you.' I took the document. We then had one of our first difficult internal debates about immigration issues. I will not go into the background of it, but it was difficult. Michael Hodgman was the shadow minister. He wanted to put some discriminatory measures into the policy. The party rejected it. At the end of the discussion, I said to Peacock, who was then leader, 'What are we going to do about this policy? Now that we have settled the immigration policy, what are we going to do about settlement policies?'
The late Michael Hodgman threw his hands up in horror and said, 'Look, I couldn't do that I haven't had enough time to work on anything like that. This is outrageous.' Peacock said to me, 'Look, if you think you know what's required, why don't you bring a paper to the next shadow cabinet meeting.' I went back to my office, I took out my ACT document and I struck out 'ACT' wherever it occurred and I took it to the next shadow ministry meeting. I can remember the discussions with the late Jim Carlton—it was quite a meaningful discussion—and then Peacock asked me whether I wanted to be shadow minister for immigration. I was appointed; I did not hold it for long. There was a change in leadership—John Howard decided that Alan Cadman could do it better.
I had a period off the front bench. I have to say that I received some advice, and I want to offer it to colleagues to take as you will. Fred Chaney said to me at that time, 'How you handle disappointment is a key to your future.' I set out to take up other interests and involved myself fully in them—I even became a Deputy Speaker for a time—and later, when there was a change in leadership, I came back.
It was the time after a very difficult period in public life that I want to address now. I do have a very strong view on the importance of non-discriminatory immigration policies. There was a time when we had some internal debates about it which brought about a time when I came to a view that I was prepared to put my parliamentary career on the line. It is amazing that the Labor Party knows nothing about these sorts of things—you do not let people cross the floor; I only remember Georgy Georges as one who had some difficulty—but in the Liberal Party on a matter of conscience you have always been entitled to cross the floor.
I tell you. it is much easier to cross the floor on a taxation issue than it is on other questions. I might say that I thought my career was at an end. I was certainly opposed for preselection. I do not want to speak ill of my friend John Howard when I say this, but it was an issue of contest between us. We talked it through; I will not go into all the reasons we had the vote, though it should never have happened. But we did have it. I do not know if anyone has ever been to a convention of their party shortly after they have crossed the floor—I did. It was held in the Hilton in Sydney; John Howard looked at the thousand people who were there and he said, 'In our party every member has an opportunity to cross the floor on a matter of conscience, and we respect that.' After applause, he said, 'Of course, at the time of preselection you have the opportunity to take it into account.'
Peacock brought me back. I would like to mention that John Hewson kept me on. John Hewson lost the unlosable election, but he had helped ensure that I was in a seat in the parliament, my seat of Dundas having been abolished. John Hewson gave me support and encouragement to move to Berowra but said to me, 'You've got to demonstrate that you can do more than immigration, and I am putting you into social security.' So I then had a period in social security with John Howard. We were elected in 96, and John Howard asked me to be his immigration minister.
I want to make one point about being immigration minister: there are difficult issues that you have to deal with. But there is one positive point I would make with as much strength as I can muster: immigration is an economic portfolio about nation building. The most difficult task I had to undertake as Minister for Immigration was restoring integrity to an immigration program that was driven by fraud and family reunion—it was 60 per cent family reunion. If you want a measure—when we introduced screening in relation to some family relationships, the application numbers fell by half. When we looked at some of the people who would sponsor partners from abroad, we found one man who could not make relationships work and he had sponsored nine partners from the Philippines over time. It was extraordinarily difficult to have to bring the numbers down and to restore integrity, but I am most proud that today we have an immigration program that is supported by the Australian people as a whole and that is now seen as an economic program that is about nation-building.
I do not criticise integrity measures—they are absolutely necessary and sometimes they are extraordinarily difficult. I believe that we have to be always as humane as possible in the way in which we deal with people, but I believe that, if we do not manage our borders, we cannot manage an immigration program in the national interest. It is extraordinarily difficult. It is important for Australia and its cohesiveness that we manage those issues with compassion. I welcome the present minister's desire to get children out of detention and to resolve issues where it is possible, but I know the enormous challenge and difficulty.
I was able to play a part in relation to Indigenous affairs and reconciliation. I thank John Howard for allowing me to do that. For me, it was particularly important, although it was probably more challenging to be an immigration minister as well as having to manage Indigenous affairs, and that was over a period of time.
But perhaps the greatest privilege was to be the nation's first law officer. I never thought I would be in public life for the length of time I have been. I am a solicitor—not a senior counsel, Senator Brandis. I still hold a practising certificate because I never knew when I might have to go back. The Attorney-General's first responsibility is the safety and security of Australia, and, to implement some of the laws that deal with a right that I think is of fundamental importance, the right to life, you often have to do some quite difficult things. I am partly responsible for some of those laws and, I hope, for some of the checks that ensure that they are not abused. It was a great privilege to work with one of our most senior public servants, Dennis Richardson, whom I mentioned earlier, who was head of ASIO at the time. I have enormous respect for those organisations and what they do.
But I did not want to be remembered as an Attorney who was responsible only for national security; I wanted to implement important, broader reforms. One of the interesting areas was defamation. I might say that I think there is enormous opportunity to work with the states to codify laws to eliminate differences. I do not think we do enough of it, and it ought to be top of mind in these ministerial council meetings. You can do a great deal.
The way in which forum shopping occurred in relation to defamation was appalling. I went to a meeting of SCAG, the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General, and I was told by my officials: 'This matter of defamation law reform has been on the agenda for almost 20 years, since Michael Kirby wrote his report. Unless we can move somewhere on this, we might as well just take it off the agenda.' I asked them how we could move on it. 'You might be able to use the corporations power to legislate. It would cover the field except for community noticeboards and pamphleteering,' they told me. I thought, 'That's a great idea.' I went to the state attorneys and I said, 'Unless you're prepared to reform these laws, I might have to legislate.' I then got officials drafting a Commonwealth code and I started consultations. And, Prime Minister, I met with your father-in-law, a leading silk in defamation matters. He told me, 'If you're going to reform the law, it has to be the New South Wales approach, the common law.' You can hear Tom saying it! I would go to Queensland, and the lawyers would look at me and say, 'No, no, you've got to reform it, but it has to be the Griffith code.' I tell you they were pretty obdurate.
You might have thought that getting the states to agree was going to be difficult. But I promoted more and more the idea that the Commonwealth would take it over and we would legislate to deal with some of the issues I regarded as important. I must say I do not think you should be able to defame the dead; we still can. I did have some views about limiting claims of judgement against media, but some of the states were prepared to compromise on limiting the size of judgements. Amazingly, in order to ensure that I could not legislate, New South Wales Attorney Bob Debus was able to convince all of his state Labor colleagues—because they were all state Labor governments at the time—that they should cover the field. So the uniform defamation law was to spite Philip Ruddock! If you understand that, you can appreciate that you can do a lot if you are prepared to argue the case.
Personal property security took a while to come, but, to me, 80 different laws covering all the various forms of personal property security in each state was never the way to go. Important family law reforms requiring that people could not commence litigation in relation to children until they had at least attempted mediation, and establishing the Family Relationship Centres to try and get that away from the legal profession were, I thought, particularly important reforms.
I am grateful for the opportunity I was given. I thank my friend John Howard for his generous remarks about me as a minister; I think he described me as a safe pair of hands. For me, the changes that I was able to initiate made it all worthwhile.
I was grateful for the opportunity Tony Abbott gave me to be shadow cabinet secretary in opposition, and for my appointment as Chief Government Whip, but I also thank those who have enabled me to fulfil other roles.
I want to thank the Prime Minister, who recognised my particular interest in human rights issues and presented me with the very difficult decision that I have had to make. I have been involved in the human rights scrutiny committee in this parliament. I have chaired the Human Rights Subcommittee. I have been involved in Australians against Capital Punishment. I am involved with Amnesty. It is there; I live it every day. But my view is that the offer that has been made for me to engage in trying to get Australia elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, where we might be able to play a more meaningful role in some of these issues, builds on those areas of personal interest in a way I could not have dreamed of. I thank you, Prime Minister, and the foreign minister, for the confidence you have put in me to play a part in trying to secure that outcome. If we are able to influence around the world many of these issues about which I feel most strongly, I believe I may have played an important part.
This has not been an easy decision for me. My wife and family know that I have agonised about it. It is a matter of balance. It is not easy to leave. Contribution in this parliament, if you can make it, is extraordinarily important. But nobody has an entitlement to be here. Nobody. I just make that point because, for me, I have made a difficult choice and I want you to know that it was difficult.
I take a moment to say that numbers of people have worked with me. One has secured endorsement from my party to succeed me in the electorate of Berowra. I hope it will not be seen as a partisan political point. I do not know that the Labor Party is going to get to a 20 per cent swing in Berowra. So I wish Julian Leeser well in his quest to succeed me. He is a person who has led the Menzies Research Centre. He has considerable skills and attainment, and I wish them well.
Colleagues, I wish you all well in the elections that are before you. I have not singled you all out. I apologise for that. I do not know that there is another half-hour.
Of course, there is! The budget's not till half past seven.
Be careful what you wish for! Colleagues, I value the friendship of you all. It has been particularly important for me. I hope you will excuse my gratuitous advice, as I have offered it. Prime Minister, I wish you and your colleagues well in what is before you. I have great confidence in you and your capacity to be able to continue to lead this country. I value your friendship, your encouragement and your support.
Mr Speaker on indulgence: if I my add some brief words to the acclamation to the Father of the House. Christopher Wren's son wrote of him, in St Paul's Cathedral, 'Si monumentum requiris, circumspice', which translates: 'If you seek his monument, look around you.' Philip Ruddock's family is here—Heather, his daughters and his grandchildren—and you see the love of that family. That, indeed, is a great monument. But there is a larger monument that Philip Ruddock has built. We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. It is the work of millions. It is the work of all Australians. But there is no Australian who has served in this parliament, who has done more to create that great success—the world's greatest multicultural society—than Philip Ruddock, and we salute him.
We salute you in your modesty. You have spoken to us—you could have taken up all the time until the budget—and almost all of your speech, with characteristic modesty, was about the thanks you owe to others. We thank you, Philip Ruddock. Thank you for your service to Australia.
I thank the Prime Minister.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Blaxland proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The House was informed that Mr Clare had proposed that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely, 'The government’s failure to deliver on the NBN for Australians.'
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—
Mr Speaker, this is the latest report from Akamai, which ranks internet speeds of different countries around the world. It is a damning indictment on this government and this Prime Minister because, in the last three years, Australia has gone from 30th in the world to 60th in the world for internet speeds—behind most of Asia, Europe, America, Canada and even New Zealand. We are even behind Russia, Poland and Slovakia.
That is this Prime Minister's legacy as communications minister: from 30th in the world, for internet speeds, down to 60th. He was a failure as communications minister, not just according to this report but according to his own standards, the standards he set for himself just over three years ago when he released The coalition’s plan for fast broadband and an affordable NBN. His policy was to be put to the people of Australia at the last election. Most of the promises that were made in this policy have been broken, including the two big ones. One was a promise that he could build the NBN for $29½ billion, and the other was that everyone in Australia would have access to the NBN by the end of this year. Both of those have now been broken, not by a little bit by a lot. The cost of the NBN is not $29½ billion anymore. It has now blown out to up to $56 billion.
In question time today, the Prime Minister gave us a lecture about $20 billion and how much that was. He said in answer to the first question, 'We regard $20 billion as a huge amount of money. It could provide a full year of hospital funding, more than a full year of schools funding and the duplication of the Hume Highway.' The blow-out of the NBN is more than that, more than $20 billion. It has blown out by $26½ billion on his watch. Remember the other promise? It is a promise that everyone across Australia would get the NBN this year. Tasmania would have gotten it last year, apparently. They are still waiting. The promise was that the whole country would get it this year.
Well, guess what: we are still waiting. If you are still buffering, blame Malcolm Turnbull. More than 80 per cent of the country is still waiting for Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate NBN. It is an epic fail. Where this really rubs people the wrong way is in electorates like Perth and Cowan in WA, Banks in New South Wales, Deakin in Victoria or Bonner in Queensland. In these electorates—
Bonner! In Bonner you're a gonna.
I am sorry to say it, but this includes Bonner as well. In these electorates no-one in an existing home or business has the NBN—not a soul. Remember that the Prime Minister said that everyone in these electorates would have the NBN this year. It is an extraordinary breach of faith.
It is the same on the west coast of Tasmania. Before the last election, the Prime Minister said that he would build a fibre link to the west coast of Tasmania. Both sides of politics said the same thing: we would build fibre to the west coast of Tasmania. Then, slyly and sneakily, without any announcement, in August last year the Prime Minister switched from building a fibre link to the west coast of Tasmania to putting them on the satellite version of the NBN. Understandably, the people of the west coast of Tasmania have had a gutful of that. They are awfully peeved off. I went to a community meeting in Queenstown in Tasmania last month with the local member. I have never been to a meeting where more people were so angry about being ripped off and dudded by this government on the NBN. They said things in that meeting that I could not repeat in this parliament. They were seriously angry and felt they had been dudded, and that was why I was in Tasmania again last week to announce that a Shorten Labor government will reverse this sneaky, bad decision by Malcolm Turnbull and give the people of the west coast of Tasmania the fibre link that they were promised.
Why has all this happened? Why have there been all the broken promises? How did the Prime Minister get this policy that he put together three years ago so wrong? There is one word for it, and it is 'copper'. He thought that he could do fibre-to-the-node quite simply and quite cheaply. He thought it would be easy, but he seriously underestimated how hard it would be to go from building a fibre NBN to a copper NBN. He said that he could negotiate access to the copper from Telstra quickly. He said he could do it in a couple of months. It ended up taking nearly two years to seal the deal with Telstra. He also underestimated how much it would cost to build this copper version of the NBN fibre-to-the-node. He said it would be 600 bucks a home for fibre-to-the-node. But, again, that was a massive error. In fact, it was $1,600 a home. He also underestimated the cost of fixing the copper. He said it would cost $55 million to fix the old copper that they had bought back from Telstra. He said it was a conservative assumption. In fact, it is $783 million. It has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent.
He has also had problems with the rollout of this copper NBN. I have a good example. A story that was in The Sydney Morning Herald a couple of months ago revealed that nbn co were supposed to have rolled out fibre-to-the-node to 94,000 homes by 12 February, but they got nowhere near that. According to leaked documents, they only hit 29,000. Then last month there was another leaked document. This time, in the Financial Review, the headline 'Leaked NBN documents confirm lengthy delays' revealed that, of the first 40 fibre-to-the-node areas, all of them are behind schedule. Not one of them has been built on time. Every single one of those first 40 fibre-to-the-node areas are all behind schedule.
But it gets even worse, because where it has been switched on it is not working properly. I have told the parliament stories before about the problems in the Hunter, on the Central Coast and in Bundaberg where people have signed on to fibre-to-the-node and are now getting slower speeds than they were getting with ADSL. A good example of that was a recent headline in the Hunter. 'Hunter's National Broadband Network in crisis as consumers are plagued by delays and speed issues' tells the story of one man, Mark Jackson, who said: 'As soon as we connected, our speeds went down really badly, to the point where I can't even use Facebook'. And he is just one. There are many people in the Hunter who are complaining to good local members of parliament and complaining to nbn co, saying, 'Fix this mess.' It has got that bad that last week nbn co actually issued an official apology to the people of the Hunter for the mess that they have made.
Then, yesterday, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman released its complaints data for the first three months of this year. When you look at the complaints data, one thing stands out: all these suburbs—like Toukley, Newcastle, Warners Bay and Belmont North—are in areas where Malcolm Turnbull's slower, second-rate copper version of the NBN has been switched on. They are all areas where complaints are up. In fact, six of the top 10 suburbs in the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman's complaint report yesterday are areas where fibre-to-the-node has recently been switched on.
It gets even worse than that. I have told the parliament before about how much new copper this government is buying to make this second-rate network work. It is 10 million metres of new copper—enough to connect Melbourne to Mumbai. But now it gets even more bizarre than that, because I recently found this job ad on Seek: Manager Copper Service Assurance:
The Manager Copper Service Assurance will lead an nbn team working closely with the Managed Service Partner teams in Melbourne, Mumbai and Delhi. This role will provide visible leadership in relation to the performance management for all aspects of inbound/outbound Service Management.
This role will be based in Mumbai, India. This is not a fly-in fly-out role. It will require the manager of copper service assurance to reside in India on an ongoing basis. Not only have they bought back Telstra's old copper network, not only are they now buying 10 million metres of new copper, but now they are sending jobs to Mumbai to fix their second-rate copper network. What a mess! It is going to take a Labor government to fix this mess.
This is the best that Labor has got on budget day. Labor is so bereft of a plausible story to tell on economic management that on the day the Australian people turn their attention to the vital question of which party has the better economic plan for Australia the best that Labor can come up with as a topic for a matter of public importance debate is this tired old piece of wishful thinking from the member for Blaxland.
The member for Blaxland dreams of an alternative universe in which Labor are competent administrators and the coalition are failing in their NBN roll-out plan. He hopes that, if he says it often enough, that alternative reality will come true. On 17 September 2015 the MPI topic was: 'The Prime Minister's mismanagement of the NBN'. He had another go on 21 October: 'The Prime Minister's second-rate NBN'. On 10 February this year: 'The Prime Minister failing Australians with his second-rate NBN'. And now he is trying again: 'The government's failure to deliver on the NBN for Australians'. The member for Blaxland can say it as often as he wants but it is just not true, because there are three fundamental propositions: firstly, Labor are hopeless on delivery; secondly, Labor were hopeless on the delivery of the national broadband network in their six years of government; and, thirdly, where Labor failed the coalition are delivering.
Let's turn to the question of Labor's proven hopelessness on delivery. It is frankly extraordinary that the Labor Party would come in here and voluntarily raise the topic of delivery on a policy promise. Let's just remind ourselves: on budget day, what promise comes to mind? 'The four years of surpluses I promise tonight.' Of course, did the member for Lilley deliver it? He delivered nothing. What about the naval ships and submarines? How much was delivered in six years? Oh, that would be nothing! Again, nothing! While we are talking about Labor's delivery record, what about Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch? What did that deliver? That delivered actually nothing. What about the Home Insulation Program? What did that deliver? Well, we do know, unfortunately, that it delivered house fires and, tragically, the deaths of four young Australians. What about border protection? What about Labor's complete failure to deliver when it came to border protection? Oh, they did deliver 50,000 illegal arrivals and over 1,000 deaths at sea. What about Labor's failed deal to send asylum seekers to Malaysia declared illegal by the High Court? What about the mining tax—the tax that failed to deliver just about any revenue.
What about Labor's GP superclinics? Remember Labor's GP superclinics? Twenty-eight were promised at the 2010 election and by 2013 one was operational. That is more than the ships they delivered. One was operational. What about ending the double drop-off? Remember the promise to end the double drop-off? In 2007 they promised to build 260 childcare centres under the 'end the double drop-off' policy. By February 2010 they had built three. What about trades training centres? They promised to build one of those in each of our 2,650 high schools. By February 2010, how many were operational? One. So it really is deeply ill-advised of the Labor Party to talk about delivery—the very topic they presume to raise in this matter of public importance debate this afternoon, because when it comes to delivery the Australian people know from the track record of the Labor Party that they are hopeless.
Let's turn specifically to their record of delivery when it comes to the National Broadband Network. What did they first promise in 2007? At that election they promised a network that was going to be 12 megabits per second; it was going to go to 98 per cent of the population; it was going to be fibre-to-the-node; and it was going cost taxpayers a mere $4.7 billion. What happened in April 2009? They had to admit that policy was a complete failure. They could not deliver on it. Are we noticing a theme about Labor? They are hopeless at delivery. What then happened in April 2009? Oh, a new policy. It was going to deliver fibre-to-the-premises to 12.2 million people—but there was still going to be private sector investment. Of course, by 2010 they had to admit that they could not get that, because the expert consultants report that they themselves commissioned said the private sector would not touch it with a barge pole. What did they deliver by September 2013 after six years in government? They had spent money. They had spent over $6 billion. Of the 12.2 million premises, how many actual connections were there when Labor left government in September 2013? Barely 50,000 premises had been connected. This was a rolled-gold implementation disaster. So it really is extraordinary that Labor should presume to come into this chamber and even raise the topic of delivery when their track record is absolutely dismal.
Now let us have a look at what the coalition has been doing since we have been in government in getting on to deliver the NBN. What is the first thing that we did? We put in a competent board of experienced telecommunication professionals, because, bizarrely, there were no people on the NBN board who knew much about telecommunications. They did not have the expertise. We brought in a competent board chaired by Ziggy Switkowski, a former CEO of Telstra and a former CEO of Optus. Then we brought in a competent management team led by Bill Morrow, a former CEO of Vodafone in Australia of Vodafone and other network business all around the world. Step 1: competent board. Step 2: competent management team. Next step: let's get a credible roll-out plan, multitechnology mix, fibre-to-the-premises, fibre-to-the-node and HFC. Let's say that it turns out that the hybrid fibre coax network built in the nineties is capable at modest cost of being upgraded to 100 megabits per second. It turns out that is what the technical expertise advised us. That might be a slightly better idea than Labor's insanely wasteful and fundamentally stupid idea of paying both Telstra and Optus—in Telstra's case billions; in the case of my former employer Optus, over $800 million—to tear down a working network. That is why once a team of credible, experienced telecommunications professionals got in there they said: 'This is a sensible way to proceed—multitechnology mix.' How is it going? Well, you can find out very easily, because every week the roll-out numbers are reported on the internet on the company's website—something that never happened in Labor's a time. Quarter after a quarter—seven quarters in a row—NBN has met the financial targets and the roll-out targets that it has set for itself. Did that ever happen under Labor? No. They never met their targets. Why? Because they had no idea what they were doing. Let's look at the number of Australians who are now able to connect to this network. It is almost two million premises. That compares to barely 50,000 people who were connected to the network when Labor left government. It is now two million premises.
This is a tough, complex job. There is more to do, but we are getting on with it. We are now seeing the fibre-to-the-node rollout continuing at over 10,000 premises a week, and that number will rise continually over coming months and years. This is a challenging rollout. We are getting on with the job. We are delivering the NBN. It is, frankly, an extraordinary proposition from the Labor Party to come in here and even begin to raise the topic of delivery. The Australian people know, when it comes to the NBN, or when it comes to any other aspect of Labor's dismal track record, that you cannot trust Labor on the NBN.
But the most interesting question is: what is Labor's plan? What is Labor actually going to do with the National Broadband Network should it get into government? What is Labor going to do? It is quite interesting. What did the Leader of the Opposition say when he was asked this question at a forum televised on Sky News? He said:
We won't rip up everything that Mr Turnbull has done because I think … not everything the Liberals do is bad. So we will do a hybrid of some of what he's done but we will have in our announcement, which we will be putting pretty soon, a greater proportion of the use of fibre and we will also look at the proportions of fibre and we think we can provide more of that to more Australians.
What does that actually mean? What it means is that it is the multitechnology mix. It is a mix of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, fibre to the distribution point, HFC—hybrid fibre coaxial—all of the elements being brought together to get the NBN rolled out as quickly as possible. The Leader of the Opposition has effectively conceded is that ours is the best plan. Ours is a plan that is delivering, and the most sensible thing for Labor to do, should they get back into government, would be to maintain the plan. That is essentially what he signalled Labor is going to do. Labor are very unwise to be talking about delivery because on the NBN—and everything else—their track record is dismal. On this side of the House, we are delivering. (Time expired)
If there was any greater way of telling that the government were embarrassed about their own failure at the NBN, it is the fact that their minister, who was so deeply involved in it for so long, spent the first half of his speech talking about anything other than the NBN. They do not want to talk about the NBN at all. It has turned out to be a massive embarrassment for them, because a network that was supposed to be delivered faster is being delivered slower; a network that was supposed to be delivered cheaper has doubled in cost; and they are failing to even meet the simple targets that they set for themselves. In fact, to their great credit, nbn co is rolling out apologies for service faster than fibre. They have done very well at the apology letter writing business. They are doing excellently at that.
I do love the sense of irony that the coalition put out this policy on the NBN. What it really should have been is their promise to deliver high-speed semaphore, because that is all they are capable of delivering. When you go through the statistics they are damning. Let's go through every single thing they said they would do and whether they delivered. This is the reason Minister Fletcher was unable to talk about the NBN for the first half of his speech.
Malcolm Turnbull promised everyone in the country that they would get the NBN this year. More than 83 per cent of the country are still waiting for the second-rate network. Malcolm Turnbull said that his second-rate NBN would cost $29.5 billion; now the cost is almost $56 billion. He said in 2013 he would get his second-rate NBN to all homes in Australia by this year; that time frame is now out to 2020. He said that his second-rate copper NBN would cost $600 per home; that has now tripled to $1,600 per home. He said in 2013 that it would cost $55 million to patch up the old copper network; that has blown out by more than 1,300 per cent.
How much?
1,300 per cent, Member for Throsby. He also said in 2013 that 2.61 million homes would be connected to pay TV cables by 2016; nbn co now forecast that they will only connect 10,000 homes by June this year. He said his second-rate network would bring in $2.5 billion in revenue; that has crashed to $1.1 billion. These are all nails in the coffin of every single fantasy that that side would deliver faster broadband. But do you know what the most damning one is? In his two years as communications minister, the man who promised us fibre to the node did not connect a single paying customer to his fibre-to-the-node network—not one in two years. To say that you are the friend of the NBN and that you are going to deliver on the NBN is almost like Kathy Bates in Misery classifying her sledge hammer as a therapeutic good.
It is ridiculous that your side can competently say, in any shape or form, that you are here to deliver. You are not. You are simply slowing down the network, and people know that it is a dud. Now you have a situation where the jobs of the future are being shipped out overseas. The jobs of the future are to deal with copper. Who in their right minds ever said that the future was copper? It is like delivering a hybrid horse and buggy. It is a joke of what you have turned this network into that you could be reduced to this—that it would all be about copper.
Do you know what I would be interested in, Minister? During your time at Optus, you talked so much about the hybrid network—HFC and hybrid fixed cable. I would love—
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
Coaxial, sorry. You know the name of it and you know how bad it is. But you never mention how many complaints you got on that network, how unreliable it was during your time at Optus and how unreliable it would be now. They are still stuck in the past.
The bottom line is this: if you want to see a modern network that will meet the expectations of the community, you cannot rely on that side opposite. They will do everything they can to slow the rollout down, to make sure it is inaccessible and to make sure it does not deliver for Australians in the way that they want. It is going to be Labor that will have to fix up this network.
The Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government, Minister Fletcher, spoke about Labor's lack of ability to deliver. But we do know what they can deliver. They can deliver record debt, record deficit, increased taxes and, today, they can actually deliver a wonderful black hole in their tobacco tax of $20 billion.
Opposition members interjecting—
They are excited about that, aren't they?
Yes, they are very excited about debt and deficit, because they are best at it. So when we talk about rollout and delivery, let us talk about the South-West in my part of the world, which has been a major beneficiary of the coalition's investment in communications. I personally want to thank the Prime Minister and Minister Fletcher, who is at the table, for their support in getting better broadband sooner into the south west. It was nowhere under the Labor debacle. When my electorate was looking at NBN under Labor, it was under 'next decade or beyond'. My region today, under the coalition, is seeing NBN rolling out right now. Boxes are being built right throughout the electorate, cables are being run down the streets and local technicians are at work. There are great opportunities for local technicians and local employment, with local people doing the work. That is happening as I speak right now, and not from 2020 onwards, as Labor said for my electorate. Our coalition NBN project has ensured that the rollout will be completed sooner, cheaper for taxpayers and more affordably for the consumers of the product itself.
We will soon see approximately 55,000 premises in my electorate of Forrest connected to the NBN by means of fixed line technology and an additional 3,320 premises getting access through wireless technology throughout the South-West, years ahead of the time under the costly and inefficient Labor broadband proposal. As I said, we were looking well beyond 2020. It was a never, never Labor plan. Of course, 6½ thousand premises went live last week in Bunbury. They are now getting access to the national broadband network. They are being connected, and construction is well underway and continuing throughout the Bunbury and broader region.
The greater Bunbury region will see a total of 32,000 premises accessing the NBN via fixed line technology much faster than previously thought. Not 2020 and beyond but today. It would have been never under Labor. Construction is also underway in Busselton. Under Labor, they were also not going to have access till beyond 2020. We saw street side NBN cabinets installed there last month. Again, it was local technicians doing much of the work. In the Busselton region 2,300 premises will soon be connected by fixed line to the NBN out of a total of 16,600 premises that will over time get fixed line access to the NBN. Another 2,500 will get wireless access. A further 4,300 premises—we are talking about delivery here—will be connected by fixed line in Eagle Bay, Quindalup, and Dunsborough.
It was really fantastic to see the interim satellite launched—the first of NBN's two world-class communication satellites. The Sky Muster means that the wait for access to the NBN is over for many of the more remote homes and businesses not only in Forrest but right around Australia. Last week the minister announced the Sky Muster was open for business—that is what you call delivery. Eligible customers can now apply to their local internet service provider for a broadband connection.
The coalition's NBN is effective and efficient, because it has a proper business model to operate under. I welcome nbn co limited's half yearly results, including customer research showing the level of satisfaction with broadband services delivered using fibre-to-the node technology are the same as those using the fibre-to-the-premises technology. These results are a clear indication that the coalition's approach to delivering the NBN sooner, more effectively and more cost-effectively is working. Minister Fletcher, I congratulate you and the Prime Minister for your leadership in this space, seeing better broadband sooner delivered to the people of Forrest in my electorate.
After we heard from the representative of the Minister for Communications, I thought we would hear from someone from that portfolio. I thought we would hear from the innovation minister. Instead who did we hear from? Someone symbolically connected with the horse and buggy—the whip. That is how far back we have to go with those opposite when it comes to the NBN.
Let us remember what the national broadband network is all about. Why are we investing money in the national broadband network? The NBN will give us the jobs of the future. The NBN will give us boosts in innovation, and I do not mean a $28 million fake advertising campaign about innovation. The NBN will deliver innovation. The NBN will boost productivity, whether it be in manufacturing, whether it be in education, whether it be in delivering services in the Asian century.
That is why Labor were prepared to invest in fibre. Labor were prepared to invest in it. We said right up-front, 'Let us do it right; let us do it once; let us do it with fibre.' We know it was a great policy because those opposite said that they would do the same thing. In fact, in 2013 Malcolm Turnbull promised that, under a coalition government, in 2016 all Australians would have access to their NBN. That was the promise. A booklet was waved by every coalition candidate around the country, saying, 'We are on the same ticket.' It was just like Gonski! Just like Gonski, they said they would be on the same ticket. The sad reality is that 83 per cent of this nation does not have Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate NBN.
I know it was a big campaign issue in the marginal seat of Moreton. I will quote from the Southern Star, one of my trusted local Quest newspapers. They said:
The National Broadband Network is a hot topic for Moreton voters, some of whom have voiced concern over how the rollout will proceed if there is a change of government.
And there is a quote from Rachael Zhong, who had a business in Rocklea. If you want to see what is going on in Moreton, check out the nbn co website. What does it say right now? Rachael from Rocklea was concerned about what would happen to the NBN if the coalition got in. What does nbn co say for Rocklea right now? It says:
The rollout of the NBN network has not started in this area.
This is despite Malcolm Turnbull's promise and despite the LNP's promise. My opponent, the LNP candidate, said in 2013:
We will get this out faster and cheaper than under the Government's plan—
that is, the Labor government's plan—
because we don't need to dig up every footpath to deliver the NBN to the home.
But what do we have now? No upgrade at all and no NBN. They are left with an out-of-date copper service centred in Mumbai or somewhere else, and we are still waiting.
Who should we blame for that, now the opportunity for innovation is gone, the opportunity for productivity is gone and the opportunity to sell jobs and services into Asia is gone? Malcolm Turnbull—that is who. Who should we blame? Him. In 2013 Malcolm Turnbull said his second-rate NBN would cost $29.5 billion. It is now up to $56 billion. I was an English teacher and not a maths teacher, but I think that is $26.5 billion extra. He said that everyone in Australia would have his second-rate NBN by now, but look at what is happening. He said it would only cost $600 per home, but now the cost is $1,600 per home. In 2013 Malcolm Turnbull sabotaged the rollout of the NBN. He estimated it would cost $55 million to patch up the NBN rollout, but instead the cost blowout is 1,300 per cent, to more than $780 million. So we have a hole of $1.4 billion. In the two years Malcolm Turnbull was the Minister for Communications he did not connect a single paying customer to his fibre-to-the-node network.
The Prime Minister's management of the NBN means the people in my electorate of Moreton are suffering. They are not happy with the LNP. Lee from Sunnybank Hills contacted my office about the slow implementation of the NBN. He says:
The volume of traffic on the internet has grown, particularly with the arrival of Netflix and other online media functions that are replacing TV broadcasting. Internet service providers now sell unlimited monthly volumes compared to, say, 50 to 100GB a month just three years ago.
Tim from Moorooka has also contacted my office. He says:
My family and I have recently moved to Moorooka from regional Queensland. We're loving the vibrancy of the community as well as the diversity of the culture on show. However, I was disappointed to find out that NBN was not yet available and was told they didn't know when it might be available.
That is despite the promises of my LNP opponent and despite the promises of the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Malcolm Turnbull. Shame on him.
As the Nationals Whip, I am probably closer to the horse and buggy than most in this place. I will tell you something else, Mr Deputy Speaker: if it were up to the Labor Party, that is where country Australia would still be. The Labor Party's contribution today has been like that back-of-the-envelope service that Senator Conroy gave us—it has been intermittent and garbled. That is what their contribution today has been, like their back-of-the-envelope service.
In 2013, when the coalition came to government, I asked the representatives of the NBN to come into my office and give me a briefing on where we were up to. 'Just out of interest,' I said, 'when on the plan is my home town on to be connected?' It was 2024. I am pleased to say that it has now been moved up to 2017—next year. As of tomorrow, there will be 4,600 houses NBN ready in Dubbo, and by the end of June there will be 16,000 premises connected. There are houses in Wellington and Gulgong; Coolah already has it. The NBN is rolling out now at an escalating pace and people can actually see that they are going to get the service.
On Monday the Sky Muster satellite came online. People in my electorate can now get the Sky Muster satellite service. There is an extra reason for wanting that satellite service in my electorate—for six years not one cent went into the mobile phone coverage. The only connection that these people are going to have with the outside world is through this satellite. The member for Moreton talks about someone from Jerrys Plains or Emu Hills or wherever it was who was distressed. I bet she has a mobile phone that works. I bet she can make a call when she wants to. The people in my electorate around Condobolin, Wanaaring, Nevertire and Upper Horton cannot even make a phone call. They are running multimillion-dollar businesses and they cannot make a phone call. They are excited about the Sky Muster satellite going up. They are excited that the towns they are dealing with in their businesses will be connected to fast broadband. They are excited that the wireless network that is going up in places like Gilgandra and Cooks Gap is going to make a difference to their lives.
It is all right for the former Prime Minister and the Minister for Communications to nut out these lofty aspirations on the back of an envelope while they are sipping chardonnay somewhere over the desert in the VIP, but when it comes to implementation and actually doing something like digging up the dirt and laying cables members of the Labor Party have got no idea—just like they have no idea with anything else of a practical nature to do with running the country. It is like doing a university assignment without any practical understanding of how things should be implemented. Under the present Prime Minister, and when he was the Minister for Communications, ably assisted by the member for Bradfield, we are now seeing the NBN being rolled out on track in a timely manner.
What does this mean? I can tell you what it means for someone like Gina Terbutt, who runs Dust'n'Boots, an online clothing business that employs four or five people. She is 16 kilometres out of Warialda and sells work wear, smart casual wear and business wear online all over Australia. She is relying on a patched-up phone service for connection and is greatly frustrated by dropouts. Dust'n'Boots, operating from regional Australia, will now be able to hook up to a reliable, regular satellite service and be connected not only to their customers right around Australia but also to their suppliers in Indonesia, China and other places around the world. The Lewises at Jac Wagyu sell product from their wagyu cattle farm. With the connection of the satellite they will be able to operate their business much more effectively.
Also important is the Mobile Black Spot Program the member for Bradfield oversaw, which saw 499 phone towers go up. The next round is coming along nicely. We are going to be able to have businesses in regional Australia, in my electorate, for the first time having something that people in other parts of Australia take for granted. (Time expired)
What an interesting debate this is. We have it quite regularly because of the failure of this government. First, we had the failure under Malcolm Turnbull and now we have the failure under the member for Bradfield. I heard the member for Bradfield talking earlier about satellites. I distinctly remember at the time of the national broadband network rollout hearing from the member for Bradfield, the man they have made into the communications man—this is the man that knows all; he is ex-Optus. Of course, we know how much Optus celebrated when he got rolled. He sat there and asked about the satellite launches, 'Are they a standard platform?', to which NBN said, 'No, they're not. They're not a standard platform.' He responded: 'Are they are standard platform?' They said, 'No, they're not.' Then the member for Bradfield's asked, 'Are they customised?' If they are not a standard platform of course they are customised. They are customised to suit the needs of Australians and what we need in a broad country to get services out everywhere. On satellite technology, we know that those guys did not want it. The government did not want to put two new satellites in place. In fact, they argued passionately against it. Luckily, there was a bloke named Quigley running the NBN. He put them in their place and showed them that they were actually needed.
We talk constantly about the issues with broadband, because the MTM, as it is called—the Malcolm Turnbull mess—has done nothing but fail everyone. I go to areas in my electorate, such as Sunbury, where there has been not one new connection in 2½ years. It was supposed to have been finished in 2015. Now because of the failure of this bloke, the member for Bradfield, who has taken over from the last failure, it has rolled over to be 'work starting in 2017'. People are losing jobs and having to move because of the failure of the member for Bradfield and his predecessor the member for Wentworth.
We heard the member for Bradfield get up earlier and say, 'Oh, we've had 100 per cent success!' That is right; there has been 100 per cent success. Every single fibre-to-the-node thing they have put in place is not working. As the member for Chifley pointed out, you are rolling out apologies more than you can roll out connections. You have absolutely failed.
Let us look at community forums. We had the member for Bradfield come down with his secret little forum. It was invitation only. It was held on the Thursday before Easter: 'We can't let anyone know, just the Liberal Party.' Of course, we found out about it and we turned out. The good thing was that every single person who left that forum, after two hours of listening to him, said that they would not vote Liberal, because they had to put up with him and a Liberal candidate for two hours and learnt that the government has not got a clue what it is doing with broadband. Compare that with what we were doing. We had the member for Blaxland come down and attend a packed out forum in Sunbury. Mind you, the member for Bradfield has not responded to any letters from people in Sunbury, nor has he responded to any invitations to come down to Sunbury. He is too scared. He knows he is going to have to sit in a room with people who are talking about how they have to shut their businesses and move because of this bloke's failure to deliver broadband to our community. We have people who are electronic design engineers using large files who have to spend more money—you know, they love to talk about how great they are in business. The extra cost that those opposite are putting on companies in suburban and regional areas means that these companies are putting off local workers and have to have extra expenses as they go to other areas to run their business. That is because of the failure of this government to deliver broadband.
We have had no new rollout in three years in the fastest growing part of Victoria. In fact, it is one of the fastest-growing parts of Australia. We have had not one new connection. People are sitting there each and every day saying, 'When am I getting the rollout? When is it actually going to come?' They do not know, because this lot over there would not have a clue. They would not know whether they are Arthur or Martha.
We heard earlier some chipping in by the member for Irons, and I am glad he pointed out to remind me—
Swan!
The member for Swan—talking about the pink batts and the failure there, saying that it was four deaths and trying to blame that directly on the government. I hope that he is going to stand up and call for a royal commission. We have had two deaths already this year in the NBN rollout. We look forward to seeing the member for Bradfield and the failure that we call the Prime Minister sitting there and explaining why your policies, why your rollout, is causing these deaths. It has become a national disgrace that people in Australia in the 21st century have had to watch their ranking go from 30th to 60th in terms of broadband because this lot could not manage a chook raffle in a pub. It is unfair that people have to give up their homes, give up their businesses and move to other areas—
I 100 per cent could organise one!
You might have run a chook raffle, yes!—to give up their businesses, to give up their homes and move to other areas because they cannot get access to what is considered one of the most basic needs of the 21st century, which is proper, fast broadband.
It is always good to be acknowledged, even though I am the member for Swan. If they do ever name an electorate 'Irons' I will be very thankful for that. I thank the member for McEwen. When the member for Bradfield was talking about Labor's failures, one of things he mentioned was the insulation scheme. That is when I raised the point about the four deaths. I have just heard the member for McEwen raising the deaths of two people on the NBN project, which is an absolute tragedy. It does not condone anything that has happened before it or gone after it, and it is something that we should prevent. I do not think that in that situation that should be saying that we condone the four deaths because there are two deaths on the NBN. I cannot agree with you on that one.
Getting back to the MPI. I always wonder why the Labor Party raise own goals. The MPI for them today is an own goal, if we look at what was happening in Western Australia with the NBN prior to the 2013 election. I will go back to a question that is relevant to today's debate, when we are talking about black holes. They asked the then Minister for Communications, who is now the Prime Minister, a question about the construction of the NBN in my electorate of Swan. His response was:
I thank the honourable member for his question and I can well understand the frustration and disappointment of his constituents—
from the previous government.
There was a $31-billion black hole advised to the Labor government at the end of 2010—
it seems to have a familiar ring for the Labor Party, the black hole—
and, regrettably, quite a few truths have vanished into it.
One of them was the true state of the broadband rollout by the NBN. In fact, as the honourable member said, in October 2011 the then government announced that construction had commenced in East Victoria Park and Burswood. Two years later there is no ready-for-service premises in those areas. Indeed, despite barrels of propaganda, reams of leaflets and flyers, and lots of claims, on election day in total there were—
guess how many?—
34 brownfield premises in Perth connected to the fibre network—
after six years. What sort of delivery is that? I see that the members on the opposite side have gone very quiet now. In the six years since they announced the NBN rollout there were 34 connected brownfield premises—and they talk about delivery now. They stand here and say we have not delivered.
I can tell them what the number of connections in Western Australia are now. Just a couple of weeks ago the Minister for Communications came over, and the member for Hasluck and I switched on the first fibre-to-the-node area in Western Australia. This means that residents at 7,000 premises in one part of my electorate will now be able to place an order for the NBN—and that is on top of the 26,000 who already can. Between 2013, when there were only 34 brownfield connections in the whole of Perth under Labor's so-called NBN, and now, in my electorate alone there are over 30,000 premises that are available to connect to the NBN—and they raise an MPI saying we are not delivering! That is just an absolute joke.
To get back to their joke of a system: Labor left WA completely stranded in 2013. Their NBN project was such a shocking mess that the construction contractors in Western Australia refused to continue building. They pulled out of their contract with the Labor government—not with the Liberal coalition government, with the Labor government. Syntheocontractors pulled out. In 2013, Syntheo, the company contracted to build the NBN in WA and South Australia, also handed back 47 sites in Western Australia which Labor had listed as under construction. Can you believe that? They had listed 47 sites as under construction in 2013, and not one of them had a single piece of NBN material in them—nothing at all. What a joke. What a joke this MPI this. It is an absolute joke.
After the election we corrected the maps. There were maps for the electorate of Swan that had connections, work and construction being done everywhere. We went and corrected those maps to what they were. We then had people ringing my office saying, 'We've been taken off the NBN map.' They were not taken off the NBN map because had never been on it. Labor had put them on the NBN map—I am not going to use the word; it is unparliamentary—when they were not even on it. They were not even scheduled to be on that map.
Again, this MPI is an absolute joke. It is another own goal for Labor, so they can bring it on every day. Let's talk about your delivery, your policies and your lack of performance. Do not listen to what Labor is saying; look at what they actually did, which is absolutely nothing. (Time expired)
I am very pleased to be speaking about this government's failure to deliver on the NBN for Australians. In particular, I would like to talk about those Australians living in regional and rural areas, who have especially been hit hard by this government's failings on the NBN. In country areas they blame the Prime Minister; they blame the coalition, and they especially blame the National Party for this dire situation—this lack of NBN.
I think this is one of the issues constituents speak to me about the most—this government's failure to provide for my electorate on the north coast of New South Wales. Constituents tell me that they are constantly frustrated that they cannot get any decent internet access. There are very slow speeds and lots of buffering. Just the other day a mother was telling me that her daughter, who is at university, often has to access a lot of her research material using her phone because the internet is so bad. It is a horrendous situation that they are not able to access the NBN in this day and age. What they are even more annoyed about is not only that they cannot access the NBN; they also only have a promise of a second-rate NBN through copper. That is all they have to look forward to. So instead of connecting Australia to the many great possibilities of the digital future with fibre optic cable, the Turnbull government is instead buying more copper. That is all they are doing.
The fact is that the Prime Minister was a failure as communications minister, and this second-rate NBN is now a total mess. He promised that everyone in the country would get the NBN this year—that is what he said—but more than 83 per cent of the country is still waiting for his second-rate network. He also promised that his version of the NBN would be rolled out faster and cheaper. He promised that his NBN would be built for $29.5 billion, and that cost has almost doubled to $56 billion. In 2013, he promised that his NBN would be rolled out to all homes and businesses by the end of 2016. That has more than doubled by seven years, and now the prediction is 2020. What a blow-out in the time frame. Also in 2013 the Prime Minister said that his second-rate copper NBN would cost $600 per home. This cost has nearly tripled to $1,600 per home.
Make no mistake at all: this disaster was created when the Prime Minister was the communications minister. In his two years as communications minister he did not connect a single paying customer to his fibre-to-the-node network—not one. It is outrageous. What is worse is that where the actual second-rate NBN has been switched on it is not working properly. That is another big issue. So many people are complaining across the country about slow speeds, disrupted services and long delays in getting connected. This is happening everywhere.
What is also really shameful is that Australia has gone backwards in the global broadband rankings yet again. Less than three years ago, Australia was ranked 30th in the world for the average peak connection speed. Where do we rank today? Sixtieth. How embarrassing is that? Australia's broadband ranking crashed 14 spots in the last quarter alone. We are behind most of Asia, most of Europe, the US and Canada. We are even behind Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Poland in terms of our internet connections.
In my electorate we have seen some of the limited rollout of the NBN wireless in some of those smaller areas. This was brought about by a Labor initiative. Also, we have had some satellite for rural areas, which was another Labor initiative in terms of those satellite rollouts. Fortunately, Labor signed the contract for delivery of the satellites before the Liberal-National government was sworn in, because they fought tooth and nail against all these satellites when in opposition. In fact the Prime Minister, I think, called it 'wasteful spending'. Thankfully Labor had the great foresight to commit to the satellites, because that means that people from regional and rural Australia can have the capacity to access high-speed internet. So it is Labor who delivers for regional Australia, not the Liberal-National Party, who were so opposed to these satellites which we now see in action. As I say, that is because of the Labor government.
The fact is that we might have had the roll out, say, in an electorate like mine. But thousands in my electorate are missing out, and that impacts so many people—small business people trying to run their business, students, families and all those educational institutions. They are all suffering because we do not have high-speed internet access. In areas like mine we also have a very strong creative hub. There are lots of film makers and artists—all of whom need the NBN for all their great creative activities. It is right across the community and across all different ages that desperately need to have the NBN in terms of their opportunities and for their families to go forward, and they are just not getting it.
The fact is we cannot have an innovative, agile community focused on job creation unless we have an effective NBN. That is the bottom line, especially in regional and rural areas. So many people move there because there are lots of opportunities. Those opportunities are often stymied because we do not have the NBN rolled out. It is going to take a Labor government to fix this mess that the Liberal-National Party has created with the NBN rollout.
I am very doubtful, Member for Richmond, that it will take a Labor government to sort out the NBN. It is well on its way. I am a bit of a student of history, particularly on this subject. It is worth remembering that then opposition leader Kevin Rudd went to the 2007 election offering to build an NBN network across Australia for a total sum of $10 billion, $4½ billion of which the government was going to put up and $2 billion of which was to come from the Communications Fund which had been put in place by the Howard government to ensure that rural people were kept up to speed in this advancing age of telecommunications. Kevin Rudd was going to build the network in 2008, and here we are eight years later.
At the time I thought it extremely unlikely that that system could be rolled out for that type of money. I remember Telstra in the seventies rolling out copper right around Australia and in our area where I live in Kimba. It seemed to me that $10 billion was not going to go all that far. The only part of that deal that ever got delivered of course was the taking of the $2 billion from the Communications Fund. But, not to be daunted, then Prime Minister Rudd utilised the back of a coaster on an aeroplane to come up with a proposal to build a $43 billion fibre-to-the-premises network funded totally by the taxpayer. That turned out to be a total shemozzle.
There were a few high-profile announcements around Australia when selected little communities were hooked up to fibre to the premises. The government rattled on about what a wonderful job they were doing. But by the time the coalition came to office, as was so well pointed out by the member for Swan, the rollout was at a standstill. The hook-up figures were just pure fiction. Over $6 billion had been spent on wages and salaries in nbn co alone, and fewer than 100,000 premises had been passed by the fibre. In Western Australia and South Australia the lead contractor, Syntheo, had pulled out of the contract. Once again, I thank the member for Swan for bringing that to the House's attention. The work had completely stopped. It had stalled.
The interim satellite system that the member for Richmond spoke about so fondly a few minutes ago has cost Australia $351 million. In fact, Australians were told 250,000 people would be able to hook onto that satellite, but it crashed at 48,000 because Senator Conroy had not bothered to put any caps on the consumption.
So when Minister Turnbull took over the NBN he got rid of the board that had no-one with any telecommunications skills on it and appointed a new board. He commissioned an inquiry that predicted that the NBN as proposed by the Labor Party would cost $90 billion. The new NBN board redesigned the NBN using multiple technologies, which is when we came to the position of using fibre to the node, fibre to the premises, fixed wireless, satellites and a whole concoction of different methods using the existing cables that were operating in cities at the time.
Now we have come to a stage in my electorate where I have 13 fibre-to-the-node communities that are under construction or completed. There are seven more to come in the next six months. I have 28 communities served by fixed wireless. That rollout is 61 per cent completed, covering more than 370,000 households. Port Augusta has been switched on to the fibre-to-the-node network. A satellite came online just last week. This will be a huge change— (Time expired)
The time for the debate has concluded. I thank the member for Grey for his contribution. To have robust debate is one thing. I think a slanging match does nothing for the edification or good graces of the parliament. Members might like to think about their contributions as far as substance and the personal go.
I ask leave of the House to make a statement on behalf of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit concerning the draft budget estimates for the Australian National Audit Office and the Parliamentary Budget Office for 2016-17 and also to present a copy of my statement.
Leave granted.
Each year the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit is required by legislation to consider the draft budget estimates for the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Australian National Audit Office and make recommendations to both houses of parliament. I rise today to fulfil this requirement and make a statement on whether the committee considers that the proposed funding for these offices is sufficient to carry out their respective mandates.
With regard to the Parliamentary Budget office, the committee has been informed that the PBO is not seeking supplementation for 2016-17 beyond the expected additional departmental appropriation of $6.9 million. The PBO plans to supplement these funds with a draw-down of approximately $1.2 million from their special appropriation. Whilst noting that the PBO has seen a substantial increase in its workload over the course of the current financial year, the Parliamentary Budget Office has advised the committee that the PPO's resources are adequate to meet its viabilities. The committee endorses the proposed 2016-17 budget for the PBO and commends the PBO for its high-quality work in support of parliamentarians and the public.
With regard to the Australian National Audit Office, the committee has been informed that the ANAO is not seeking supplementation for the 2016-17 years beyond the anticipated total revenue from government of $74 million. The Auditor-General has advised the committee that the ANAO's resources are adequate for the 2016-17 years and that he anticipates completing approximately 48 performance audits over that period. The Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act focus is on enhanced performance measures. The reporting highlights the importance of the ANAO's performance audits. Over the financial year, the Auditor-General plans to exercise the full range of powers available to him under legislation by commencing audits of the annual performance statements of Commonwealth entities, as well as potentially conducting performance audits of Commonwealth partners and government business enterprises. The committee endorses the proposed budget for the ANAO for the 2016-17 years and commends the ANAO for the high-quality work and focus on performance frameworks.
In conclusion, the committee will continue to closely monitor the work of the programs and the draft budget estimates of the PBO and ANAO. As independent authorities, the PBO and ANAO need to be sufficiently funded to fulfil their legislative requirements and adequately support the parliament. The committee appreciates the effort of both the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Auditor-General in maintaining strong working relationships with the parliament and, particularly, with this committee. They have made themselves available for regular briefings and provided invaluable advice to the committee on a variety of matters. The committee looks forward to continuing these productive relationships.
I present a copy of my statement to the House.
As I was saying earlier today, since this data on cost is only based on the first quarter of operations, it is too early to draw any definitive conclusions. Under the header 'Medicare Levy funding arrangements', the report says:
The cost of the NDIS is being met in part by an increase in the Medicare Levy from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent. This increase takes effect from 1 July 2014. There will always be a risk that collections from the levy are less than forecast, which will require the funding shortfall to be made up from other funding sources.
There is a great deal to like about the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is why it is coalition policy. It is why we are here today debating legislation around this scheme.
The NDIS is designed to replace and to enhance existing disability support services provided by the Commonwealth and the states. Eligible participants will have a disability support plan developed for them by the National Disability Insurance Agency and intended to meet their current and future support needs. Packages under the NDIS arrangements are based on a concept of what is reasonable and necessary for any individual client. Participants' needs are assessed and tailored, and service packages developed and funded. The scheme is demand driven. The NDIS will provide long-term care and support but not income to recipients. The income needs of Australians with disabilities are being met through other means, including the Commonwealth income support system.
As forecast by the National Commission of Audit report, the cost of the scheme escalates rapidly from $1.1 billion this year to $4.3 billion next year and $19.2 billion for the 2018-19 financial year. It is budgeted to cost about $22 billion a year, or about one per cent of GDP, once it is fully operational from 2020. But the increase in the Medicare levy and the cuts to other disability programs are only expected to cover costs until the 2016-17 financial year. Despite this, those opposite claim the project was fully funded. What a joke. What an absolutely disgraceful joke by those members over there. This is a joke on the people of Australia, in particular people with disability. You set up a scheme which was not properly funded, you left it to the government to clean up the mess and then you shamelessly tried to take the high moral ground when it comes to caring for people with a disability. You lot over there really have no shame. We saw the member for Jagajaga in here earlier today scaremongering and doing what she normally does. We saw really shine when she was talking about $19 billion being a rounding error. Nineteen billion dollars as a rounding error! No wonder this scheme was not funded by those opposite!
I want to refer back to two very important paragraphs in the National Commission of Audit report. They state very clearly:
Analysis conducted by the Australian Government Actuary has confirmed that there are uncertainties around all cost elements of the NDIS, e.g. populations, severity distributions and average costs …
… … …
The NDIS is a new scheme with associated uncertainty associated around costs and participant numbers. Most of the financial risk associated with this uncertainty will be borne by the Commonwealth.
That is exactly right. Yet, we have the world's worst Treasurer assure us that it was fully funded. As I said, we know what their capability is. They think $19 billion is a rounding error. They are just outrageous. You cannot trust them with money.
Now, to the legislation at hand: the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. This bill is fully committed to implementing the NDIS. This is a long-term commitment for people who need life-long support. The coalition has successfully managed the rollout of the NDIS to ensure that this is being delivered on time and on budget. The Commonwealth has now signed bilateral agreements for the transition to the full scheme with New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. In the ACT the agreed eligible population will be fully covered by September 2016. Which means that together, these agreements provide certainty for around 85 per cent of the 460,000 Australians expected to be eligible for the scheme. The comparative trial in Western Australia is also being extended and expanded until 30 June 2017 to give certainty to around 10,900 current and future participants of ongoing support from the NDIS. The Commonwealth and WA governments have agreed to finalise arrangements for the state-wide rollout of the NDIS by October 2016, with the full rollout in WA to continue from 1 July 2017. The Commonwealth is committed to finalising arrangements with the Northern Territory as soon as possible.
The NDIS is due to reach the full scheme 2019-20 financial year, by which time it will be injecting $22 billion each year into the Australian economy and improving the lives of around 460,000 Australians with disability. The Commonwealth will be responsible for funding more than half of the $22 billion. But because of the failure of the previous Labor government to fully and specifically set aside funding for the NDIS, this will leave a funding gap from the 2019-20 financial year—a gap which will grow to over $5 billion.
The Commonwealth's share of the increase in the Medicare levy will cover less than half of the Commonwealth's annual contributions to the NDIS at full rollout. Unlike the increased revenue from increasing the Medicare levy that was set aside in the Disability Care Australia Fund, other savings, which Labor supposedly made to help fund the NDIS, were put into consolidated revenue and were never set aside to fund the NDIS. That is an absolute shame; I cannot believe the Labor Party did that. Yes, I can, because you cannot trust them with money.
The government is fully committed to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the NDIS, and will fully meet the funding gap. The government will guarantee the final funding source for the NDIS by setting up the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. Creating this new special account is a simple move, and it is smart policy. The savings fund will give a clear line of sight of the funding set aside by government for the NDIS to meet the funding gap.
We are not funding the NDIS gap from borrowings or by raising more taxes on hardworking Australians. That is the Labor Party's way. As I said, we are setting this up and making sure that it is funded. The account will allow us to pool underspends and savings from across government over future years, locking them in as major contributions to the NDIS. The fund will grow consistently over future budgets, charting a transparent and responsible path to meet our NDIS contribution as a full scheme.
I commend the bill to the House. Finally, I would like to put on record that I cannot believe that Labor thinks that $19 billion is a rounding error. It is typical of them, and it is why they did not do as they were supposed to, but we can be trusted to do the right thing.
I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. The values of a government are very clearly reflected in its budget. A budget is where a government puts money on the table, effectively—to use the old saying—to put its money where its mouth is. A budget is, indeed, a true measure of the government's priorities and the interests it represents. Furthermore, it is a reflection of what the government stands for. Nothing is more telling about a government than the way it treats the most disadvantaged people in the community—the most vulnerable and the voiceless. On those criteria, the Turnbull government has to date failed miserably.
It has only been because of opposition by Labor and other crossbench senators that many of the heartless policies of the Turnbull government have either been blocked or modified. They are policies that go to the issue of fairness, which the Prime Minister constantly likes to refer to. Fairness is directly tied to this bill and so I want to mention it now. One has only to look at how this government has cut family payments to families that are not on huge incomes. A typical family with two children in high school will be $2600 worse off and a single parent family with two children in high school will be $4700 worse off because of the policies of this government. Most members of this House would agree that a single parent would be doing it very tough in trying to keep two children in high school. This government also cut $1 billion plus in pensioner concessions—concessions which go to the neediest people in this country. They passed that responsibility onto the states or local government, effectively turning their backs on pensioners to the tune of $1 billion. We also saw the government trying—but not able to do so because of the efforts of Labor and crossbench senators—to change the indexation of pensions. That would have seen pensioners lose a considerable amount from their fortnightly income. We also saw this government try to add Medicare co-payments to this country's medical system. The people most affected by those co-payments would have been those on lower incomes, including pensioners. Then we saw the government—and I believe it is still on their books—try to reduce the amount of time that a pensioner can stay overseas to six weeks before their pension may be cut. These are the policies of a government which talks about fairness.
It does not stop there. We also saw the same principles applied to students. They wanted to increase student fees to university so that degrees could cost $100,000. They wanted to index HECS loans for students and add interest charges. Again, only through the work of the Labor opposition and crossbenchers was that blocked. We also saw the apprenticeship tools allowance of $5½ thousand cut, and we saw youth allowance, instead of Newstart, applied to many young people.
If we go to other policy areas of this government, we see a pattern of the unfairness that I allude to. We have had refugees left to languish in offshore detention centres for almost three years now. We have seen cuts to the funding of Indigenous programs around the country, when both sides of politics, supposedly, are committed to closing the gap. We have even seen it with respect to animal welfare, whether it is greyhounds being sent to Macau, sheep and cattle being shipped overseas, or animals being used for cosmetic testing. We have not heard a word of care or concern from this government about this cruelty or seen any steps taken to prevent it. Nor did we hear anything from them about the Japanese whaling which saw over 300 whales caught and killed, supposedly for research. Again, when we were in government, we made it clear that we would oppose that practice and we took the Japanese to the International Court of Justice. The then opposition, now the government, supported that move at the time and said they would continue to do to so, but we have heard not a word from them.
So I am not at all surprised that this government, the Turnbull government, is now seeking to play politics with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Few areas of policy that I have been involved in since I have been in this place go to the heart of fairness more than the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But, clearly, the Prime Minister's interpretation of 'fairness' is very different from the interpretation of 'fairness' that I have from the people that I represent.
People with a disability, their families, their friends and other supporters are among some of the most disadvantaged and the most limited in this society, and I have heard comments by members opposite that support that view when they talk about some of the families that they know. These are people for whom every day of their lives is a struggle—both for the person with disability and for the family members and carers who support them, who sometimes go for days and weeks on end without a break of any kind whatsoever. These are the people whom, when Labor was elected in 2007, we saw needed support from the government and for whom we talked about and finally introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
For them, the scheme represented a light at the end of the tunnel. It is a scheme that was not only introduced but fully funded by the previous Labor government. I can recall the debates in respect to it. All the way through, there was always negativity about it from members opposite. They were dragged kicking and screaming to support the NDIS. They never truly supported it in the same way or with the same passion as I saw from members on this side of the House. Now it is very, very clear that they again want to play politics with the issue. The Minister for Social Services is here at the table, and I took note of his response to a question without notice earlier today. The minister said:
For the benefit of members opposite, the NDIS will cost the Commonwealth $11.3 billion—$1.1 billion comes from existing Commonwealth funding on disabilities, $1.9 billion from redirecting moneys that would otherwise go to the states and $3.3 billion from the increase in the Medicare levy, leaving an amount close to $5 billion.
That is simply a dishonest claim. The NDIS was always fully funded. It was fully funded by Labor when we announced it, through the ½ per cent increase in the Medicare levy, changes to retirement incomes, changes to tax concessions for fringe benefits, changes to tobacco excise indexation and changes to import processing charges. Through those collective measures, the scheme was funded.
The truth of the matter is that this government has squandered the money. It has squandered the money through its own mismanagement of the economy over the last three years. The figures speak for themselves, and it is not just the NDIS figures. Projected total debt for the year 2016-17 is expected to go to $317 billion on this government's watch. This is not its first year of government; we are talking about a government that is now three years into its term. My understanding is that, similarly, the deficit for this year is expected to double. We will get the actual figures tonight. But, clearly, this is a government that has mismanaged the economy, has mismanaged its own finances and is now seeking to claim that the $5 billion shortfall it wants to make up was never, ever funded by the previous government. It is simply dishonest to say that.
The NDIS—and we will know after tonight just what the final outcome is—is a scheme that people are pinning their hopes on, people who, I know personally, have struggled for years and years. I know many families in which there are children, parents, brothers or sisters who will fall within the category of NDIS beneficiary once the scheme is in place. These are people that this country has neglected for far too long. My criticism in that respect is of all governments right up until the time the NDIS was brought in as a future policy. In my view these people should not be treated in any way that is below their expectations of the scheme once it is initiated and brought in.
It was Labor that brought in the NDIS, and we did so after consulting widely on matters of disability. Personally, I remember going to forums in my own electorate with the member for Maribyrnong, the current Leader of the Opposition, to discuss national disability issues. I heard the stories of the people who came to those forums, as I had heard their stories in my previous engagement with them as Mayor of Salisbury, when I set up a disability task force to try and deal with these issues at a local government level. It was with great joy that I saw our side of politics, the Labor Party, introduce a national disability insurance scheme. Yes, I accept that it is going to be costly. I also accept that it will take time to fully implement the scheme. But a commitment to it was the best news that people who needed the support would have heard for a long time.
I will finish on this point: if there really was a $5 billion shortfall, as the minister says, why was it not raised when the government was first elected in 2013—in the government's 2014 budget? Why have we not been talking about it for the last two years and why has it simply appeared, this the third year of the government being in office, just ahead of tonight's budget?
I do not know what the government has in mind, and I will find out in a couple of hours time, just like everyone else. But I say to the minister and the government: anything less than what the people of Australia were led to believe they would be getting from the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be a huge disappointment to them. And they will not be fooled by the politics that is being played. I can assure the minister and other members of this House that I will continue to advocate and campaign as strongly as I can to ensure that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is delivered as promised—in full and in the time frame it was promised to be delivered in.
I thank the members opposite for their contributions to this second reading debate on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. I start by noting that the government is fully committed to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
It is for precisely that reason that the government is bringing forward this bill to establish a new ongoing special account that will assist the Commonwealth in meeting its future financial commitments to the NDIS. The special account created by this bill will be known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. For the purposes of this contribution, I will simply refer to it as 'the savings fund'.
The savings fund will allow the government, over future budgets, to identify savings from existing programs and set aside those savings to assist in meeting the Commonwealth's financial commitments to the NDIS. Let us be crystal clear: a failure to support this bill—a bill designed to establish a vehicle in which the Commonwealth government can accumulate clearly identified savings and protect those savings for the exclusive use of the future funding of the NDIS—is a failure to support a process that is absolutely necessary for the NDIS. It is absolutely necessary to give certainty and peace of mind to the 460,000 estimated participants. It is absolutely necessary to also give assurance to all Australian citizens that the NDIS funding gap, which is absolutely real and which arises in 2019-20, will not be funded by further taxes or by borrowings.
The only conceivable reason to not support a bill designed to protect savings for the care of Australians with a disability would be misplaced political pride. To not support this bill because of a preference to maintain a pretence that there is no challenge of funding here, a pretence that there is no funding gap that needs addressing, would be a shameful triumph of political party pride and a wish to establish a mythology over the interests of participants and soon-to-be participants of the NDIS.
It is staggering that the Labor Party would prefer to have 460,000 participants know that Labor did not support a bill that gives financial certainty to the scheme because they preferred to maintain a pretence that there is no challenge of funding, inherent in the NDIS, arising in 2019-20. I will come, shortly, to this issue of the funding gap and to the fact that members opposite wish to maintain this pretence that there is no challenge here, that all funding is perfectly identified and protected and available. That is simply—on any measure and any assessment—incorrect.
I find it completely staggering that there is not fulsome support for a bill that gives certainty to the 460,000 participants to the NDIS. That certainty is necessary because of a financial failure of members opposite to address an issue and a challenge that was always going to be confronted by any government when the NDIS went full scheme in 2019-20. Presently, to fund the NDIS, the Commonwealth redirects existing disability related spending and the DisabilityCare Australia Fund towards the cost of the NDIS.
There are three essential, clearly identified and known sources of funding for the NDIS. The first is existing Commonwealth disability funding, which is redirected towards the NDIS. That accounts for about $1.1 billion. These figures I am using relate to the 2019-20 year. In 2019-20 $1.1 billion is garnered from existing Commonwealth disability funding being redirected towards the NDIS. The Commonwealth share of the increase in the Medicare levy, through the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, in 2019-20 will be $3.3 billion. Redirecting funding that is currently provided to the states for specialist disability services accounts, in 2019-20, for $1.9 billion.
Therefore, in total, the Commonwealth directs slightly over $6 billion—about $6.3 billion—from these three known, clearly identifiable sources to the NDIS. The Commonwealth's responsibility, financially, to the NDIS in 2019-20 is around $11.3 billion. There is $6.3 billion covered. That leaves a gap of close to $5 billion in 2019-20 and a gap that grows each year the NDIS grows, as it certainly will do after 2019-20. Therefore, what the government is facing—and this is not a political problem; this is a problem of financial reality—is a funding gap of close to $5 billion that arises in 2019-20 when the NDIS transitions to a full scheme, and that grows in the years after 2019-20.
Members of the previous Labor government make some claims that, essentially, they 'clearly identified' additional savings to assist in meeting the funding requirements of the NDIS from 2019-20. I put to the House, and I do so in great confidence, that that pretence is a very clumsy attempt to rewrite history and to claim now that there were adequate specific savings set aside to fully fund the NDIS. That pretence is wrong, and demonstrably wrong, for three reasons. The first is that the claim that enough savings to cover that $5 billion further half of Commonwealth spending were, in the words of members opposite, 'clearly identified' is simply not capable of anything resembling proper verification.
Let me start to address that issue by saying that Labor's actual budget papers at the time—not the glossies and not the pamphlets, but the actual budget papers of the time—did not link savings to the NDIS. That proposition appeared in a 2013-14 budget glossy. That budget glossy has a chart which appears in the document on page 4. The chart is entitled 'Meeting the costs of DisabilityCare in Australia'. It notes those sources of funding that I have noted. It notes some of the areas of funding that can be identified, and they are reforms to retirement incomes and private health insurance reforms—and I will come to address those in a moment. But then, curiously, it has entries depicted in blue on the bar graph which are described in these terms: 'Other long-term savings'. By any basic arithmetic and calculation of what those 'other long-term savings' would need to amount to to cover that $5 billion gap to which I have just referred, there would have to be in the vicinity of $2.4 billion worth of 'other long-term savings' in 2019-20.
On a number of occasions, I have heard several members opposite say these 'other long-term savings' were verified: Treasury verified them; they have been discussed in Senate estimates. The notion that these 'other long-term savings' have been verified is simply not true. Let me read to you a passage from Senate estimates:
Senator FIFIELD: Mr Ray, I might just return to the helpful document you provided at the start of proceedings today and try my luck. This relates to chart 3, 'DisabilityCare Australia' on the last page of the document. There is a category 'Other long-term savings' of $20.6 billion for 2013-14 to 2022-23. Are you able to further disaggregate that by each of the measures there over the time scale?
Here is a direct question to the Treasury official referring directly to that budget glossy that I have just referred to. It referred directly to what must have been $2.4 billion worth of savings in 2019-20, and Senator Fifield noted here that it represented a figure of $20.6 billion between 2013-14 and 2022-23 that is described simply as 'other long-term savings'. The question was: can you tell us what those other long-term savings are? The Treasury representative commenced his answer by saying:
The short answer is no, because for one of those measures we cannot tell you at all what the out numbers are, and that is the change to the indexation of tobacco excise.
Does that ring any bells? Is this not the past coming back to haunt the present? Mr Ray went on to say:
… we cannot disaggregate it because of that.
On 5 June 2013, despite assurances by members opposite that this was all sorted through and the Treasury had given a very crisp, delineated, disaggregated explanation of what 'other long-term savings' were, when directly asked the question in estimates the Treasury official simply could not identify what those were. The first problem with the claim that this funding gap does not exist—the pretence clung to by members opposite—falls down because this notion that there were clearly identified savings just cannot be verified. That phrase, 'clearly identified savings', has several different nomenclatures about it. The member for Jagajaga wrote me a letter which refers to 'a number of savings and revenue measures'. So we have got 'other long-term savings' and 'a number of savings and revenue measures', and I have seen the formulation of 'other savings' used.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you would tend to agree that, when you are dealing with reformation, this is one of the greatest reforms in the history of welfare services in Australia. You are dealing with a figure of $2.4 billion arising in 2019-20 and the best that you can do in clinging to the pretence that that is fully funded is to describe globally that amount in 2019-20 as 'other savings'. A figure of $2.40 is miscellany; $2.4 billion should be capable of list based Excel spreadsheet verification—it just should be. Anyone opposite who wants to provide that list to me, I would very much like to see it. The offer is standing.
The member for Jagajaga writes me a letter bemoaning the fact that we state quite correctly that there is a $5 billion gap. I invite her to send me the consolidated list of what savings add up to $2.4 billion in 2019-20. What are they? It is simply not good enough in this place to say that 'other savings measures' is an accurate, adequate and purposeful description of one of the biggest welfare reforms that has ever occurred in Australia's history when that description is meant to describe a very large piece of the funding that is required to make the system real. The first reason is that this notion of 'clearly identified savings' is only to be accepted if you accept that it is appropriate to describe $2.4 billion worth of savings as clearly identified with the use of the term 'other'. It is simply not good enough. The second reason why there is a big problem with the contention that there is no funding gap in 2019-20 is that the golden rule of public finances is that where a genuine budget savings is made it can only be spent once. Labor announced its supposed NDIS funding in the 2013-14 budget, or so it is claimed by members opposite. But let me simply state from the outset that, while many of the savings can never or have never been verified, it is also the case that many of the savings measures that had at least been nominated had been announced significantly before the NDIS appeared in budget papers and had been on any reasonable assessment of the circumstances of their announcement assigned to other purposes, with no mention of the NDIS whatsoever.
I will just stop at this point and note here that in the mad scramble to cover over what has been described as a rounding error with respect to tobacco excise, the shadow Treasurer today—and I believe I am quoting him if the media are reporting accurately, and I have no reason to believe that they are not—said that you do not need to worry about the fact that the revenue is $20 billion short on the excise. You do not need to worry because of the fact that 'Labor has never directly hypothecated the revenue from tobacco excise for school spending'. Let me say that now, in scrambling to correct an error, things have to be directly hypothecated, but it seems to be good enough back in 2013-14 to simply announce a savings measure within the 24-month period that you also announce a spend, and the two are meant to be linked. The reality is that reforms from private health insurance, which are claimed to be set aside for the NDIS and which were estimated for $1.1 billion worth of funding in 2019-20, were announced in MYEFO prior to the budget that committed to and supposedly funded the NDIS. Those savings were described in these terms:
Savings from this measure will be redirected to partially offset the cost of the Dental Health Reform package announced on 29 August 2012.
Then, globally, all of the savings in that MYEFO were described by the member for Lilley in these terms:
To return the budget to surplus in 2012-13 and beyond, the Government has made substantial targeted savings, ensuring that Australia's public finances remain strong.
At the time that they are announced they are spent on dental health care. They are spent on budget repair. Then years later they are claimed for the NDIS. This is simply absurd. These are the problems that have arisen. This is the reason why we need to fix this gap and this is the reason the legislation is before the House. If members opposite fail to support it, that will be known in every school hall and every town hall around this nation.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Administrator recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Proceedings suspended from 18 : 02 to 19 : 30
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr Speaker, this cannot be just another budget, because these are extraordinary times.
This budget is an economic plan, it's not just another budget.
Australians know that our future depends on how well we continue to grow and shape our economy as we transition from the unprecedented mining investment boom to a stronger, more diverse, new economy.
They know that their future, their jobs and those of their children and grandchildren depend on it. This is a very sensitive time.
Australians have clearly said we must have an economic plan to make this economic transition a success.
This economic plan is the foundation on which we can build a brighter, more secure future, in a stronger, new economy with more jobs.
This budget delivers our economic plan in three key ways.
First, by sticking to our plan for jobs and growth.
Tonight I will announce a growth friendly, 10-year enterprise tax plan to boost new investment, create and support jobs and increase real wages, starting with tax cuts and incentives for small and medium-sized business.
We will continue our investment in our National Innovation and Science Agenda—to create our own ideas boom, in every city, in every town, in every factory, farm, shop and office—including support for new start-up businesses.
Through our defence industry plan, we will secure an advanced local defence manufacturing industry, driving new high-tech jobs in Australia, including 3,600 direct jobs as part of the government's naval shipbuilding plan.
More export opportunities will be opened up by following through on our export trade agreements that are already delivering new jobs and markets for Australian producers, manufacturers and service providers right across the country.
And I will announce tonight a new initiative to help more than 100,000 vulnerable young people into jobs, to be part of our growing economy by giving them real work experience with real employers that lead to real jobs.
Second, by fixing specific problems in our tax system so we can sustainably cover the government's responsibilities for the next generation.
This means combating tax avoidance, especially by multinationals, with new measures to ensure everyone pays the tax they should on what they earn in Australia, not avoid tax by shifting their profits offshore.
I will announce how we will close off generous superannuation tax concessions for Australia's most wealthy and better target these tax concessions to hardworking Australians saving and investing for their retirement so as not to be dependent on the age pension.
And we will give hardworking Australians, and the thousands of Australian businesses that employ them, some tax relief so when they earn more, they will not be taxed more.
And third, by continuing to ensure the government lives within its means, to balance the budget and reduce the burden of long-term debt.
In this budget we will continue to cut unnecessary waste and keep government spending under control to balance the budget over time, as coalition governments always do.
We will continue to target welfare abuse to protect our social safety net and ensure it is there for Australia's most vulnerable, in particular those with disabilities.
And we will continue to responsibly invest in infrastructure like roads, rail, dams and public transport and guarantee real, affordable funding for health and education services that Australians rely on.
The Turnbull government understands the economic challenges that Australia faces.
This budget is a practical, targeted and responsible economic plan that meets these challenges by clearing the way for jobs and growth, in a stronger, more diversified new economy.
It is the right plan. We have spent time getting it right because it is such an important foundation for everything else.
It is also a fully funded, affordable and sustainable plan.
This is important because hardworking Australians and their families know that when governments make promises with money that is not there, they either end up being let down or left with the bill.
This budget keeps us on a sustainable path to bring the budget back into balance.
The deficit in underlying cash balance terms is expected to reduce from $39.9 billion in 2015-16 to $37.1 billion, or 2.2 per cent as a share of the economy in 2016-17. The deficit is then projected to fall to $6 billion or just 0.3 per cent of GDP over the next four years to 2019-20.
We are achieving this by policies that continue to control spending.
Any increases in tax revenue as a result of measures contained in the budget have been reinvested back into lower taxes, not towards fuelling unsustainable higher spending.
Our new spending commitments have been more than offset by our disciplined restraint and better targeting of spending in other areas.
Payments as a share of our economy will fall from 25.8 per cent in 2015-16 down to 25.2 per cent in 2019-20. At the same time there is no increase in the projected tax burden as a share of the economy, compared to previous estimates.
This is not a time to be splashing money around or increasing the tax burden on our economy or on hardworking Australians and their families. Such policies are not a plan for jobs and growth, they simply put our successful economic transition at risk.
I now turn to some of the specific initiatives of our economic plan that are delivered in this year's budget.
Tonight, we announce a 10-year enterprise tax plan to support jobs and growth.
Small and medium businesses are driving jobs growth in Australia and must continue to do so.
They are also overwhelmingly Australian owned and more likely to reinvest their earnings in future growth, as they seek to build their businesses.
A tax on their business is a tax on their enterprise and the jobs they provide.
That is why last year, we announced a 1.5 percentage point reduction in the tax rate for small businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million per year.
Tonight we go further and share the ambition for smaller businesses to become bigger businesses.
From 1 July this year, the small business tax rate will be lowered to 27.5 per cent and the turnover threshold for small businesses able to access it will be increased from $2 million to $10 million. This means businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million will also be able to access other tax incentives, including the small business depreciation pooling provisions, simplified trading stock rules, and the pay-as-you-go instalments payments option.
This will mean 870,000 Australian businesses, employing 3.4 million Australians, will have their tax reduced, including a 2½ percentage point cut in the tax rate for up to 60,000 businesses with a turnover between $2 million and $10 million, employing around 1.5 million Australians.
At the same time we will also increase the unincorporated small business tax discount to eight per cent and extend the threshold from a turnover of $2 million to less than $5 million.
Also, from 1 July 2016 we will extend access to the instant write-off for equipment purchases of up to $20,000 that will expire on 30 June 2017, to businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million.
But we do not want these enterprises and these businesses to stop there.
Each year we will continue to step up the turnover threshold for access to the lower company tax rate of 27½ per cent for more businesses, from $10 million to $25 million in 2017-18, to $50 million in 2018-19 and $100 million in 2019-20.
This will mean by 2020 more than half of all employees in companies in Australia will be in companies paying a lower tax rate of 27½ per cent. That is around 4.9 million employees, whose jobs will be supported by a lower tax rate in just four years.
Phase 2 of our 10-year enterprise tax plan will extend the lower tax rate of 27½ per cent to all businesses, by continuing to step up the threshold each year until 2023-24, before reducing the 27½ per cent rate for all businesses to 25 per cent at the end of 10 years in 2026-27. This is an important measure in securing our future prosperity.
We will not be able to rely on our natural advantages in resources to secure the jobs of the future like we have in the past. If we wish to continue to see our living standards rise with more jobs and higher wages, we need to ensure our tax system encourages investment and enterprise.
Australia has the seventh highest company tax rate of the 34 OECD countries and it is much higher than our neighbours in the Asian region.
These measures will reduce revenue by $5.3 billion over the next four years. This reduction is fully offset by the increased revenue derived from the revenue and integrity measures in this budget.
Tonight we will also back in average full-time wage earners by preventing them from moving into the second highest tax bracket.
From 1 July this year, we will increase the upper limit for the middle-income tax bracket from $80,000 to $87,000 per year.
This will stop around 500,000 taxpayers in each and every year from paying more than the 32½c marginal tax rate. They will be in the middle-income tax bracket with all the other average wage earners, where they should be.
This is about providing room in our tax system for average full-time wage earners to earn more without being taxed more.
Of course we would like to do more, but this is what we can afford today.
This change also builds on the tax cuts provided to those on incomes of less than $80,000 to compensate for the carbon tax. By abolishing the carbon tax and keeping the tax relief in our first budget we delivered a genuine tax cut for those earning up to $80,000 a year—not compensation.
And we will not remove or limit negative gearing—that would increase the tax burden on Australians just trying to invest and provide a future for their families.
Those earning less than $80,000 a year in taxable income make up two-thirds of those who use negative gearing. They are teachers, they are nurses, they are police officers, they are Defence Force personnel, office workers and tradespeople.
We do not consider that taxing these Australians more on their investments, including increasing their capital gains tax, and undermining the value of their own home and investments is a plan for jobs and growth.
While these are modest changes to our personal income tax system, they are important. They are affordable. They are not funded by higher deficits or higher borrowing.
This modest tax relief demonstrates that wherever possible we prefer to leave a dollar in your pocket than take it for the government. We know that your money in your pocket is where it can help you and your family most.
These changes will reduce revenue by $3.95 billion over the next four years and are again offset fully by the revenue and integrity measures contained in the budget.
To increase revenues we will crack down further on multinational tax avoidance.
Everyone has to pay their fair share of tax on what they earn here in Australia—especially large corporates and multinationals.
The Turnbull government has been listening to the Australian people on this issue and taking action.
Last December, despite opposition, we secured the passage of world-leading multinational tax avoidance laws. The new powers and penalties in these laws are now in place and supporting the Australian Taxation Office to ensure multinationals pay tax on what they earn in Australia.
However, we need to do more.
Tonight I announce that these new laws will be backed up by a new operational taskforce of more than 1,000 specialist staff in the ATO to police and prosecute companies, multinationals and high-wealth individuals not paying the tax that they should.
This will be added to new measures to combat multinational tax avoidance which include:
These measures, including from the multinational tax avoidance legislation, will raise an additional $3.9 billion in revenue over the next four years, helping us to reduce the tax burden on hardworking Australians and small business.
Tonight we also announce changes to better target superannuation tax concessions.
Together with raising your children and owning your own home, becoming financially independent in retirement is one of life's greatest challenges and achievements.
We need to ensure that our superannuation system is focused on sustainably supporting those most at risk of being dependent on an age pension in their retirement, which is the purpose of these concessions.
While protecting the overall architecture of our superannuation system, including retaining the tax-free status of retirement accounts, from 1 July 2017 we will be reducing access to generous superannuation tax concessions for the most wealthy by:
A balance of $1.6 million can support an income stream in retirement around four times the level of the single age pension. The transfer balance cap will be applied to both current retirees and to individuals yet to enter their retirement phase.
The transfer balance cap, lifetime non-concessional cap and the 30 per cent contributions tax for those on high incomes will each affect less than one per cent of superannuation fund members.
A concessional contributions cap of $25,000 per annum will affect just three per cent of superannuation fund members, particularly those who pay the top rate of income tax.
Commensurate measures will also be applied to high-income earners with defined benefit arrangements, including current and former politicians and public servants.
In addition to tightening access to tax concessions, the government will also be introducing a low-income superannuation tax offset from 1 July 2017, to ensure that people earning less than $37,000 are not paying more tax on their superannuation than they are on their income.
This will effectively allow individuals with an adjusted taxable income of up to $37,000 to receive a refund into their superannuation account of the tax paid on their concessional contributions, up to a cap of $500.
The low-income superannuation tax offset will, in particular, assist around two million low-income women to build their superannuation savings.
At the same time we will increase flexibility and choice in superannuation to support how people work and save in our modern economy by:
Ninety-six per cent of Australians with super will be unaffected by or be better off as a result of the superannuation changes we have announced tonight.
The net impact of changes to superannuation announced in these measures will be a net gain of $2.9 billion over the next four years. Six billion dollars will be raised in gross terms. Three billion dollars or thereabouts will be reinvested into the superannuation system. Three billion dollars more will be invested back into the earning economy of Australia.
In other revenue measures, we will implement a further four annual 12.5 per cent increases in tobacco excise, with the first increase to take effect on 1 September 2017.
The net impact of the tobacco measures will raise $4.7 billion over the next four years.
Harnessing the power of innovation and entrepreneurship, to create our own ideas boom, lies at the heart of our plan to support jobs and growth in a stronger new economy.
As part of our National Innovation and Science Agenda we are backing co-investment in new spin-offs and starts-ups created by Australia's research institutions, through the CSIRO. We are also expanding the CSIRO's accelerator program to support public research bodies get up to speed and achieve commercial success.
Reforms to employee share schemes and crowd-sourced equity funding will make it easier for start-ups to raise capital and our changes to company tax loss arrangements will make it easier for existing businesses to reinvent themselves.
Big improvements in the nation's defence capability also support innovation and skills development in advanced technologies.
Through the 2016 defence white paper we have made the decisions necessary to establish a pipeline of work that will secure an advanced defence manufacturing industry here in Australia, driving new high-tech jobs for decades.
The nine future frigates, 12 offshore patrol vessels and 12 new regionally superior submarines will do the job of boosting our defence capability, but they will also drive jobs and growth in the new economy we are building—not just in the shipyards in Adelaide and Perth, but right across the supply chain of our defence industry in the national economy.
The budget also invests in public-private partnerships through our cybersecurity strategy to back Australian businesses to develop and promote their cybersecurity capabilities globally.
So often successful technology ventures have started by solving a complex problem for governments.
That is why these investments are not just about our national security and keeping Australians safe but are an important part of our economic plan for Australia for jobs and growth.
In this budget we continue to roll out our $50 billion national infrastructure plan to support economic growth.
We know that an inland rail link will help to integrate domestic markets and bring global export markets closer to home. This is particularly important to leverage the benefits of our export trade agreements for Australian agriculture.
That is why the Turnbull government will take the next step to realising an integrated inland rail link connecting Brisbane and Melbourne.
In this budget we are providing $594 million in additional equity to the Australian Rail Track Corporation for land acquisition and the continuation of pre-construction works and due diligence activities.
The government will also establish a $2 billion water infrastructure loan facility which will catalyse new investment in dams and pipelines across Australia, building on the existing National Water Infrastructure Development Fund and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
And around 180 other major projects are under construction or in the pre-construction phase.
Most importantly, our economic plan for jobs and growth will help young Australians get real jobs.
In 2012, 12 per cent of Australian children aged under 15 were growing up in jobless families.
We must do better than this. We must try new approaches, not just keep doing the same old thing. And we must keep trying until we get it right.
Tonight I announce a new attempt to get vulnerable young people into jobs called PaTH—Prepare, Trial and Hire.
Australian businesses, especially small businesses, have told me that they want to give young people a go, but we need to do more to get young people ready for a job, so businesses do not carry all the risk and all the cost.
And it is a two-way street. Young people have told me how they need to get people alongside them to help them to develop the confidence and the skills and the attitudes and the behaviours that are expected by employers so they can get a job and they can stay in a job, because that is what they want.
This is what the Youth Jobs PaTH is designed to do—it is not just another 'keep them busy' training program.
From 1 April 2017, young jobseekers, who need to boost their job-readiness, will participate in intensive pre-employment skills training within five months of registering with jobactive. The first three weeks of training will focus on skills such as working in a team, presentation, and appropriate IT literacy. A further three weeks of training will centre on advanced job preparation and job-hunting skills.
In stage 2, the government will introduce an internship program with up to 120,000 placements over four years to help young jobseekers.
Jobseekers and businesses, will work together to design an internship placement of four to 12 weeks duration, during which the jobseeker will work 15 to 25 hours per week.
Jobseekers will receive $200 per fortnight on top of their regular income support payment, Newstart or other, while supporting and participating in the internship. This is real work for the dole.
Businesses that take on interns will receive an up-front payment of $1,000, and will also benefit from the opportunity to see what a young worker can do and how they fit in to the team before deciding whether to offer them ongoing employment.
In stage 3, Australian employers will be eligible for a youth bonus wage subsidy of between $6,500 and $10,000. These subsidies are just a smarter way of leveraging what you would otherwise spend on Newstart and other welfare payments.
Businesses will have the flexibility to employ young jobseekers either directly, through labour hire agreements, or combined with an apprenticeship or traineeship.
In addition to these changes, all existing wage subsidies will be streamlined, making them easier for employers to access.
The $751.7 million cost of these initiatives is fully funded from making savings in less effective employment programs, including better targeting of Work for the Dole.
It is worth trying new ways to get young people into real jobs.
The cost of not doing so resigns thousands of young Australians to a lifetime of welfare dependency. In addition to the financial cost and the sustainability of our welfare system, the social and human cost is too great for our country to ignore.
That is why the Youth Jobs PaTH is such an important part of the Turnbull government's economic plan for jobs and growth.
Finally, our strong plan to keep spending under control means we can afford to guarantee support for hospitals and schools and protect our strong social safety net for the most vulnerable.
We have already announced we will provide an estimated additional $2.9 billion over three years for public hospital services. The additional funding is linked to reforms that focus on improving patient safety and the quality of services, and reducing avoidable hospitalisations.
The government will also deliver a new approach to funding essential dental services for children and low-income adults.
The Commonwealth effectively provides around 53 per cent of education expenditure by states and territories, once Commonwealth general revenue assistance is taken into account. Between 2018 and 2020, the government will also provide $1.2 billion in additional funding for government and non-government schools.
This funding will be contingent on reform efforts from the states and non-government schools sector to get better outcomes for students and parents.
To meet the future costs of the National Disability Insurance Scheme we are establishing an NDIS savings fund. This fund will hold unspent funds from the NDIS as well as the proceeds of savings measures from better targeting our welfare spending. These funds can then be reinvested back into delivering the NDIS and contribute to filling the current funding gap that was left to us.
Conclusion
Australians know it is no easy task to secure jobs and growth in a highly competitive, volatile and uncertain global economy.
Despite the challenges and the naysayers, we are already making it happen as Australians.
Our economy last year grew by almost $40 billion and added almost 300,000 jobs.
At three per cent last year, our economy grew faster than the world's most advanced economies, faster than the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany. We are growing more than twice as fast as Canada, faster than New Zealand and Singapore, and matching it with economies like South Korea.
Given the international headwinds and fragility, this is an achievement of which all Australians should be proud.
So like the Australian people, we are upbeat and optimistic, even though we understand and know that there are many Australians feeling the transition more acutely in some parts of our country than others.
We also know we have the opportunity, though, to do more by accessing the largest and fastest-growing economies in our own region, namely China and India.
Australians are already seizing their opportunities. The economic plan we have announced tonight will back them in to do more.
At such a sensitive time none of us can become complacent or make decisions that put our successful transition at risk. There is too much at stake.
That is why we must stick to our national economic plan for jobs and growth, fix the problems in our tax system so we can cover our responsibilities for the next generation and ensure the government lives within its means, just like Australians all around the country are doing in their homes and in their businesses.
This is the right plan for Australia to overcome the challenges of economic transition and to clear a path for long-term growth and jobs in a stronger and new economy.
Having set this critical direction and having laid out this plan, we must now commit to stay the course. The future of all Australians and their families depends on it.
So let's get this clear, in short here are the components to our plan for jobs and growth:
1. An innovation and science program for start-up businesses;
2. A defence plan for local hi-tech manufacturing and technology;
3. Export trade deals to generate new business opportunities;
4. Tax cuts and incentives for small business and hardworking families;
5. A sustainable budget with crackdowns on tax avoidance and loopholes; and
6. Guaranteed funding for health, education and roads.
I commend the Turnbull government's economic plan for jobs and growth and this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
For the information of honourable members, I present the following documents in connection with the budget for 2016-17.
Budget strategy and outlook 2016-17
Budget measures 2016-17
Federal financial relations 2016-17
Agency resourcing 2016-17
Ordered that the documents be made parliamentary papers.
I present the following ministerial statement: Investing in Regional Growth 2016-17. Details of the statement will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2016-2017, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017, which was introduced earlier by the Treasurer, and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017, are the budget appropriation bills for the 2016-17 financial year. Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2016-2017 provides for appropriations that are not for the ordinary annual services of government, such as for capital works, and services and payments to states, territories and local governments. This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $9 billion for 2016-17.
The provisions in the bill seek authority for appropriations broadly equivalent to seven-twelfths of the estimated 2016-17 annual appropriations plus budget measures. Together with Supply Bill (No. 2) 2016-2017, this bill provides appropriations for activities that are not for the ordinary annual services of government for the full year 2016-17. I now outline four significant items provided for in this bill.
First, the Department of Communications and the Arts would receive just under $4.9 billion in 2016-17. This is required to provide equity funding to nbn co to continue to roll out the National Broadband Network.
Second, the Department of Defence would receive just under $1.4 billion, which includes an additional $700 million in 2016-17 to support the defence strategy and capability plans detailed in the 2016 defence white paper.
Third, the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development would receive just under $544 million in 2016-17. This would be used to support Roads to Recovery to help local governments and councils maintain Australia's roads, the Drought Communities Program, preparatory works on Western Sydney airport and an equity injection for the Moorebank Intermodal Company.
Fourth, just over $310 million is proposed for the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. This includes $50 million in concessional loan funding in 2016-17 to establish the national water infrastructure loan facility. Loans would be provided to the states and territories to support major water infrastructure projects.
The bill also provides the debit limits for the nation-building funds the Building Australia Fund and the Education Investment Fund, the general purpose financial assistance payments and the National Partnership payments. The debit limits relate to the estimated expenditure for the balance of 2016-17.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedules to the bill and the portfolio budget statements tabled in the parliament. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017 is to provide the balance of 2016-17 annual appropriation funding for the operations of the Department of the Senate, the Department of the House of Representatives, the Department of Parliamentary Services and the Parliamentary Budget Office. This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $147 million for 2016-17. The Department of Parliamentary Services would receive just over $25 million to maintain the integrity and amenity of Parliament House.
The provisions in the bill seek authority for appropriations broadly equivalent to seven-twelfths of the estimated 2016-17 annual appropriations plus budget measures. Together with Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017, this bill provides appropriations for the expenditure of the parliamentary departments for the full year of 2016-17. Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio budget statements for the parliamentary departments. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017 is to provide the balance of 2016-17 annual appropriation funding for the operations of the Department of the Senate, the Department of the House of Representatives, the Department of Parliamentary Services and the Parliamentary Budget Office. This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $147 million for 2016-17. The Department of Parliamentary Services would receive just over $25 million to maintain the integrity and amenity of Parliament House.
The provisions in the bill seek authority for appropriations broadly equivalent to seven-twelfths of the estimated 2016-17 annual appropriations plus budget measures. Together with the Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017, this bill provides appropriations for the expenditure of the parliamentary departments for the full year of 2016-17. Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio budget statements for the parliamentary departments. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That the House do now adjourn.
Question agreed to.
House adjourned at 20:10