I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: LAND 155—Enhanced Gap Crossing Capability Facilities project.
The Department of Defence is proposing to build new and upgraded facilities to support the sustainment and maintenance of, and training in, the enhanced gap crossing capability at four locations across Australia.
The project will deliver facilities and infrastructure at Wallangarra and Townsville, in Queensland; Darwin, in the Northern Territory; and Sydney, in New South Wales. The project will include permanent facilities for the storage of critical bridging equipment, and open storage hardstand to sustain and maintain the new capability. The new and upgraded facilities will give the Australian Army a bridging capability through the acquisition of operationally deployable solutions for use in a broad range of military and humanitarian activities. The proposed works will support an important Defence capability and allow more efficient and effective training to prepare the Australian Defence Force for deployment on operations to enhance Australia's security.
The estimated cost to deliver the project is $23.38 million, excluding GST. This includes construction costs; escalation allowances; professional service fees; design, construction and design contingencies; and information technology equipment. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is scheduled to commence in September 2017 and is expected to be completed by April 2018. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Russell Offices buildings 5 and 6, Infrastructure Upgrade, Russell, ACT.
The Department of Defence is proposing to upgrade the infrastructure in the Australian Signals Directorate's premises in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
The Australian Signals Directorate maintains operations 24 hours per day, seven days per week to provide signals intelligence and information security to the Australian government and the Australian Defence Force. The base building engineering infrastructure, particularly mechanical and electrical engineering services, has reached the end of life and is performing inefficiently. This has increased running costs, maintenance costs and downtime, and there is an increasing risk of the failure of the systems supporting the critical Australian Signals Directorate capability.
The project will deliver reliable and efficient services which are fit for purpose and compliant, and provide value for money to support the mission-critical operational requirements of the Australian Signals Directorate for the next 20 years. The proposed works encompass a number of specific elements of the engineering services, including mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, fire protection and control systems. The proposal also includes reconfiguration of the main foyer and upgrades to the security systems to address functionality and compliance.
The estimated cost to deliver the project is $75.4 million, excluding GST. This includes management and design fees; temporary facility costs; construction costs; information communication technology; furniture, fittings and equipment; design and construction contingencies; and an allowance for escalation. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is scheduled to commence in mid-2017, with completion anticipated by mid-2020. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Stage One of the Garden Island (East), Critical Infrastructure Recovery Program, Sydney.
The Department of Defence is proposing to upgrade two existing wharves at Garden Island in Sydney.
Stage 1 of the Garden Island Critical Infrastructure Recovery Program will address severe condition and capacity issues with the existing cruiser and oil wharves. The cruiser wharf has deteriorated to the point that it is now fenced off to restrict pedestrian access, and cannot be used to conduct critical ship maintenance activities or berth ships, except in low-wind conditions. The proposed works involve demolishing the existing cruiser and oil wharves and rebuilding them as a single wharf in a new alignment. It is also proposed to extend an adjoining wharf to reduce the new, realigned wharf's protrusion into Sydney Harbour.
The new realigned wharf will be equipped with a new crane; engineering services, including electricity and water; and wharf furniture, including ladders and fenders. These works will enable more maintenance work to be conducted away from residential areas, reducing the noise and visual impacts. This capital investment in infrastructure at Garden Island will bring economic benefits to the local New South Wales economy, with opportunities for local subcontractors over three years. That will be good for small business.
The estimated cost to deliver the project is $213.4 million, excluding GST. This includes construction costs, escalation allowances, professional service fees, design, and construction and design contingencies. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is scheduled to commence in mid-2017 and is expected to be completed by late 2020. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
Mr Speaker, I present the report from the Publications Committee. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
Report—by leave—agreed to.
on indulgence—Today is my last day as the Chief Nationals Whip. I want to put on the record my thanks to my Nationals colleagues for the honour of serving as Chief Nationals Whip over the last half-year or so, to the member for Capricornia in her role as deputy, to the members for Forrest, Forde and Grey in the Liberal Party who I worked with, to the members for Lalor and Fowler and to your good self, Mr Speaker. It has been an honour. Thank you.
I thank the member for Dawson.
Last time I mapped out the shameful history of this Abbott-Turnbull government to frustrate, denigrate and in part put in jeopardy—or indeed, at the very least, raise serious doubts about—the NDIS, which is the single most important social reform that this country has seen since the establishment of Medicare. Thankfully, despite the government's best efforts, neither the crossbench nor the Australian people have fallen for this shoddy divide-and-conquer trick. In fact, the response to the government's cynical ploy has been swift, decisive and completely appropriate. The inaugural Chair of the NDIS, Mr Bruce Bonyhady, has rightly labelled the government's behaviour as 'deeply cruel'. Jo Briskey, the Executive Director of the lobby group The Parenthood, said she had had no concerns about NDIS funding prior to the government's implied funding threat. She delivered a very clear warning to the government when she said:
I hope that the Turnbull government sees that they have made a mistake here, they have made a misjudgment, that the NDIS should be above party politics, should be above the petty politics that is happening at the moment and every politician in Canberra should be getting behind the future of the NDIS.
Despite the government's best efforts to undermine the NDIS, it is very clear that the Australian people understand just how important this scheme is for our nation.
Sadly, whilst the government has had some opportunities to revisit its strategy, it would seem that it has taken the path of simply doubling down on former Prime Minister Abbott's strategy of locking in concessions for the wealthiest individuals and companies while loading up all the pain on the most vulnerable in our community. I will leave the final words to Kurt Fearnley, who is not only a top Australian Paralympian but a strong advocate of the NDIS. Indeed, his words rang loudly in my community when he said about the NDIS:
I wish the Government would fight for it with as much vigour as fighting for its $50 billion business tax cut, because they believe both are benefits for our community.
Touche, Mr Fearnley. Let us hope the government will listen.
I too rise to speak against the government's National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. The member for Jagajaga, a former minister and tireless advocate of people with disability and of disability reform, like so many of us on this side of the House, outlined with great clarity earlier why this bill is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. It is nothing more than a sneaky way of diminishing what the NDIS is. We on this side of the House can see through the government's sneakiness with this legislation and their tactics that will effectively diminish the livelihoods of Australians with disability.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme was designed, funded and introduced by Labor. It is being delivered on time and within the budget. Already thousands of Australians with disability across the nation are having their lives absolutely transformed because of the NDIS. People with disability, their families and carers know that Labor, we on this side of the House, will always protect them. I, like everyone else on this side of the House, including the member for Jagajaga, who is here in the House today, will keep on fighting to protect the National Disability Insurance Scheme from this government's attacks.
I remember very clearly the day in 2013 when the then minister for disability and the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, finally succeeded in passing the NDIS. I was sitting in the chair at the time. You could feel the collective sigh of the nation. You could feel that at last we had delivered something for people with disabilities to give them dignity and to give them some form of being able to do the things that most people enjoy doing here in Australia. I can still see the scene before me here in this House. There was elation from both sides of the House. Both sides supported the NDIS in the form that it was presented to the parliament and both sides cheered the bill being passed. Basically, members of the coalition, in opposition at the time, put their hands on their hearts and said, 'Me too. We support the NDIS. Me too. We are part of this.' That is what we heard at the time. But they also said that about other bills and other things that were passed in this place, like Gonski, for example. They were saying things like, 'You can vote for us, the Liberals, and get Gonski and the NDIS.' Those are the things they were saying in the lead-up to the 2013 election. When it comes to things like disability support and education, they were saying, 'There is no difference between us.' They said that over and over, but we all know that it is not correct. The Abbott-Turnbull government has turned its back on Gonski by ripping $30 billion from school funding and now we see it again with this unnecessary piece of legislation.
This bill aims to establish, as we have heard, a special account, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account. The coalition government's priorities are in question about this, not the former Labor government's plan to fund the NDIS. The NDIS was fully funded. Disability organisations have resoundingly rejected this fund and the government's planned cuts that will go into it. The government refuses to listen to those who are experts in the field, like Peter Davidson from ACOSS, who said:
It is not obvious why this new fund is needed. Its purpose, apart from the generic one of funding the NDIS, is not clear and we don't believe it should be supported in its present form.
I will add my own reflections on this very bad piece of legislation. While this is a game of political trickery being played by the government, sadly it is just another example of the government being intent on hurting our most disadvantaged Australians.
Sadly, the future of the NDIS is no orphan when it comes to the government's callous approach to our community. For example, our lowest paid workers are the latest victims, with the cuts to penalty rates that we saw recently. Thousands of people are finding themselves worse off. The Leader of the Opposition presented a bill to save those workers, but the government is refusing to support it. What does this tell us? It tells us that the government is much more interested in giving the big end of town a $50 billion tax cut and ripping money out of the pockets of the people who need it most. This bill is an example of it. It is smoke and mirrors and full of trickery. Disturbingly, inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high, and we are a First World country so that should not be the case. We should be a beacon for progress and advancement in our region. Instead, the gap is getting bigger and bigger. The last thing we want to see is the gap for people with disabilities getting any bigger, so that they are completely out of touch.
Earlier this week I spoke about the omnibus bill. Think about that bill. I have not seen a piece of legislation that puts every community group in one bill and hurts them. They are hurting people with disabilities, people on support pensions and people on Newstart. Absolutely no other piece of legislation that I have seen attacks every sector of the community, all grouped in one bill. That is what the government is doing. This is another piece of legislation which will be used in the future to water down and diminish the good things that were put in place to ensure that people with disabilities have the ability to do the things that all of us take for granted. As I said, this bill is trickery and smoke and mirrors.
We need to ensure that the NDIS is funded correctly, as was proposed in 2013. It was costed, it was articulated in this House and everyone agreed to it, and now the government wants to see it changed. It makes you wonder what the real purpose is behind this particular bill. I oppose this bill because it is nothing other than a waste of the parliament's time—that is No. 1—because we already have the funding in place in its correct form. It is nothing but a political stunt. The government would have people believe that the previous Labor government did not fully fund the NDIS. Those are the things we have been hearing in the media and around the place. Those are the kinds of things it has been putting out there, but nothing could be further from the truth.
We have seen the real intent of this bill and we referred it to a Senate inquiry in order to better understand what the government was attempting to achieve in establishing this account. The inquiry is yet to report. The submissions provided tell a very clear story, though. The minister's own department proved in the submission they put to the inquiry and in evidence presented to the hearing that the NDIS is fully funded. That supports the fact that, in the 2013-14 budget, Labor clearly set out how the NDIS would be funded for 10 years, well past transition to the full scheme. This included reforms to the private health insurance rebate, reforms to retirement incomes, the phase-out of the net medical expenses tax offset and other long-term savings proposals. The Medicare levy was increased by 0.5 percentage points to two per cent, together with the contributions from state and territory governments around the country. These measures clearly covered the cost of the NDIS for 10 years. Just like the day when the NDIS passed, coalition members should remember this, because they voted for almost every single savings measure to fully fund the NDIS. In fact, some of those measures even passed the parliament after the election of 2013, when the coalition formed government. As I said, this new account is a smokescreen for more cruel cuts by the government that will be seen in the future. Australians will not accept more cruel cuts from the government under the guise of funding the NDIS.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme is already funded. Further, the former Labor government actually set up its own special account, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund. This means that there would be two special accounts that would effectively serve the same purpose—funding the NDIS. Not only is this fund unnecessary, but the government is likely to use the fund to justify more budget cuts under the false guise of filling an NDIS funding hole left by Labor—and that is what it is going to try and put in the picture. It is wrong.
It is wrong that the NDIS is being used as an excuse for cuts to payments for the most vulnerable people in our society. As we have seen before, the government seeks to pit one group of vulnerable people against another, and that is just plain wrong. The members on the government side should be ashamed of this particular bill and the trickery that is involved in it—that is, if they had any compassion, and that is becoming increasingly questionable, given the cuts that they are heaping on Australians and what is proposed in this bill, through the trickery and smokescreens, into the future.
I thank all the members for their contributions in the second reading debate on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016. In summarising and making some comment on those contributions, I would note, of course, from the outset, that the government is fully committed to properly, adequately and sustainably funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme. And it is for precisely that reason that the government is bringing forward this bill to establish a new, ongoing special account which will assist the Commonwealth to meet future financial commitments to the NDIS.
The special account will be known as the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account, and in this contribution I will simply refer to that 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. It is necessary to be absolutely crystal clear here: a failure to fully support this bill is a failure to support 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.
Failure to support the bill 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 what will eventually be an estimated 460,000 participants in the NDIS. It is further absolutely necessary to also give assurance to all Australian citizens that the NDIS funding gap, which is absolutely real and which arises in the year 2019-20, will not be funded by further taxes or further borrowings. It is absolutely necessary because of the financial failure of the members opposite to address an issue and a challenge that was always going to be confronted by any government when the NDIS reached its full scheme in 2019-20.
The NDIS represents a massive, overdue and greatly supported increase in funding for disability services. It is one of the largest social and economic policy reforms in Australian history. In 2019-20, the NDIS reaches full scheme, with $21.4 billion worth of funding being allocated in that year. The Commonwealth's share of that total funding will be around $11.1 billion per year.
Currently, to fund the NDIS, the Commonwealth is redirecting existing disability-related spending and accessing the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, which are both applied towards the cost of the NDIS in 2019-20. Existing Commonwealth disability funding which is redirected to the NDIS is estimated to be at about $1.1 billion, the Commonwealth's share of the increase in the Medicare levy through the DisabilityCare Australia Fund is estimated to be at about $4.1 billion, and redirecting funding which is presently provided to the states for specialist disability services is estimated to be at $1.8 billion. In total, therefore, the Commonwealth will direct $7 billion from these sources to the NDIS.
Because of the failure of the previous Labor government to specifically set aside funding for the NDIS—
Wrong!
False! Don't mislead the parliament.
this will leave a funding shortfall of $4.1 billion in 2019-20, growing to over $7 billion in future years. That is a shortfall which this government will meet. Labor claims—as is clear from the interjections of members opposite—that it 'clearly identified' enough savings that were specifically assigned to pay the other half of the Commonwealth funding requirements. That is a very clumsy attempt to rewrite history. And the claim now that there were adequate specific savings set aside to fully fund the NDIS is wrong for three reasons. First, the claim that enough savings to cover the other half of the Commonwealth spending were 'clearly identified' is not a claim that is capable of anything that resembles proper verification. When you look at Labor's actual budget papers, they did not link savings to the NDIS. And that proposition only ever appeared in a 2013-14 budget glossy.
Oh, a budget paper—hidden in the budget!
That budget glossy—
Opposition members interjecting—
Is that right? That budget glossy spoke about—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The minister will resume his seat for a second. The member for McMahon is warned. I realise there is going to be a robust nature to the debate, but members have had an opportunity to speak during the debate—I am not sure whether the member for McMahon did. But we are now at the summing-up stage, and I suspect we are approaching a division, and, if the member for McMahon feels as strongly as his interjections indicate, I think he would probably want to be here for it.
Thank you for your protection, Mr Speaker. The claim that enough savings were available to cover that half of the Commonwealth's spending and that they were clearly identified is simply not true. Before we were interrupted, we were speaking about a budget glossy which made a claim that would have amounted to an extra $2.4 billion of savings in 2019-20, and it labelled that $2.4 billion as 'other long-term savings'. These other long-term savings have never been properly identified in any meaningful way. They certainly were never identified in any budget paper that linked them in any way to the NDIS. In Senate estimates, when asked whether these measures could be listed in detail, the Treasury response was: 'The short answer is no.'
The second reason why the claims of the members opposite are false is that of course the golden rule of public finances is that, where a genuine budget saving is made, it can only be spent once. It can either be spent on deficit reduction or on some other specific purpose. Labor announced its supposed NDIS funding in the 2013-14 budget, but many of the savings measures that it now points to had actually been announced long before that budget and assigned to other purposes, with no mention of the NDIS whatsoever. In order words, Labor grabbed a handful of often previously announced and allocated savings and, after the fact, tried to pretend that they were exclusively assigned to the NDIS to make it look like it was fully funded.
In fact, the final speaker from members opposite made note of one of those savings as the private health insurance reforms, and that is worth some critical investigation. Savings from the private health insurance reforms which are now claimed to have been set aside for the NDIS—indeed, in the last speech from members opposite—would have been estimated to account for $1.1 billion worth of funding in 2019-20. Those were first announced in a media release on 20 October 2012 and included in the 2012-13 Labor MYEFO. Prior to the budget, they were committed to and supposedly funded the NDIS.
These private health insurance savings which are now claimed as NDIS savings were first described as partially offsetting the dental health reform package announced on 29 August 2012. Then, in the same 2012-13 MYEFO, Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley, said of these and other MYEFO savings that they were being used 'to return the budget to surplus in 2013 and beyond' and said:
The Government has made substantial targeted savings, ensuring that Australia's public finances remain strong.
There is no mention whatsoever in the 2012-13 Labor MYEFO that savings from private health insurance reforms would help pay for the NDIS. So the 2012-13 MYEFO had $1.1 billion in savings that are now claimed as being for the NDIS but in the budget paper were either dedicated to pay partly for dental health reforms or deficit reduction. So, first, Labor claimed that this measure would pay for dental health initiatives and, simultaneously, Labor claimed that it would help reduce the deficit and then later Labor claimed that it would pay for the NDIS. So, if there is a golden rule of budgets that you can only spend a dollar once, Labor sees no problem with spending those dollars from private health insurance reforms three times over.
Savings from changes to retirement incomes is another head of savings which has been mentioned. They are now claimed to have been set aside for the NDIS and estimated to account for $0.9 billion of funding in 2019-20. They were first announced by the member for Lilley on 5 April 2013, prior to the budget that committed to and supposedly funded the NDIS. These changes to retirement incomes were described upon announcement in the relevant media release in the following terms:
Australians are living longer and in this context the superannuation system needs to be fair and it needs to be sustainable.
There was no mention of the NDIS in that media release and there was no mention of linking the savings to the NDIS in the 2013-14 budget papers that later sets out these measures. The budget papers and the media release clearly suggest that the savings were designed to allow for a sustainable superannuation system and so contribute to budget repair. Also notable is the fact that one of those measures was never passed by Labor and was not proceeded with after the 2013 election, because the complexity and compliance costs associated with the initiative were extreme and made the proposed saving largely undeliverable.
So, when savings measures were announced, Labor were still committed in those days to a surplus and so committed the funds to reducing the deficit, not merely to more spending. And when the savings were announced Labor did not mention the NDIS at all. Savings Labor now claim they made up to help fund the NDIS went into consolidated revenue and were never set aside to fund the NDIS. They were instead directed at an attempt to get back to surplus and ended up being washed away by Labor's increasing cumulative budget deficits.
Third, it is necessary to note that any serious hypothecation of savings in an area of the size and significance of the NDIS requires a specific fund to be created to protect those savings from any other uses, such as deficit reduction. This is precisely what stops the funds being washed away by growing deficits that were not predicted at the time that the savings were made. In fact, it is notable on this point that, at the time the NDIS appeared in the federal budget in 2012-13, the member for Lilley predicted a surplus of $1.5 billion in 2012-13, which in fact turned into a deficit of $18.8 billion.
Labor did set up a specific fund, the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, to fund the NDIS. It is notable, however, that only the additional Medicare levy proceeds were invested into that fund. No other savings Labor made were ever set aside in the DCAF for future use on the NDIS. At the time of passing the legislation to increase the Medicare levy and establish the DCAF, supported by the coalition, the member for Lilley gave the impression, of course, that this locked in NDIS funding, claiming:
With the increased Medicare levy's passage through the Senate, the lasting future of DisabilityCare Australia will be left in no doubt.
How can it possibly be the case that you can claim to have clearly identified sources of funding when one of the biggest sources of revenue, representing billions of dollars, is described simply and without any further identification as 'other long-term savings'? Labor cannot and will not identify what they are. How can Labor bank billions of dollars of savings that were previously allocated to other purposes such as budget repair and other specific expenditure?
In the real world, the end result has been that the coalition will have to find billions of dollars worth of real and clearly identified savings and place them in a protected account which can only be used for the purposes of funding the NDIS. This savings fund is the mechanism for securing and protecting that funding shortfall and does not require borrowings for the NDIS that would need to be paid back by future generations. It is proof of the responsible and sustainable way that this government follows through on its NDIS commitment. Effectively, the government will, over successive years, put aside savings that are clearly identified, quantified, defined and protected, so that the annual funding gap from the 2019-20 NDIS is met within existing funding. By clearly identifying savings in the savings fund, we will provide an enduring response to the concerns raised by the disability sector in relation to how future governments will fund the shortfall for the NDIS.
In fact, the government has already announced more than $5 billion in savings over the forward estimates that, once realised will be credited to the savings fund when established. Whilst this will ensure the $4.1 billion funding gap in 2019-20 will be met, further deposits will of course need to be made over coming financial years to ensure that we will fill Labor's NDIS funding gap—because it grows to over $7 billion each and every year.
The bill gives the government the flexibility to identify savings from any portfolio, not just the Social Services portfolio. That approach will ensure that many areas of government can contribute to supporting people with a disability. In bringing forward this bill to create the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account, the government is producing a robust and enduring solution to meet the Commonwealth's funding commitments for the NDIS.
It is important here to recall the original recommendations of the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission itself recommended:
The Australian Government should direct payments from consolidated revenue into a 'National Disability Insurance Premium Fund'—
using 'a legislated formula to achieve transparency and certainty'. Interestingly, at the time of the Productivity Commission inquiry, the Australian Council of Social Service also noted:
… there must be a clear "fund" specifically for the proposed disability scheme.
The government urges passage of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Savings Fund Special Account Bill 2016, as recommended by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee. In coming to this position, the committee noted:
The committee is of the view that this legislation presents a significant step toward ensuring that NDIS funding is both adequate and sustainable.
It is critical that the Commonwealth manages its funding in a way that is transparent and quantifiable and meets the Commonwealth funding commitments to ensure the NDIS is fully funded. The government is of course 100 per cent committed to delivering and funding the NDIS in full. We have supported the NDIS from day one and this savings fund demonstrates that ongoing commitment. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.
The question is this bill be now read a second time.
Bill read a second time.
I have received a message from His Excellency the Governor-General recommending, in accordance with section 56 of the Constitution, an appropriation for the purposes of this bill.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Bill read a third time.
Labor agrees to support this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Bill 2017, which puts in place a number of straightforward technical amendments. Schedule 1 implements minor technical changes to the income tax law to ensure that the National Innovation and Science Agenda measures in the Tax Laws Amendment (Tax Incentives for Innovation) Act 2016 operate in accordance with their original policy intent. That act in 2016 implemented measures to provide concessional tax treatment for investors in innovative, potentially high-growth start-ups and reform tax arrangements for venture capital limited partnerships to improve access to capital and make the regime more user-friendly and more internationally competitive.
Currently investors that invest through an interposed trust—that being an investment trust operated through an intermediary—are not able to access the capital gains concessions provided by these two measures. However, it was intended that those measures would apply to these types of investors. So schedule 1 of the bill makes technical corrections to ensure that the Tax Laws Amendment (Tax Incentives for Innovation) Act 2016 operates in accordance with the original policy intent, meaning that investors investing through an interposed trust are able to access the capital gains concessions provided by the tax incentives for early-stage investors and venture capital investment measures.
Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act to allow ASIC to more readily share confidential information with the Commissioner of Taxation. It does so by specifying that the sharing of confidential ASIC information with the Commissioner of Taxation is an authorised use and disclosure of that information.
ASIC and the Commissioner of Taxation, understandably, operate around strict confidentiality rules relating to the use and disclosure of their information. ASIC is able to share confidential information with certain prescribed individuals and entities, including the minister, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. But, as things currently stand, ASIC cannot share information with the Commissioner of Taxation unless the chairperson or delegate of ASIC is satisfied that doing so would enable or assist the Commissioner of Taxation to perform or exercise their functions or powers. This is in addition to the Commissioner of Taxation—him or herself—being satisfied that they have the authority to receive and utilise the information.
The result causes inefficiencies and hinders effective collaboration between the agencies in ensuring compliance and in investigating potential illegal activity. Where ASIC has shared information with the Commissioner of Taxation, the information, under this bill, would remain protected from unauthorised disclosure, as division 355 of schedule 1 to the Taxation Administration Act 1953 makes the unauthorised disclosure of confidential information an offence.
As I said at the outset, the amendments in this bill are uncontroversial. They should assist start-ups and assist ASIC and the ATO to work together to investigate corporate and tax fraud. Labor is pleased to support the speedy passage of this bill through the House.
I want to follow on from the remarks of the shadow Assistant Treasurer in relation to this bill. The Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Bill 2017 forms part of an ongoing review, if you will, of what can be done to help support the emergence of innovation in Australia. In particular, it deals with one of the things that has been problematic for a lot of younger and newer companies that have been looking to establish themselves and to progress the work that they are doing within their enterprises. A lot of firms need to rely on money to survive. In Australia, it has been one of the things that has held back the development of a very vibrant start-up ecosystem in this country. There is already one in place, but it has ambitions to grow and to be one of the world leaders in terms of start-up activity. I think this is an absolutely critical objective and a very important ambition for the nation, because this is where jobs and future economic growth are likely to emerge. We will be either left behind and simply import ideas or see enterprises created in this country through the smart supply by the next generation of Australians.
Two things hold back that growth. The first is having the skills and the talent to be able to push ideas forward. The other is access to capital, which is why this legislation, in its own way, is important. It forms part of the process of seeing what can be extended in terms of capital support for the sector. Notably, you have venture capital providing a critical plank towards start-ups being able to access vital capital. You have angel investors that provide their support. And there are incentives like those that are at the heart of this legislation that also support those two endeavours—in terms of venture capital and angel investment. On the face of it, these measures are uncontroversial. They are important measures. But you need to make sure that experience matches expectation—that the legislation that the government put in place last year will actually behave in a way that provides support and, importantly, that it is done in a proper way so that people are not using this law simply as some sort of tax minimisation platform and that people are doing the right thing. As the shadow Assistant Treasurer has said, we understand the need to be vigilant. We understand the intent behind this legislation. And we understand that it is important that we have these types of measures in place.
The ATO have a hard job to do. We certainly respect their role as the guardians of revenue in this country. It is not easy to do. They have to, basically, kept their eyes on tax laws that are so thick you could actually mistake them for a house brick. Being able to interpret those laws and apply those laws is not easy. So we do have huge respect for their role. Sometimes they have to keep a closer eye on things simply because they suspect that there may be the prospect of people abusing the various supports in place to support, in this instance, early-stage innovation. This bill enhances oversight, but it is not the only instance where oversight is being applied in a much more clinical way in this sector. In the other area I mentioned, these laws form part of an overall network of being able to support the flow of capital into the sector to ensure the start-up enterprises can emerge and emerge strongly.
The other form of support that exists is the R&D tax incentive. One thing that the start-up sector has said and drummed into me is: if politicians are going to look at the R&D tax incentive, we want you to do one thing—that is, to keep it. The start-up sector enormously values the benefit of the R&D tax incentive to their businesses. In fact, I would dare say it is one of the things that keeps a lot of start-ups onshore. This incentive plays such a huge role and a huge part in supporting their businesses that they want to ensure it continues. The ATO recently announced that it was putting the magnifying glass on claims for the R&D tax incentive. You can understand why it does it. From time to time it sends a signal—'We're taking a closer look on these claims and we're going to make sure that nothing untoward is going on. We'll stamp out claims that are out of line.' The opposition certainly supports that; I imagine the government does. Bearing in mind, the ATO is an independent authority; it makes its decisions at arms-length from government and from politicians, generally. We certainly appreciate that.
I am compelled to speak on this matter in the context of what this bill is doing generally, which is keeping a close eye on incentives and the way that they are applied in the taxation space. I am compelled to speak because of a very powerful piece I saw in The Australian Financial Review today by the CEO of the start-up sector's peak body, StartupAUS. Alex McCauley has written a very important piece, I thought, highlighting that on 20 February the ATO issued an alert relating to the R&D tax incentive. Bear in mind, as Mr McCauley points out, that this is the single biggest program delivered by government to support innovation in Australia. According to Mr McCauley:
… in the alert the ATO notes that most software development will not be considered eligible for support under the R&D Tax Incentive. It is part of an increased focus on compliance …
This bill is talking about compliance measures. There are other regimes that are impacting on compliance. I think it is important to draw attention to this. It is seeking to limit the growing cost of the R&D tax incentive, a program that, as StartupAUS notes, has been central in driving the growth of innovation in this country. The government says nothing has changed and that alert simply restated the existing rules. But as StartupAUS points out:
But rather than clarify, this line confuses: if nothing has changed, why release an alert?
Its view is that there has been a change and that the scheme, which at a technical level is focused primarily on encouraging research, has evolved in recent years to involve development—the other half of R&D. As Mr McCauley writes:
That evolution has largely been the result of a pragmatic approach to which activities qualify for support under the scheme.
The point that stood out to me is:
If they take the ATO's advice at face value—
and it would be brave for a start-up founder not to—
digital startups around the country will have to re-think their capitalisation, relying on less support from government and nervous investors.
I think that is an issue; I am very concerned about this.
An update to the alert was issued on Friday to clarify the operation of the advice but, as StartupAUS points out, there are other confusing elements as well. Limiting software company access to the scheme was not one of the recommendations of the review that was recently carried out into the operation of the R&D tax incentive. They are pointing out that this seems to go against what has previously been flagged in terms of reviews. Certainly there is a concern about that. They are also concerned that reinterpreting the scope of the most important innovation support mechanism in the country threatens to more than undo all the support the government has provided so far for innovative Australian businesses. If that was not the intended consequence, it needs swift and clear remedial action which explicitly brings digital start-ups back into the fold.
I think the sector is sending a very clear message that, while they appreciate that the whole arrangements around the R&D tax incentive are being reviewed and that there has been a degree of clarification in relation to its application, there is a big concern about what this will do in terms of software development and the support that it provides to start-ups. Frankly, if we do not speak up on this, the concern is that it will just go through and will have a big impact on start-ups.
This is not a partisan point I am making. It is easy for me, as an opposition spokesperson, to make this comment; it is lot harder for those opposite to do so. I respect that they have limitations on being able to speak up on these matters. But I note that the minister is here at the table. I would hope that she takes into account the views of the sector and I genuinely believe she will. I would hope that the ATO would acknowledge that any move in this space in dealing with this very important tax incentive would have impacts on start-ups. I would urge them to take into account the words of StartupAUS as expressed in the Financial Review today to ensure that the important work that the ATO does to ensure that tax incentives operate in the way that they are intended continues, but that there is not overreach to the extent that it impacts on some of our smallest, most innovative firms being able to conduct themselves in a way that is adding huge value to the economy, seeing a huge growth in jobs and ensuring that we are best positioned to grow into the future.
I would like to thank all members who have contributed to this important debate. Schedule 1 of this bill makes minor technical amendments to the income tax law to ensure that two National Innovation and Science Agenda measures operate in accordance with their original policy intent. These measures are the tax incentives for early stage investors measure, which provides a tax offset and capital gains tax relief for eligible investments in innovative, high-growth-potential start-ups, and the new arrangements for venture capital limited partnerships measures, which reforms the existing venture capital arrangements to improve access to capital and make the regime more user-friendly and internationally competitive.
In order to provide certainty to investors who are looking to invest through these vehicles, this schedule makes minor technical amendments to clarify the income tax law to ensure that investors who invest through a single interposed trust are able to access the capital gain concessions provided by the tax incentive for early stage investors and the new arrangements for venture capital limited partnership measures. These measures demonstrate the government's commitment to promoting a culture of entrepreneurship, as well as supporting innovative new businesses.
Schedule 2 of this bill amends the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2011 to streamline the process by which the Australian Securities and Investments Commission may share confidential information with the Australian Taxation Office for its use in the performance of its functions. The amendment will enable a more timely collaboration between the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Taxation Office during investigations into illegal or high-risk activities, for example illegal phoenixing activity. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I rise today to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016. This bill seeks to make the Department of Veterans' Affairs digitally ready as part of the larger digital transformation process across government. It seeks to support planned business and ICT reforms, which will reduce processing times and automate and streamline existing processes. In addition, it provides the department with additional measures that enable the release of personal information in certain circumstances.
There are three schedules of this bill. Schedule 1 relates to digital preparedness. Schedule 2 deals with the release of personal information. Schedule 3 updates the provisions to take into account changes of drafting precedents and practices. Given the detail of this bill and of the potential impact on veterans, particularly of schedule 2, Labor referred the bill to the Senate Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade to consider it in detail and to ensure it was delivering the best outcomes for the veteran community. I would like to thank the committee for their diligence in examining this legislation and the feedback from the ex-service community and other interested parties.
Labor are committed to improving the lives of our veterans, and it is due to the forensic examination of the legislation that we are in a position to support it. Schedule 1 inserts a provision into existing veterans' legislation—the VEA, MRCA and SRCA—which enables the secretary of the department to authorise the use of computer programs to make decisions and determinations. This schedule will move the department towards an online platform for those seeking to make claims. This is part of the veterans-centric reform process, led by the government, and is designed to improve services for veterans and their families. This schedule did cause some anxiety amongst the veteran community, particularly in light of the government's complete mismanagement of the debt automation process within Centrelink that caused significant concern in the Australian community. As it stands, I understand that the department's ICT system is not in a position to begin using this legislation immediately. These legislative changes are in anticipation of a planned business and ICT reform, which aims to reduce claim processing times and automate and streamline existing processes.
In their submissions to the committee, most respondents highlighted concerns about the administration of the automation process and how it would interact with veterans. I have had many conversations with veterans and the ex-service community about the claims process of DVA and their concerns around the current ICT system. The complaints I have received mainly relate to the length of time claims take to be resolved and the impact that waiting has on veterans and their families. The department's ICT system has been struggling to cope for some time. As a submission from the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia highlighted:
The inability of the current computer systems to manage multiple acts and legislations has been obvious for many years …
They go on to say:
Delays in decision making by delegates of the department when assessing claims for treatment and compensation for service related injuries that could be improved by the use of modern computer systems.
Automation and digitalisation seek to improve this situation and the experience of veterans. The War Widows Guild of Australia said:
Digitalisation of a system, which is easily able to recognise well-documented items, would enhance the clients well being and potentially lead to a less stressful environment for staff, veterans and families
While this legislation change will not fix the department's ICT problems it is a step in the right direction. The condition of the department's ICT system is well known and highlighted in the Department of Finance's 2013 report. This report identified that DVA's rehabilitation and compensation ICT system were ageing and at risk of failure. To address this, there has been a business case to try to simplify and streamline the department's business processes and replace the ICT legacy systems. The government has provided money to improve the operation of DVA's existing compensation and rehabilitation systems while the business case is being completed. I understand this contract for the agency employed to undertake this report has recently expired. I call on the government to make the outcome of this second pass business case public as soon as possible so that there can be proper scrutiny. While I am supportive of the need to upgrade the department's ageing ICT systems, which are at risk of failure, let me be very clear: I firmly believe this should not come at the expense of veterans' frontline services or of veterans' face-to-face services and the support that they currently get.
The Ombudsman has made a series of suggestions about the administration of the digitalisation program, and I trust the department will take on board these suggestions in the implementation phase. The Ombudsman has highlighted several potential pitfalls within the implementation of an automated system and suggested ways to avoid unnecessary angst and poor user experience. It suggested the department focus on: data entry by limiting free text fields to ensure accurate and necessary information is provided; the introduction of robust risk management procedures to help prevent and track system errors; and ensuring the system follows all basic legal values of lawfulness, fairness, transparency and efficiency. They also stated that given the system will be integrated with a number of other agencies, consideration will need to be given to ensuring the system can integrate with any changes that occur with other agencies. They will also need to ensure staff are trained appropriately and said it is essential that the department introduces targeted user acceptance testing before any operational release.
The Ombudsman also highlighted that, given the vulnerability of some of the department's clientele, the department will need to ensure it has an accessible system, and alternative data and information collection avenues, including call centres, shopfronts and online options. The department should also consider contingency for when the automated process is unavailable whether as part of a system outage or a planned upgrade. Lastly, the Ombudsman highlighted the importance of the right to have the decision reviewed and that users are afforded the opportunity to provide feedback about their experiences. Labor urges the government to take on the expert advice of the Ombudsman in relation to these administrative issues and would expect this feedback would inform the department's consideration on how the system will operate in the future.
The Veterans Advice and Social Centre of Hervey Bay also raised concerns about the administration of the automated programs, highlighting issues around notification, claims process and the sharing of information calling for safeguards to be put in place for veterans. The victims of abuse and the Australian Defence Force Association were particularly concerned about the ability of the computer programs to handle the nuances of claims processes and discussed the recent issues with the Centrelink automation process. The department has addressed some of these concerns in its submission to the committee and emphasised that the only decisions which would be suitable for computerised decision-making are those that can be converted into an algorithm and generated based on information that is not open to interpretation.
Most importantly, the department expressly stated that it does not intend to use the computerised decision-making for debt collection purposes. The department assured the committee that debt management and collection will remain a matter where specific circumstances of the individual and the value of their debt are considered in what action should be taken and how that is communicated. Given the significant angst caused by the mismanagement of the debt collection system by the government in Centrelink, I was relieved to hear that this process will not be implemented as a result of this bill.
Many of the issues raised by respondents to the committee were concerned with the way the program will be administered, with several respondents in support of the automation process itself. Given the assurances from the government, the department and investigation by the committee, Labor is in a position to support this schedule. However, we will be carefully watching any implementation of this to make sure that all recommendations by the Ombudsman are taken into consideration.
The second schedule of this bill enables the secretary of the department to disclose information about a particular case, or class of cases, to such a person and for such purposes as the secretary determines, if it is in the public interest to do so. The schedule also inserts two information-sharing provisions into the SRCA which are based on the equivalent provisions under the MRCA, which are designed to align information-sharing between the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission, the Secretary of the Department of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force across both the MRCA and the SRCA. This is to overcome an historic anomaly which currently exists between the MRCA and the SRCA to ensure consistent information is being provided, regardless of which act the client falls under.
In relation to the disclosure of personal information, the explanatory memorandum of this bill advises examples of circumstances in which it might be appropriate for the secretary to disclose information about a case, or class of cases. This includes: where there is a threat to life; health and welfare; for the enforcement of laws; proceeds of crime orders; mistake of fact; misinformation; research and statistical analysis; APS Code of Conduct investigations; and, indeed, inappropriate provider practices.
The ability to make public interest disclosure already exists under a number of federal social security laws, including the Social Security Administration Act 1999. This bill also includes a number of safeguards to this schedule to ensure that this power is exercised appropriately. These safeguards suggest that the secretary must act in accordance with the rules the minister makes, which is the accompanying Military Rehabilitation and Compensation (Public Interest Disclosure Certificate) Rules 2017. In addition, the minister is unable to delegate his or her powers about making these rules to anyone. And the secretary cannot delegate the public interest disclosure power to anyone either. Importantly, the secretary must notify the person in writing about his or her intention to disclose information and give the person a reasonable opportunity to make written comments before the disclosure. Finally, if these safeguards are not abided by, the secretary risks a fine of 60 penalty units, which is approximately a fine of $10,800.
Labor was particularly concerned—especially in light of some of the discussions around the disclosure of individual information in the current Centrelink robo-debt recovery program—about a number of criteria listed in the military rehabilitation and compensation rules, and particularly concerned about the impact it would have on veterans. During our preliminary conversations, I raised several concerns, including the broad nature of some of the criteria and the impact of the release of an individual's medical information in particular. As such, we negotiated with the minister, and I would like to thank the minister and his staff and the staff of DVA, who have been very open to discussing some of my concerns and incorporating those into the draft rules.
However, we still were concerned with a number of elements, and that is why Labor undertook to send the legislation to the Senate committee to examine the full impact of the schedule. During the Senate committee hearings, a number of concerns were raised about this accompanying instrument, and several respondents highlighted concerns about the circumstances in which it might be appropriate for the secretary to disclose individual information. It was identified that the instrument was very broad and could be open to interpretation. The Ombudsman also raised concerns about the release of personal information to the public at large and the impact it might have on veterans. During the public hearing, the Privacy Commissioner suggested the department consult with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. This suggestion formed part of the recommendations of the committee, and I understand the minister has accepted it and undertaken to do this.
Labor senators on the committee also raised concerns about the inclusion of two criteria: mistake of fact, and misinformation to the community. During the hearing, the department advised that there were very few times that this would have been used in the last few years, and Labor senators felt this highlighted a lack of need around these provisions. I have been working closely with the department, as I said, and the minister on the public interest disclosure instrument, and I am confident that we have strengthened these rules. We will continue to work and negotiate to ensure that those views of the Labor senators, as well as the interests or the need of the department, will be taken into account. This will continue, and the instrument will be tabled once the legislation has been passed. I note, though, that it is a disallowable instrument, which means that there is time for proper scrutiny and the legislation cannot be enacted until those rules have passed.
I would like to acknowledge the constructive and bipartisan approach that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs has taken in negotiating this instrument. I think it is due to the work that we have done together that we have been able to strengthen the protections for veterans and to ensure that it is consistent with the expectations of the ex-service community, especially around the disclosure of medical information, which is often of a highly personal nature. While the department has indicated that it was never intended to do that, I think it is important that that is very explicitly outlined in the instrument. Obviously, negotiations are still ongoing, as I have said, but I am very confident that we can land in a position that makes the instrument serve all parties.
I would also like to acknowledge the diligent and thorough examination undertaken by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. In particular, I thank the Labor representatives, Senator Alex Gallacher and Senator Claire Moore, who I know undertook their work very diligently and forensically.
The second element of schedule 2 enables information sharing between DVA and the Department of Defence. The proposed provisions enable the MRCC to share information with the Secretary of the Department of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Force in limited circumstances. Currently the MRCC is able to provide information about serving members to the secretary of defence and the Chief of the Defence Force under both the MRCA and the SRCA; however, the two acts are not consistent. This bill will enable the MRCC to provide the same information, irrespective of which legislation the claim falls under.
Again, some concerns were raised by respondents to the committee inquiry about the information sharing, wanting to ensure it does not impact a claimant's military career or prevent people from coming forward to seek treatment. However, the department, in their submission to the committee, argued that the provision will apply consistency across the various acts, enhance the CDF's duty of care, promote healthier work practices, reduce compensation claims and ensure that health treatments outside of Defence arrangements are monitored.
Given all the information discussed, the committee came to the view that the benefits of the bill outweighed the concerns raised, and recommended the department consult with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on the content of the public interest disclosure instrument. They also recommended the department undertake a privacy impact assessment of the regulations and make those findings public. Lastly, they recommended the bill be amended to include a mandatory review of the legislation and regulations two years from the commencement date. I understand the government has also accepted these recommendations and is working through the necessary steps.
Labor are committed to ensuring our veterans receive world-class care and support. An ICT system that is at risk of failure, is complicated and causes delays can have a significant impact on veterans and their families. Labor is supportive of a system which improves veterans' experiences and makes claim reimbursements and other basic processes easier. However, we do not support an ICT system that replaces face-to-face contact for veterans—the high quality of service and the individual compassion and commitment that the Department of Veterans' Affairs should and does provide to our veterans. So, while we do support an improvement to the ICT system, I must make it very clear that we do not support the shutting-down of face-to-face services. We do not support any diminishing of that quality, individualised support that our veterans need.
It is important that this system is not utilised in a manner which causes unnecessary anxiety, as witnessed in the debt automation process in Centrelink—and it is unfortunate that we are debating this bill at a time when the government has completely failed when it comes to that debt recovery automation process. That has not provided people with the confidence that this government can manage ICT, or how ICT is used and in what circumstances it is used.
In conclusion, I urge the government to take on these recommendations and make sure that, in the implementation and the rollout of this process and other automated processes, they do not make the mistakes that we have seen in recent days and weeks. I would like to thank everyone who provided input into this. I am pleased to say that I commend the bill to the House.
It was interesting listening to the member for Kingston's attempt to rewrite history. She would well know, because she was part of the government when it occurred, that those opposite were the ones responsible for putting in place the Centrelink debt repayment system. We have not made any changes to it; it is what those opposite put in place. But we have more important things to talk about this morning.
It is my pleasure to rise in this House to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016, which seeks to significantly improve services for veterans and their families. This is an important piece of legislation. I represent an electorate that has many veterans, so my office regularly gets representations from veterans and their families and advocates for veterans on issues they are having with the system at the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This legislation is important because it is vital that we do our best to look after our veterans after all they have done to protect our country and after they have done their best to look after us.
I am privileged to represent a community that contains organisations such as the Beenleigh RSL subbranch, which runs terrific veteran support programs and services. I always enjoy dropping in on diggers day to share a beer and a laugh. You are always guaranteed to be told what they think. I am also proud to support the neighbouring RSL subbranch at Greenbank and the North Gold Coast RSL subbranch at Upper Coomera. Each and every year our local RSL subbranches and their members go above and beyond to mark important anniversaries in our nation's history, anniversaries of battles fought that have won our freedom and that have created some of the wonderful traditions we have in this country today. Their commemorative services are a constant reminder of the service and sacrifice of our men and women, both past and present, and keep the spirit of national pride at the forefront of our minds. Importantly, they educate a younger generation, who have never experienced the vicissitudes of war because of the service these men and women have provided to our country.
RSLs around Australia play an important role in providing a voice for our service men and women. They maintain the lasting ties of mateship and perpetuate the spirit of the Anzac. It is always wonderful to visit a club for any event, but their community spirit spreads so much further than commemorative services. They also provide much-needed support to those who have served our nation and their families. When a current or ex-serviceperson is sick or down on their luck, our local RSL subbranches are there to help. Their arms of support are outstretched to help with pensions, welfare, medical attention and finding accommodation, housing or even suitable employment, or they just provide somebody to talk to. Our RSLs provide a strong voice for the ex-servicemen community.
RSLs advocate for serving and ex-servicemen in their dealings with the Department of Veterans' Affairs. That is why this legislation is so important. As I said at the outset, I have had many occasions to speak with veterans who are having difficulties dealing with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, whether it is because of lost or missing documents or because when a same issue arises a different decision has been made. I have spoken with the current Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Dan Tehan—and I congratulate him on the work he is doing to bring the Department of Veterans' Affairs into the digital age to better support our veterans—and previous ministers about the value and importance of upgrading the ICT system in the department to ensure we reduce claim processing times and automate and streamline existing processes.
This legislation will commence the process of enabling timely information sharing between the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence with the objective—and this is the important thing—of ensuring we take better care of our veterans. In many instances this will be a very difficult time in their lives. This information sharing will also promote healthy workplace practices for existing serving members of our armed forces. The public interest disclosure provisions will help the department address the problems with being unable to share information that currently restrict their ability to take care of the health, welfare and other issues that face our veterans and serving service men and women.
The Senate inquiries have led to a number of recommendations. Two amendments to this bill will strengthen the safeguards around the public interest disclosure provision, as the member for Kingston touched on. The first amendment to the bill states that the minister 'must' rather than 'may' make rules governing this provision. If the rules are not issued, the provision cannot be used. The second amendment puts in place a mandatory review of this provision after two years. This review will be given to the government and must be tabled after 15 sitting days. With the DVA undertaking veteran-centric reforms to improve services for veterans and their families, it is important the coalition government supports their work with these necessary legislative amendments. I believe this bill provides some important changes that will better support the Department of Veterans' Affairs as they seek to improve the services that they provide to our veterans and their families.
I note that the Labor shadow minister has cooperated on this bill. I retract my earlier statement about Centrelink and DVA. I commend this bill to the House.
On any other given day, this bill, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016, would be completely and utterly non-controversial. In making those remarks, I want to stress that the intention is to leave it as just that. You heard from the shadow minister a very measured, detailed response to what is being proposed. You also could clearly tell from the contribution made by the shadow minister, the member for Kingston, that a degree of cooperation has been extended and there is an understanding of why this bill has been brought forward, an outline of what expectations are. But I also think that it is important, following the shadow minister's contribution to this debate, to reinforce that as an opposition—as much as this side obviously wants it to work and wishes for every single success in the project—we are watching this project like hawks. We are paying close attention to the way that this is being done. There is a clear reason why that is the case. This bill talks about an event that will see the system that has been designed to support our veterans and meet their needs being completely replaced with a new system, to ensure that the needs of veterans are met.
This digital transformation project, as I said, on any other given day would be non-controversial. However, we have had to watch in this country, through this government, a series of digital transformation projects that have gone off the rails. Of themselves they should have been no-brainers and should have just worked out, and they have not. It is not like this government does not have an agency in place to help the public sector with digital transformation. It has the Digital Transformation Agency, which is supposed to provide critical support for departments, like DVA, when they are undertaking projects like this. Yet what have we seen? We have seen the census fall over and become parodied, getting its own hashtag, 'censusfail', because the IT systems and the whole approach went off the rails. We saw what happened in Centrelink with the robo-debt disaster. We saw the ATO's website crash for days. After that period of time, the ATO were publicly asked, 'What happened?' and they said, 'We don't know.' They still do not have an answer as to why the ATO system, which sees the transfer of really sensitive data between the public and the ATO and accountants and the ATO, completely crashed. There was no answer for it. That crash was so bad that the ATO have sent out the signal that this year's tax time may be delayed until they work out what is going to happen with that system. We also saw the Child Support Agency and their IT system upgrade being flagged as potentially having problems. So we have seen it with the ABS, we have seen it with Centrelink, we have seen it with the ATO, we have seen it with the CSA, and now we are worried that it could happen with the DVA. It should not be the case.
The Digital Transformation Agency were before estimates this week, and their interim CEO, Nerida O'Loughlin, was asked: 'With all these things that happen, all these digital transformation projects, all these system upgrades, IT upgrades, what advice and support did the DTA, the Digital Transformation Agency, provide? What did you do to help government departments in their digital transformation efforts?' Stunningly, when all those things that I just mentioned to the House were put to the DTA in estimates, they said: 'We've not been involved. We were not previously involved in any of those particular projects you mentioned'—not one. The Digital Transformation Agency was not involved in digital transformation. DTA MIA—missing in action, not around when they are needed the most.
There is another important point to make on this. When people were being affected by the Centrelink robo-debt mess, where were the DTA? Missing. What happened as a result of that? The DTA announced in late January that they would get involved. The bulk of the mess was through early January—that is when we saw it really peak—and the DTA were completely missing in action and then said, 'We'll help.' After the bulk of the suffering and the pain and the inconvenience happened, the Digital Transformation Agency said, 'We'll get involved.'
Also what is important on a project like the one being debated in the bill is that the DTA set up last year—it was announced by Assistant Minister Angus Taylor—a program management office. It was described as a small, high-calibre team that would come in to help with all the IT projects happening across the place. Then, a few weeks ago, I noticed that the assistant minister proudly announced the creation of another body, called the investment management office. In estimates this week we said, 'You set up a project management office and now you've set up an investment management office. Both offices are within the DTA.' So within the DTA they have a PMO and an IMO. There is a growth sector in providing abbreviations within government. There are few answers for digital transformation, but 'We'll have an abbreviation for you in a jiffy.' When we asked them, 'Why do you have two bodies?' we were told it is effectively the same body. We asked, 'What? Why is it the same body and you have announced it twice?' They said, 'No, it's the same body. We renamed it because we didn't want the program management office, PMO, to be mistaken with the PMO which is the Prime Minister's Office.' It is almost straight out of Yes, Minister. But they renamed it. And the problem is: this is an office that is supposed to look, we are told, at IT investments over $10 million.
Any project within government will now be examined by what they now call the Digital Investment Management Office, the DIMO. So the DTA had PMO, which turned into IMO, which is now DIMO, and any project across government will fall within the view of this group. I am absolutely certain that the upgrade that will lie at the heart of this legislation will be more than $10 million—for sure; absolutely; I will bet that it will be. I do not know if there has been a figure publicly released on that; if there has been, I certainly welcome it. But it does not matter. The Digital Transformation Agency have said that they will be looking at and keeping a close eye on any project over $10 million.
So now the Digital Transformation Agency needs to spell out in clear and unambiguous terms what level of support it will be providing to the Department of Veterans' Affairs in the upgrade and implementation of this system. The DTA needs to spell out what its Digital Investment Management Office will be doing and what people within the agency—very capable people within the agency—will be doing to ensure that this program keeps on track and that it delivers, so that the system is in place and ready to help out our ex-service personnel and our ex-service organisations, which are the front line of managing, in many respects, concerns that veterans might have about the support given to them. These stakeholders are very important to everyone here in this place and in the community, and we need to make sure that the system that is supposed to support them is working. The Digital Transformation Agency, the DTA, can no longer be MIA, particularly in relation to this upgrade that is involving veterans. And, as I said, it needs to be able to tell us what it is going to do, because, at the moment, the DTA looks like nothing more than a think tank. It is not providing critical support. And I would be very interested to see what it has done in working with DVA on this.
The challenge is large. As the shadow minister spelt out in her contribution earlier, when the Commonwealth Ombudsman looked at the proposed implementation and what lies at the heart of this bill, the Ombudsman spelt out some of the challenges—in particular, that there needed to be an assurance that there would be better-practice principles in automated decision making and that there would be accuracy in data entry. The Ombudsman, I think, was quite fair in what it spelt out in the report, a copy of which I have here. It recognised that data entry errors are going to happen—it is understandable—but asked, 'What are you going to do to mitigate that risk and to minimise the prospect of that occurring?' It said, for example, that limiting the range of data to defined options can also result in limiting the effectiveness of information obtained, especially where there is a discretionary component requiring greater data capture to progress the decision process. So it has already spelt out some of the things that you have to be mindful of, and it said that it would be beneficial to include links to additional information where customers can explore in more depth the type and scope of information required.
So you have already had somebody spelling out the problem and a potential solution, talking about system errors and the impact that system errors have and saying that they are, in many instances, difficult to explain to members of the public and create a sense of suspicion around the motives of the agency. This has all been highlighted as a potential risk. Automated systems must follow basic legal values of lawfulness, fairness, transparency and efficiency, usability and accessibility. DVA needs to consider ongoing service provision for vulnerable clients. This includes providing a range of alternative data information collection avenues.
I think it is important that people do not get hypnotised by the words 'digital transformation' and believe that tech sorts everything out. The Ombudsman rightly points out that there should be call centres, shopfronts and other online options available to people when they need extra information. That is important as well. It also talks about system integration and testing. I have to say—and the shadow minister is present in the chamber today—that the reference to systems integration will be crucial. There will be legacy systems in place, and new systems in other departments. There will be a need to bring everything together so that it works cohesively. Again, what is the DTA going to do? What support and advice will it provide to the DVA in that enormously complex process? Again, we recognise that this is not easy. But there is already a body within government to provide support.
There are now questions and concerns as a result of the litany of problems with digital transformation. Will this flagged digital transformation within DVA go off the rails because the DTA is not providing support in things like system integration, or having alternative channels in place, or having information disseminated as the Ombudsman is saying needs to happen, or having a complaints-and-review process for where things go off the rails?
This is the thing: I think there is a realisation that, in even the best process, with the best plans and the best project management regime, there is going to be a problem at some point. Someone is going to have a problem with the system. We are not saying that this will be flawless and without error. But the Ombudsman rightly asks: 'What will be the complaint-and-review mechanism for when people do have that problem?' because it is going to occur. When you read the Commonwealth Ombudsman's contribution and you read the shadow minister's contribution, I think the community is genuinely concerned, based on track record and performance within other government departments.
This is not a partisan issue. On the digital transformation process itself, the opposition supported the government. We never criticised the government for forming, in the first place, a Digital Transformation Office. But you can see that things have been slow. You can see there is resistance within the highest levels of the public sector to digital transformation. They want to maintain fiefdoms. They want to maintain their own place and their own systems. But the fact of the matter is that, in this day and age, where systems integrate, everyone is working together and people depend on access to reliable government services, we cannot afford to have the silo mentality exist anymore. The DTA has an important role in bringing people together, and other departments have an important role in cooperating. We certainly wish the DVA and the government every success in this potential upgrade, but we will be watching them like hawks on this.
The purpose of this bill, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016, is to make the Department of Veterans' Affairs 'digitally ready' as part of the government's digital transformation agenda. It seeks to make legislative change in support of planned business and ICT reforms that will reduce processing times and automate and streamline existing processes. Labor is supportive of measures that will ease the claims process for veterans when dealing with the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
As government agencies move closer to a wholly digital platform, it is appropriate to include measures that allow the Department of Veterans' Affairs to engage this platform. However, I note that in his second reading speech, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs indicated that provisions in this bill would enable the secretary of DVA to arrange for computer programs to make decisions and determinations; exercise powers or comply with obligations; or do anything else related to making decisions and determinations, or exercising powers or complying with obligations. For example, where a particular provision requires notice of a decision to be given, this new automated decision-making provision would enable the computer program to both make the decision and send the notice.
It is important to understand that the use of automated decision-making by government departments and agencies has been in operation in various forms for in excess of 20 years. The pathway towards this legislation has been long. For example, a 2007 Australian government 'Better practice guide to automated assistance in administrative decision-making' provides the following description:
Automated systems range from conventional information technology systems (which may calculate a rate of payment in accordance with the formula set out in legislation) through to more specialised systems such as 'expert', 'business rules engines', 'rules-based' or 'intelligent' systems, and 'decision support' tools. Business rules engines or rules-based systems (types of expert systems used in administrative decision-making) are software systems that help manage and automate business rules.
The same document then goes on to say:
A hallmark of an automated system is its ability to examine a set of circumstances ... to 'decide' dynamically what further information is required, or what choices or information to present the user, or what conclusion is to be reached.
In some cases it can be fairly said that automation of business processes within a department might have been used as an aid to decision-making, whilst not displacing the matrix required to be assessed as part of an administrative decision. It is perfectly appropriate, where automation of decision-making is to be elevated beyond an aid to decision-making, that there is legislative sanction for the use of computer programs to make decisions or exercise other functions.
There have been reviews, including a 2004 report of the Administrative Review Council, which considered the administrative law implications of such decision-making. The ARC concluded that expert systems could assist by potentially reducing inaccuracy and human prejudice in the interpretation and application of complex rules and policy. Nevertheless, it appears that the ARC was somewhat prescient in noting, as follows:
… the use of expert systems in administrative decision making process is a developing area in which a mistake in the design or operation of such a system has the potential to affect many people.
I say again: 'A mistake in the design or operation of such a system has the potential to affect many people.' The problems reported with respect to the Centrelink robo-debt debt recovery issues are a case in point.
Labor believes that there are fundamental flaws in the design of the systems and algorithms associated with the data-matching program, which is generating letters and asserting that debts have arisen based upon flawed assumptions. I sincerely hope that the government will heed lessons from the debt recovery program in designing the processes and systems associated with decision-making in this space. I would be particularly concerned if our veteran community had to endure the same stress, worry and fear that the Centrelink robo-debt debacle imposed on thousands of innocent Australians. Centrelink's debt recovery scheme was a nightmare scenario that saw individuals having to prove the absence of a debt, against the state, in a system that, by design, made that task an unreasonable burden.
It is not enough to say that automated decisions might be subject to departmental appeal or to judicial review. There needs to be sufficient human oversight to ensure that decisions are made correctly and communicated accordingly. We cannot allow digital transformation to completely eliminate person-to-person contact in decision-making processes. This is particularly important when dealing with our veterans and our ex-service personnel communities. We know that the rate of suicide for veterans in Australia is tragically high, particularly among ex-serving men aged 18 to 23, for whom the suicide rate is almost twice that of Australian men of the same age.
A report from the DVA, released in July 2016, noted that veterans can experience a number of risk factors for suicidal behaviour, amongst them a high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, traumatic brain injury and physical health problems. Veterans might also experience a number of veteran-specific risk factors such as difficulty returning to civilian life, including relationship problems, mental illness, alcohol and drug misuse, employment problems, bereavement, and a loss of routine and structure.
I must acknowledge the tireless work already done by RSLs and veteran support groups throughout Australia—particularly, in my electorate, the Launceston RSL. Your passion and dedication to ensure no-one is left behind inspires me. Certainly this is a cohort of our community that often needs particular support, and this is where incorrect decisions made by an automated system could potentially have very serious consequences.
I am pleased to note that, in addition to providing a legislative basis for the use of computer systems to make decisions and determinations, the Department of Veterans' Affairs has developed a strategic plan, which is called Towards 2020, which includes the goal of providing simpler and faster access to clients. DVA states in its plan:
Digital services will provide for faster provision of payments and will connect clients with services from Government and providers. Simplified access will reduce the need for third party representation. DVA will review and seek to amend legislation to better align and support change to enable automated determinations.
The department has acknowledged that the types of decisions which could be suitable for computerised decision-making include where the decision-making can be converted into an algorithm, in the automated granting of benefits in certain circumstances, and where the decision can be generated based upon information that is not subject to interpretation or discretion. It is particularly important to note that automated decision-making processes should not be applied to the types of decisions which involve the exercise of discretion.
This bill also provides the secretary of the department with the tools to make personal information of veterans and ex-service personnel available to the public. This issue has received notoriety, again in the context of disputes between Centrelink claimants and the department surrounding alleged robo-debts. The relevant minister was required to explain how it was that particular information was made available to the media which otherwise would have been confidential or private information concerning a claimant for benefit. The minister sought to justify the release of this information on grounds that the department was entitled to respond to alleged misinformation in the public domain. I have very real concerns as to whether that disclosure was, in fact, authorised by law. The explanatory memorandum to this bill makes it clear that the disclosure regime in the bill is based upon the equivalent in social security law, with some modifications. It is pleasing to note that the government proposes to extend the rights available to claimants to object to release of this information, something which, unfortunately, was not available in the most recent notorious instance of the use of this power.
Nonetheless, there are still concerns around the broad nature of the criteria provided in the explanatory memorandum and the necessity to include both misinformation and mistake of fact in the bill. This is a new power, in that there is no present provision in the defence compensation acts permitting disclosure of information by the secretary. There are, however, information-sharing provisions which permit the sharing or disclosure of information in certain circumstances. Nevertheless, the legislation is not consistent. The Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act and the associated regulations enable the disclosure of information to defence agencies in relation to litigation of claims and to monitoring occupational health and safety performance and the cost of injuries, as well as to the Department of Human Services for the purposes of administering the social security law. The Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act's information-sharing provisions are more limited, permitting disclosure only to Centrelink, Medicare and the secretaries of the departments administering the National Health Act 1953, the Aged Care Act 1997 and the Human Services (Centrelink) Act 1997.
Labor sent the bill to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee to investigate what circumstances are necessary to allow the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to make this type of information publicly available. The consideration of these issues resulted in the committee supporting the content of the proposed public interest disclosure provisions but with recommendations for additional safeguards. It was recommended that the DVA consult with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on the content of the minister's regulations controlling the exercise of the secretary's public interest disclosures, before the regulations are finalised and introduced into parliament. It was also recommended that DVA undertake a privacy impact assessment of the regulations and that this completed assessment be made public, and, finally, that the bill be amended to include a mandatory review of the implementation of the legislation and the accompanying regulations two years from the commencement date. The Labor senators on the committee issued additional comments about public interest, in which they expressed concerns about the broad scope of disclosures provided for in the bill. There have been other concerns expressed. The Nick Xenophon Team also issued additional comments and recommended that the minister's rules on the exercise of the secretary's public interest disclosure power be made publicly available, and therefore subject to feedback from interested persons, before they are tabled in parliament as a legislative instrument.
Major interest groups have also had the opportunity to provide feedback on this bill. The War Widows' Guild of Australia and the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia have both expressed support for the broad objectives of the bill. However, the Commonwealth Ombudsman raised concerns with the information disclosure provisions within schedule 2. The particular issue is that the definition of 'public interest' is not defined in the bill or any of the relevant acts. The explanatory memorandum states:
Examples of the circumstances in which it might be appropriate for the Secretary to disclose information about a case or class of cases include where there is a threat to life, health or welfare, for the enforcement of laws, in relation to proceeds of crime orders, mistakes of fact, research and statistical analysis, APS code of conduct investigations, misinformation in the community and provider inappropriate practices.
The secretary is granted considerable discretion regarding the purposes for which or the persons to whom information can be provided. The provisions do place some constraints on the discretion. It is important to note that a public interest disclosure certificate issued by the secretary that applies to a class of cases is a legislative instrument and is subject to the disallowance process. However, a certificate issued for a particular case is not a legislative instrument and is, therefore, not disallowable.
It is fitting that I close with the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman has raised concerns with the scope of these proposed amendments, noting that they:
… would allow the Secretary to release sensitive personal information to the public at large where he or she is of the view that it is in the public interest to do so. The Ombudsman is concerned that the release of an individual's personal information has the potential to adversely affect veterans and ex-service personnel, particularly those who are already vulnerable.
I outlined earlier in my speech those particular vulnerabilities. It is clear. We owe a duty to our veteran communities to do what is right, particularly when we are dealing with their private and confidential information. If it were not for the fact that there has been, I suggest, a particularly egregious use of confidential information being released to the media in the last two weeks, I would suggest that the protections currently being afforded by this legislation would be sufficient. However, I think we need to act with utmost caution when we are dealing with the confidential information of our veterans community.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, for taking the Speaker's chair, relieving me of that duty so I can give this speech.
It is always a pleasure, mate.
I rise to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016, which aims to make the Department of Veterans' Affairs digitally ready. As we have heard from other speakers, anything that we do in Veterans' Affairs must have, front, centre and at its heart, the desire to make the lives of veterans easier and simpler. This is because they have contributed so much to this nation and, in many cases, have fought in wars and put their lives at risk in order for us to live the wonderful lives that we do in this wonderful nation of Australia, this democratic and egalitarian country.
But I am very concerned when I look at the track record of the current government and the horrendous disasters that have taken place—the different IT systems and the different make-up of Centrelink et cetera. One does not have to go too far back to remember the new system that was put in place for people to do their census online—what a disaster that was. Then there was the tax office outage that took place earlier this year, which was a total disaster. No-one has yet given us an answer about that. There is also the Centrelink disaster, with the robo-calls, and the new IT system that is clearly not working.
So I hope that this will work, because our veterans deserve a digitally-ready system. I hope it will not be like those examples of mistakes that I just gave. They were absolutely disastrous, I think—especially the census. We still not have gotten to the bottom of that to find out why that happened and what took place in their new IT system. I hope that will not be the case with this particular change that is being made. As I said, our service men and women have faced complex challenges, and it is not right that veterans face complicated and difficult-to-understand systems. That is why this system will be better, hopefully. It is not right that they face difficult systems and processes to deal with some of these challenges. So I welcome anything that addresses this problem. As I said, I do have my doubts, but I hope that this will work.
I am incredibly lucky, as all of us are in this place, to have a number of veterans groups in my electorate. I visit them and speak with them on a regular basis. For example, I have the Plympton Glenelg RSL, the Seaton Park RSL, the Henley & Grange RSL, the Hilton RSL and the Edwardstown RSL in my electorate. Another great group in my electorate that does some magnificent work for veterans is the William Kibby VC Veterans Shed. All these groups will benefit from this new system. A lot of the groups that I have just mentioned—the RSLs and the William Kibby VC Veterans Shed—do great work. They assist with the welfare issues of their members, the veterans. They assist with pension issues and even assist people in employment and with complications that arise out of dealings with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Specifically, the William Kibby VC Veterans Shed is a great example of people helping veterans. The William Kibby VC Veterans Shed is an initiative of a fantastic veteran in my electorate, Barry Heffernan. He is a Vietnam vet and a passionate advocate and supporter of our great service men and women. He started this wonderful shed. It was the first veterans shed registered with the Australian Men's Shed Association. It is specifically intended for veterans of all conflicts and for anyone who served in an Australian uniform, regardless of whether or not they saw operational service.
The aim of this particular veterans shed is to create and maintain an environment for veterans and ex-service personnel where concerns, past traumas, health issues and welfare issues can be discussed with other veterans who have empathy and understanding from similar life experiences in operational areas and in different areas of our Defence Force. Barry Heffernan is well known in the veteran community. He travels regularly across the country, assisting veterans and even contributing to Senate inquiries and other inquiries.
In addition to offering advocacy and support to veterans and their families, the veterans shed at Glenelg offers veterans the opportunity to learn new skills and put their existing skills to good use. They have woodworking classes. They have a great shed. They build wooden toys. They have lathes. They are constantly looking for people to assist, to help. They do great work. It shows real community spirit and an engagement with the community, which they do so well.
Veterans have given an incredible service to Australia, and it is humbling to see these ex-service men and women continuing to give back to the community. It is therefore our job as members of parliament, as elected representatives in this place, to listen to these men and women and address their concerns. This bill will hopefully assist by making legislative change in support of planned business and ICT reforms that will reduce processing times and automate and streamline existing processes. This is a good starting point. Let us hope that this system does work and does not follow in the footsteps of those other three examples that I gave: the census debacle, the Centrelink robo-IT system and the outage at the tax office earlier this year.
Labor is always supportive of measures that will ease the claims process for veterans when dealing with the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This bill has three schedules. Schedule 1 is designed to authorise the use of computer programs to make decisions and determinations, exercise powers or comply with obligations, amongst other things. The aim of this is to significantly improve services for veterans and their families by re-engineering the department's business processes. Specifically, it will hopefully reduce claims processing times and automate and streamline existing processes.
It will also deal with the disclosure of information about a particular case, or class of cases, if it is considered in the public interest to do so. This would use a similar tool to the one which the Department of Human Services uses when it believes it needs to correct the record on false or misleading information. This takes me back to where we are with Centrelink. Let's hope that the debacle there is not repeated here, because our veterans deserve much better than we have seen for Centrelink clients. Examples of the circumstances in which the department has advised it might be appropriate for the secretary to disclose information about a case or class of cases—and we had some concerns about this—include: where there is a threat to life, health or welfare; for the enforcement of laws in relation to proceeds of crime orders; mistakes of fact; and other situations. The final schedule is going to update provisions to take account of changes to drafting precedents and practices.
Schedules 1 and 3 are broadly supported. The reason that we sent the bill to committee is that our side wanted to ensure that everyone understood the purpose of this bill and why this bill was necessary, and to ensure that it actually addressed the real problems faced by veterans accessing the services that are there for them. In particular, the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee was to look closely at schedule 2 and the criteria and circumstances that would allow the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to make publicly available the personal information of veterans and ex-service personnel. This could clearly be seen as a problem for some vets. When we are releasing public information we want to be absolutely sure that it is for the reasons I outlined earlier. We wanted to ensure that ex-service and veterans' organisations were able to raise their concerns about the bill if they had any.
It is pleasing to note that ex-service and veterans' organisations agreed that there were overwhelming beneficial outcomes to ensuring DVA has the ability to move to a digital platform. Organisations were also generally supportive of schedule 2 of the bill, noting that such disclosures are done in consultation with the department and only if or when it is in the public's interest to do so. I outlined when it was in the public interest to do so earlier in my speech.
However, some concerns remain in respect of two provisions. There is no doubt that some circumstances outlined in the bill make it appropriate to share personal information, especially with other federal and state agencies in circumstances relating to crime. However, we on this side feel it is necessary to ensure that measures are put in place to protect against misinformation and mistake of fact. In addition, the provisions of schedule 2 could unnecessarily exacerbate the claims process and undermine the confidence of those involved should they be used negligibly. This is the last thing that veterans need to deal with on top of all the other issues they have to deal with.
As a result, there were four recommendations that came out of the Senate committee's work. We heard about them earlier. The committee's first recommendation was that the Department of Veterans' Affairs consult with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner on the content of the minister's regulations before they are finalised and introduced in the parliament. The second recommendation was that the Department of Veterans' Affairs undertake a privacy impact assessment of the regulations and that the completed assessment be made public. The third recommendation was that the bill be amended to include a mandatory review of the implementation of the legislation and accompanying regulations two years from the commencement date. The fourth recommendation was that the bill be passed.
Labor welcomes the fact that the government has agreed to each of these recommendations. This includes making amendments to review the bill in two years. It has already begun consultation with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Australian Information Commissioner. I am fairly comfortable, as all of us on this side are, with the consultation of the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Australian Information Commissioner to finalise the instrument.
We on this side will continue to work with the minister—we heard our shadow minister speak on this earlier—to ensure these recommendations are adhered to. It is important that we get this right, as I said, because veterans do not deserve to go through the things that some of the people on Centrelink have been going through or the things that happened to people who tried to log on the night of the census or who tried to deal with the Taxation Office when they had their outage. These are three examples of how, when we transitioned to a different IT system, it went horribly, horribly wrong. I do not wish to see the people who have fought in our wars, served in uniform and who are there to protect us and doing everything correctly, giving up their time and, in many cases, their lives be mucked around by another system that has perhaps not been implemented correctly.
So I welcome this bill and I ask the department and the minister to do everything possible so that we do not have a repeat of the blunders in IT transitions that we have seen in the past. We should be doing everything in our power to ensure that the processes our veterans have to use to access services do not further complicate their lives and make their lives more difficult. When they have served, they have made our lives better. We live these wonderful lives here in this great nation because of the veterans who have fought in previous wars and basically moulded the country into what it is today. We want to do everything we possibly can to make their lives better.
I will say at the outset that I am proud to follow the previous member for Bruce in this place in many regards but in particular in relation to the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016 because, as the House knows, he was an outstanding Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Even those opposite, I know, acknowledge and regard highly his contribution in his time as Minister for Veterans' Affairs. He is a self-deprecating person, as you know. Indeed, he had a theory, he has a line, that people kept voting for him only because they had never met him. But it is true to say that, as I see when I move around the RSLs and the veterans communities in my electorate, he is much loved. He is genuinely loved around the RSLs for his care and regard.
We miss him too!
You miss him too, I know. We all miss him. This is not a valedictory for the previous member for Bruce, but of course we all, I am sure, miss his free character assessments, which he would provide to you without a Medicare rebate. As the Minister for Health is sitting opposite, I will say that any health treatment without a rebate that is properly done is a good thing. I learnt 20 years ago—I was a staffer here before I stepped out of politics for many years, and we learnt pretty much straightaway—when I started working for the previous member for Bruce in his electorate office when I was at uni that one of the mortal sins that any staffer could commit was not to give gold-plated service to any veteran who rang the office or came in. It did not matter whether they were happy or grumpy. It did not matter how they voted. Anyone who did not pay immediate and close attention to the issues that a veteran raised would have the free character assessment provided to them rapidly, and their behaviour would be corrected. There were a lot of mortal sins of course, as you can imagine, but that was certainly high up there. So that respect for the service of veterans and people who have donned the uniform for our country was ingrained early.
Like many people here, I myself have never served. I myself have never served in any capacity. I have taken extra steps since being elected to try to connect and learn more about the Australian defence forces, those who serve and those who served. In that regard, I participated in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program last year and have enrolled in some more activities to try to do my bit—
Mr Tehan interjecting—
hello, Minister for Veterans' Affairs—to bridge the divide in mutual understanding. I think that probably post-World War II—I do not have the precise percentage—there was a very high percentage of members of this House, 40 per cent, 50 per cent or more, who had served in the military and had that intimate and personal experience and understanding of what it is to serve. And yet, as society has changed and the size of the military has fallen and so on and so forth, the percentage of members in this parliament who have served actively in the military is very, very low, well under 10 per cent. We are talking about a few per cent. There are a few on both sides of the House. I think that as members of the national parliament, given that the military is an important part of our national power and our apparatus of state, if you like, in the Commonwealth, we have both a practical obligation and a moral obligation to spend some time and put a human face to those who serve our country and put their lives at risk.
I returned from the Middle East last year, from Afghanistan and elsewhere, from the sojourn with the military with an even deeper appreciation of the women and men of the ADF, their professionalism, their commitment and their black humour. There is a lot of black humour but also a degree of sophistication, wisdom and knowledge of the world and a sense of history that many perhaps would not immediately associate with them, given a lack of experience or exposure. But also it is interesting to try to understand the values which underpin different institutions. The values of the military around the mission, achieving the mission, safety and accuracy are first and foremost, looking after people, not always efficiency. I do not mean that just in the expenditure realm but also in the important motto of 'hurry up and wait', because things seem to take a while.
In my community we have three RSLs, Noble Park, Dandenong and Glen Waverley, and they all, of course, have very different flavours and cultures, reflecting their communities and members and the characters who put the time in to run them. In Noble Park we have the wonderful John Meehan, the president, who is renowned across Melbourne for his welfare work. They run an incredible welfare service. He is returning to Vietnam himself, I think this month, for the first time since his service there. That will be an emotional trip for him, which he has been preparing for, and I certainly wish him well. In Dandenong we have John Wells, who is a touch scary, an ex-school principal and a fierce advocate for his members, and in Waverley there is the president, George Cooney, and Dennis Everitt, who I know well, who coordinates the great welfare work. I have spent time listening and learning and trying to understand the current concerns of veterans, mental health and mateship. But there are also more recent veterans who do not always connect as well with the RSLs upon their return, so new models of outreach are an area of interest.
With that as the context, this bill has three parts. I will confine my comments to schedules 1 and 2, given that schedule 3 is really technical amendments. Schedule 1 is to support automated decision-making. It is hard not to support the objective to make decision-making more efficient. I have heard that from my local RSLs, and, broadly, people are supportive of engaging more online, subject to ensuring proper training, fair access to the IT systems and support, of course, for those who cannot engage online, particularly perhaps older people. More-automated decision-making, of course, has been a trend for many years under successive governments. It can help to provide rules and policies to decision-makers, assemble evidence for an applicant, ensure logical step-by-step decisions and, importantly, record evidence and rationales associated with every decision, which is important for accountability and for reviews and so on.
Concerns arise, though, where it is not to aid decision-makers but to automate decisions in a mindless fashion, such as we have seen with the government's flawed robo-debt policy in Centrelink, which, to understate it, takes the human out of human services. Minister Tehan said in the second reading speech that the aim of this is to 'improve services for veterans and their families', to 'reduce claims processing times' and 'streamline existing processes'. On the face of it, that is fine. That is something that we would all sign up to and support.
I just wish to record two major concerns though: firstly, predictably, if the robo-debt debacle were rolled out to DVA. It is bad enough that the government—not this minister but his colleague ministers—are picking on pensioners, disabled people, the unemployed and single parents, but imagine if they were to then start on veterans. Fortunately it seems, for now at least, that there is some decency left in the government with this minister, and I note and put on the record the assurances provided by the department to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee that the computerised system would not be used for debt recovery related purposes. The legislation permits that, but we have been assured that that is not how it will be, and there may still be humans left in this service. We need to record that, and we will see how long it lasts. Goodness help the veterans if the Minister for Social Services or the Minister for Human Services ever got this portfolio—you can just imagine them in charge of DVA—or indeed if Centrelink got control of DVA. Goodness gracious me: 'empathy bypass' does not begin to cover it. Minister Tehan, the member for Wannon, is a decent chap—he is in the chair, and I see him talking; I am probably distracting him from his reading—so we will trust his word and hope that DVA does not get Portered or Tudged up.
The second area of concern, as has been well covered by previous speakers, regards the government's record on IT rollouts. It does not exactly fill you with confidence. I hope the ministers responsible for the census, the NDIS, the ATO and Centrelink's 40 per cent error rate will be kept well away from the IT upgrade. The final thing I will record is that if indeed this does achieve efficiencies in the department it is a great thing. As a former public servant, I know that the more you can automate things and free up resources the more you can do other things you would wish to do with those resources. I do hope that, given the pressing needs in relation to mental health and other things in this portfolio, the minister is able to keep the savings in the portfolio and reinvest them in important initiatives. So we on this side are right behind you, Minister Tehan, in your battles at ERC with the cabinet.
Schedule 2, disclosure of information, aims to enable the Secretary of DVA to certify in certain cases that it is okay to make public interest disclosures of information about a case or cases. That is kind of bureaucratic gobbledegook, but what it means is the power to disclose externally personal information of any sort about our veterans. That warrants careful consideration by the parliament. On the face of it, it does seem like there are reasonable arguments to permit this. The Bills Digest points out that the capacity to make public interest disclosures which are otherwise restricted by the Privacy Act already exists in social security legislation, and this bill, I think the Bills Digest and the government have noted, is modelled on those provisions. They require the secretary to comply with any guidelines issued by the minister. We will support the bill, including this aspect, subject to the agreed amendments—which I understand the shadow minister has been working on very collaboratively with the minister, which is how this parliament should work—which will provide stronger safeguards to protect the private information of veterans and to review the bill in two years time to check that it is working as intended and that there are no unintended consequences. I trust that our shadow minister will reach sensible agreement with the minister regarding the details of the public interest disclosures.
My concern, having watched the Centrelink robo-debt debacle, is that however these safeguards are written into legislation, regulations or guidelines it may not be enough, because this government feels free to leak personal information to the media when it suits its political interests. We have seen this behaviour shamefully in recent weeks and months from other ministers in the government, and only yesterday the House debated these very matters in the portfolios on which these provisions are apparently modelled. The DHS/DSS legislation provides a range of criteria—things like to lessen threats to life; the enforcement of certain criminal laws; to brief a minister; to assist courts, coronial inquiries, royal commissions; to facilitate other calculations—but it is noticeable what is not there. There is no provision to leak information to feed the media to get a better story up or to obscure the truth about the stuff-ups you are making in your portfolio, but that apparently has not worried ministers in other portfolios, as we have seen them picking on vulnerable people and leaking their details to the media.
Examples of circumstances in which the Department of Veterans' Affairs has said it might be appropriate to disclose information seem sensible and, on the face of it, they are good. They have been recorded and include 'threats to life, health or welfare, enforcement of laws, proceeds of crime orders, research and analysis, investigations', and so on. I do note that mistakes of fact and misinformation in the community are included, and would hope that that does not provide an entree into leaking information about individuals as opposed to classes of people, which of course makes sense. I want to put those concerns on the record.
The reservation from our side is that it does not matter what agreement we reach. What we have seen from this government is that if it is not a decent minister, if it suits the political purposes—if the government disagrees with you—then it will just target you anyway, and you will not really know that it has even happened until the journalists hunt you down and start phoning you, and you find your name in the paper. Only yesterday the Department of Human Services confirmed that at no point did their secretary authorise the release of confidential information. The Minister for Human Services in his pathetic response to the House provided no explanation as to the basis or the head of power under which he had released this information. That matter clearly still has a way to run.
So we can do our best as legislators to pore over the detail and to construct sensible regimes to manage privacy and information appropriately, but executive power in our system rests with ministers, which is something I support. Our job is to hold them to account, to put these issues and concerns on the record, uncomfortable as that may be at times.
I will close with three hopes. Let us hope that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs runs his own race on the IT system changes and that they go better in DVA than elsewhere in the government. I saw that the Minister for Health was here before. He was the world's best minister! It must have been a lovely day for him, wandering into cabinet as the world's best minister. It was a wonderful award, a wonderful achievement. Let us hope that in future world's best minister competitions the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is a clear winner in the IT category. Let us hope that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is not infected by the disease which seems to permeate the rest of the cabinet and the behaviour of his colleagues, the little germ that says: 'Ooh, it's a good idea to start leaking confidential information and private information! I know, I'll ring The Australian. I'll tell them about what the vets have been up to.' Let us hope that that is not the case about clients of his department. And let us hope, for the sake of our veterans, that DVA does not get Portered or Tudged up, so they unleash their robo-debt stuff on veterans as well. But with the amendments we will support the bill.
It was great to hear the member for Bruce give us an entertaining contribution to the debate on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2016.
It was insightful! It was analytical!
Insightful, analytical—indeed it was in some respects, and his eulogising of the former member for Bruce was most welcome.
Whether it was misleading the House is another question!
That is right. But he is correct to say that the former member for Bruce was a very good and successful Minister for Veterans' Affairs and very well thought of in the veterans community. I know, as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs who followed him, that he had done a lot of good work which we were able to build upon. I know the current minister is building even further upon that work, some of which was started by the former member for Bruce, Mr Griffith.
This bill is an important piece of legislation. As has been described by previous members, it has a number of components to it, but at the outset I just want to congratulate both the minister and the shadow minister, the member for Kingston, for working in a collaborative and bipartisan way. It seems to me that the best interests of our veterans community are always best served when we are working in a bipartisan fashion. It has been my experience both as a minister and as a former minister that that is the case. It was an open discussion with my shadow ministers at the time about what we were doing and any ideas they might have had. I welcomed them.
I think it is important that we understand that the veterans community expects that of us. If it can be avoided, they do not want to see politicised debates around issues to do with veterans. I know that the minister at the table is working assiduously to try to make sure that is not the case, and, similarly, the shadow minister has got the same mindset, so it is a very good thing to do. I know that, in the context of the meetings I had—now more occasional than they were before—with veterans, they are keen to make sure that those relationships continue to build.
And it is important. There are some big issues which confront the veterans community, and we have seen many of them come to light over the last little while around mental health, suicide and homelessness—issues which are important for us to have our minds around and to have a common approach to. I commend the minister for the work he is doing in that regard.
There are genuine concerns out there that at some point the Department of Veterans' Affairs might be absorbed into another department. I think it is fair to say that, certainly from my own personal perspective, I would see that as a very bad thing to do and a backward step, and I know that is a view which is shared by the minister. At the same time, however, it is very important that, whilst we learn the lessons from the departments of human services and social services, we do not follow their path. We have heard the debate elucidate issues around robocalls and the way debt recovery is taking place in those other agencies, and we need to make sure such things do not happen in the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
At the same time, however, it is absolutely imperative that the relationship between the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence is as seamless as possible, and that includes in the information-sharing space. That is for the welfare of serving members and veterans, bearing in mind that anyone who walks into a recruitment base, does their recruit training, puts on a uniform and signs up is effectively potentially a client of the Department of Veterans' Affairs from the day they walk in and will be that until the day they die. That is important to understand.
I know we have gone through a range of issues over the years about how we get this closer working relationship without Defence subsuming Veterans' Affairs within it. It is really important. I note that the minister has, as I did, joint portfolio responsibility to do with personnel and Veterans' Affairs. That is a really good thing because he now has oversight of personnel in the Defence Force and has oversight of those former Defence members—or even current Defence members—who are clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. We know many current serving members are clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs because of injuries and accidents that they have suffered from as a result of their service, so it is fundamentally important that that relationship is as close as possible, and I commend the government for making sure that the portfolio arrangements were set up so that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs is also responsible for Defence personnel. That is as it should be, and I hope that future governments of whatever political persuasion keep that happening, because it makes the Defence Force accountable but it also means that the minister can take the knowledge of the Veterans' Affairs portfolio into the Defence portfolio and make sure there is a proper and clear understanding of the needs of our veterans whilst they are serving and when they leave service.
To that end, making sure there is a capacity to provide information from Veterans' Affairs to Defence is very important, and this bill provides for that. The minister is all too well aware that upgrading the digital platforms in Veterans' Affairs is extremely important, because that then provides the capacity for a seamless provision of information in a digital form to the Department of Defence and vice versa. And why is that important? It is because, if we have got a veteran who is making a claim against the government for an injury that that person has had and which caused an illness some years ago, historically that meant an enormous paper search and a prolonged process before the claim was settled. Once we have the electronic health record working efficiently and properly in the Department of Defence and we have got the seamless transfer of information between the two organisations around those particular sorts of issues, it will be far easier and a lot better in terms of dealing with the claims of veterans for benefits, treatment, medical help or whatever it is from the Department of Veterans' Affairs, because they will have that information almost automatically at hand. That is really important.
It also goes to the transition space. Handing people a document as they leave the organisation and saying, 'Give that to your Veterans' Affairs adviser,' is not the way things should be. People should know information which is agreed upon can be shared, and, when it is agreed upon and shared, it will make opportunities for working with veterans a lot better and they will feel a lot more satisfied with the way in which they have been treated. Now, we have heard in the past people complaining—properly complaining, I might say, in the time that I was a minister—about the time that it had taken to deal with their claims. What we need to do is expedite that process. The change in the digital platform and the other reforms that are taking place in the Department of Veterans' Affairs will provide that capacity, and that is important. It is important that we recognise that that work is underway and it will be a time before it is all finished, but nevertheless it is important that we do it.
I have a couple of issues, though, which I think we need to be aware of. When we have automated decision-making, it is true that there are relatively large numbers of people who are veterans, widows or widowers who are clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs who are not digitally aware. They still like snail mail and they still like to talk to someone, because that is the way they understand how to work. They may not have access to computers. Even if they do have access to computers, they might find it very challenging to use that interface.
It is important that we keep the capacity of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to be personally engaged with members of the veterans community who are their clients and potential clients, whether they are serving members, former members, veterans, widows, widowers or the children of veterans, who are all clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. I am not sure who is the youngest client at the Department of Veterans' Affairs at the moment, but I am guessing they are a child of a former veteran who may not be with us and they are probably an infant. We take responsibility for that person—I beg your pardon, the government takes responsibility for them through the department.
We all do.
We all do, collectively. That is correct. We do that until that child is an adult. It is important that we understand that obligation so that, when we are providing the capacity for people to communicate, they are able to communicate effectively. It is a great privilege to be in this place, but I have to say the greatest honour I have had in being a member of this parliament was being in the role of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. That is because you get to deal with and meet the most courageous of people.
Yesterday, we heard about the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the Perth and the bravery of Hec Waller. These things are of legend. If you read about the legendary people of the past, who have shown such bravery in serving our nation, how can you not be enthralled by the opportunities that exist to help them and their families? We have the capacity in this place to see the opportunities that exist to make sure that we are looking after veterans appropriately and to work with the Department of Defence to make sure serving members who are veterans are being dealt with appropriately, have the treatment they require and have the assistance they need for themselves and their families. That is an obligation we should accept with glee. I know across the parliament that is the case. We may be critical from time to time around the edges, and we should expect that. But if we can work cooperatively together where we can then we will get the best outcomes for these brave Australians.
For those of us who have had the opportunity to travel across the world to visit our Australian Defence Force members currently in the Middle East or in Afghanistan, you walk away humbled by the opportunities that have been given to you to talk to these very brave people who are putting on their uniform for this country and who are prepared to sacrifice their lives. That is what this is about. When we walk in this place as members of parliament, we puff our chests out and think how good we are. That is all terrific, but the reality is that we are very minor beings. We like to think we are terrific. Some of us are more terrific than others—we know that! They will tell you, do not worry! But the truth of it is that when you engage with these brave men and women, who are working for us in uniform, you walk away knowing that this country is in very good hands.
It is a delight to now see that we have a number of veterans recently serving as members in the parliament. We may not agree politically on some things, but to have them in this place is very important. As the member for Bruce talked about, the parliaments of the past after the Second World War had very high numbers of veterans. Of course, Tom Uren was a famous prisoner of war who served on our side, and there are many such people on the other side. Those veterans shared a lot. Now, we cannot share what they shared because we did not have that experience, but we can share the opportunities that exist here to make sure we do the right thing. I think this legislation—as it has been amended as a result of the consultation and work of the Senate committee and the contribution made by the member for Kingston, which was agreed to by the minister—is something that we can all support, and we should be proud to do so.
I thank all members for their contributions. I mention in particular the contribution that has just been made by the member for Lingiari. I reiterate what he said: what a great honour and privilege it is to hold this portfolio, because it means that you are able to talk and meet with veterans and also current serving Defence personnel. As he was speaking, my mind drifted back to the commemorations we have just had for the Fall of Singapore and also for former prisoners of war. I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Ballarat with some of those ex-prisoners of war, and what outstanding individuals they are. They are just remarkable Australians. You feel so humble being in their presence because of what they went through and what they suffered on behalf of our nation. They have not a hint of bitterness, not a hint of, 'Oh, woe is me.' They still have that outlook and that twinkle in the eye; they still have their love of the country and of the fact that they served. They sacrificed but they do not hold it against anyone. It is truly inspiring and it makes this job an enormous honour. I think the member for Lingiari gets that from the time that he spent in this portfolio. It is something that I continue to pinch myself about every time I meet them, because they are truly great Australians. They should make those of us in this place walk a little bit more humbly.
I acknowledge the bipartisan support that we have had for this bill. I also take the opportunity to thank the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for their examination and recommendations in relation to the bill. I think we can all agree that their suggestions have improved the bill, particularly the safeguards around the public interest disclosure provisions.
As we heard during the debate, the Department of Veterans' Affairs is undertaking veteran-centric reform to significantly improve services for veterans and their families by re-engineering DVA business processes. In anticipation of planned business and ICT reforms, amendment is required to provide a sound legislative basis for computerised decision-making. Computerised decision-making at DVA is expected to streamline services, free up resources and prepare DVA for future ICT upgrades.
Schedule 1 of the bill will enable the Secretary of DVA to arrange for computer programs to make decisions, exercise powers or comply with obligations and do other related things such as send a notice advising of a decision. The secretary cannot delegate this power to decide whether a computer program should be used to make decisions, ensuring high-level consideration about whether it is appropriate for a computer program to be used. Only decisions that would be suitable for computerised decision-making, such as those that can be converted into an algorithm or where there is no discretion or fact finding required, will be automated. While the department does use computers to assist in calculating debts, I would like to emphasise that DVA does not intend to use computerised decision-making for the purpose of automated debt collection, nor does it use a debt collection agency to recover payments. In regard to these powers, in a case where a computer program makes an incorrect decision, both the Repatriation Commission and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission will be able to substitute the correct decision on own-motion without DVA clients having to formally request a review. This own-motion power is in addition to existing review and appeal rights where clients are dissatisfied with the decision.
Schedule 2 of the bill contains two types of information-sharing provisions. These are the public interest disclosure provisions and the information-sharing provisions between DVA and Defence. The public interest disclosure provisions would enable the Secretary of DVA to disclose information about a case or class of cases if the secretary certifies that it is necessary in the public interest to do so. The power is accompanied by appropriate safeguards, including those recommended by the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. The sorts of circumstances where it may be appropriate for DVA to release information about a person include where there is a threat to life, a threat to health and welfare, an inappropriate practice as provider, misinformation in the community or APS Code of Conduct investigations.
The safeguards in the legislation include that the minister must make rules about how the power is to be exercised; that the Secretary of DVA must act in accordance with these rules; that the rules will be a disallowable instrument; that the minister cannot delegate his or her power to make rules about how the power is to be exercised by the Secretary of DVA; that the Secretary of DVA cannot delegate the public interest disclosure power to anyone else; that, before disclosing personal information about a person, the Secretary of DVA must notify the person in writing about his or her intention to disclose the information, give the person a reasonable opportunity to make written comments on the proposed disclosure of the information and consider any written comments made by the person; that, unless the secretary complies with these natural justice requirements before disclosing personal information, he or she will commit a criminal offence punishable by a fine of 60 penalty units, approximately $10,800; and that, after the public interest disclosure provisions and rules have been in operation for two years, there will be a review of the operation of those provisions, with a report to be tabled in both houses of the parliament.
In addition to the safeguards which I just mentioned and which are built into the legislation, DVA has consulted with both the Privacy Commissioner and the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the draft rules that I will make. I am pleased to advise the House that, as a result of those consultations, some amendments have already been made to the draft rules. Consultation with the Privacy Commissioner and the Commonwealth Ombudsman will be ongoing. In addition, a privacy impact assessment has been completed with respect to the public interest disclosure rules. The assessment concluded that the public interest disclosure provisions contained detailed and stringent controls over the exercise of the disclosure power that reflect the importance of taking necessity and proportionality considerations into account before relying on the provisions to make a disclosure. DVA will ensure that privacy materials and published documents will be reviewed and updated to reflect the operation and effect of the public interest disclosure provisions. Specific staff training materials and guidelines will be prepared to ensure that departmental employees understand the public interest disclosure provisions.
The second type of information-sharing provisions would enable information sharing between DVA and the Department of Defence under limited circumstances. Currently, information about serving members can be provided to the Secretary of the Department of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Force under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 but cannot be shared under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. This is anomalous, especially since the CDF owes a duty of care to members, especially those members deployed in an operational context. Information sharing can also promote healthier work practices in the military—for example, the MRCC may notice a common pattern of injuries arising out of certain duties. This information should be shared appropriately so that work practices can be adjusted, resulting in fewer members being injured. These amendments would simply replicate the existing information-sharing provisions found in the MRCA.
The amendments in schedule 3 of the bill are minor and technical in nature. They update references to penalties expressed as a number of dollars with penalties expressed as a number of penalty units. Such changes enhance readability, facilitate interpretation and promote consistency across the Commonwealth statute book.
I would like to specifically acknowledge the contribution to the debate on this bill made by members. The member for Kingston noted what this bill means for the future development of the department's service provision. As she noted, there are many challenges faced by the department, and providing the right technology will make that work easier, with better outcomes for veterans. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution to the debate made by the member for Forde, who mentioned that serving our veterans should be a priority of any government. We have a duty to look after them, after they have done their duty in looking after us.
I also note the opposition members who have made contributions and their concerns around the development of a new ICT system for DVA. I would like to thank the way in which all sides have engaged with the development of this bill, which has had input from both sides and from the crossbench to ensure that it is the best result for veterans and for the department that serves them. It was parliamentary work at its best, with contributions from the shadow minister, a detailed committee inquiry and respectful consultation with concerned members and senators—something which everyone should be proud of. I would particularly like to thank several members and senators.
I would like to thank the shadow minister, Ms Rishworth, and her office for engaging with me and my office on developing the bill. I also thank her for her ongoing assistance in drafting the rules that will govern the public interest disclosure provision. Her views have made these rules stronger and more robust. By having these discussions together, we were able to take them to the crossbench for further consultation. I know that she shares my views that it is a duty of all members and senators to work together to get the best outcome for veterans, and I thank her for her bipartisanship and cooperation.
I would also like to thank the Chair and Deputy Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, who have also provided recommendations that have made this a better bill. Senators Back and Gallacher have worked together to provide recommendations that the government has accepted and has implemented. I would also like to thank members and senators of the crossbench. In particular I would like to thank Senator Kakoschke-Moore for her engagement with the development of the bill through the committee inquiry and for providing her views on the rules, which we look forward to continuing to discuss. The bill will lay the ground for the future service of veterans, allowing for better processes and better practices. The Department of Veterans' Affairs can only be expected to provide 21st century service with 21st century technology, which this bill will allow.
I would like to conclude by acknowledging the Prime Minister and his commitment to veterans. As he has said continually through this Centenary of Anzac period: the best way that we can remember the service and sacrifice made by the fallen, especially those who gave their lives in vast number during the First World War, is by making sure we look after the veterans and those serving in our armed forces today. This bill will ensure that we are continuing to do that but doing it in a way which recognises that we need 21st century technology to able to provide those services in the 21st century. I would like to once again thank all those who have made a significant contribution to the bill. I commend the work of all members and senators on this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill. I ask leave of the House to move government amendments (1) to (8), as circulated, together.
Leave granted.
by leave—I move government amendments (1) to (8):
(1) Clause 2, page 3 (table item 7), omit "9 to 13", substitute "9 to 14".
(2) Schedule 2, item 1, page 8 (line 13), omit "any", substitute "the".
(3) Schedule 2, item 1, page 8 (line 14), omit "may", substitute "must".
(4) Schedule 2, item 7, page 10 (line 29), omit "any", substitute "the".
(5) Schedule 2, item 7, page 10 (line 30), omit "may", substitute "must".
(6) Schedule 2, item 10, page 12 (line 19), omit "any", substitute "the".
(7) Schedule 2, item 10, page 12 (line 20), omit "may", substitute "must".
(8) Schedule 2, page 13 (after line 28), at the end of the Schedule, add:
14 Review of public interest disclosure provisions
(1) As soon as practicable after the second anniversary of the commencement of this item, the Minister must cause to be conducted a review of the operation of the following:
(a) section 409A of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 (including the rules made under subsection 409A(3) of that Act);
(b) section 151B of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 (including the rules made under subsection 151B(3) of that Act);
(c) section 131A of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 (including the rules made under subsection 131A(3) of that Act).
(2) The Minister must cause to be prepared a report of the review under subitem (1).
(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the completion of the report.
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
It is a great pleasure to rise this afternoon to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. Firstly, the necessity of this bill should be self-evident to every single member of parliament. We must have a competitive corporate tax rate in this nation if we are going to enjoy future prosperity and job creation in this country.
Let's have a look at what a few of the experts in this area have said in recent weeks. Firstly, the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Philip Lowe, a fortnight ago at the A50 Australian Economic Forum, said:
… there is no shortage of things that could be done to lift our performance.
He continued:
… it is a competitive world out there, and other countries see these opportunities too.
He went on:
… we need to make sure that our tax system is internationally competitive. One example of this complication is in the area of corporate tax, where there is a form of international tax competition going on in an effort to attract foreign investment. Like other countries, we face the challenge of responding to this …
The Governor of the Reserve Bank is exactly right.
We are seeing around the world countries reducing their rate of corporate tax. The UK is reducing its rate to 20 per cent. The US, under President Trump, has stated that the US corporate tax rate will be reduced to 15 per cent. Our cousins across the Tasman, the New Zealanders, have recently reduced their corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. Likewise, we see Hong Kong and Singapore at 15 per cent and 17 per cent. A 30 per cent corporate tax rate in 2018 going on to 2026 will make our nation uncompetitive when it comes to attracting capital and to getting people to invest.
But it is not only the Governor of the Reserve Bank. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary John Fraser implored parliament to consider cutting the company tax rate, saying that it would be absolutely critical that we respond to international competition. I quote the Treasury Secretary from yesterday:
We have to recognise that we are now in a very competitive environment when it comes to corporate taxation and attracting investment—not just with our regional neighbours but countries such as the United Kingdom and, possibly, the United States.
A fortnight ago we had the former secretary Ken Henry state in a speech—a speech that was quite widely reported—that the bill that we are introducing to this parliament to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent by 2026-27 is not enough. He said that was too slow. He said a much lower tax rate:
… or some other mechanism that reduces substantially the cost to Australian businesses of equity capital sourced from abroad … achieved much more quickly than is presently under consideration by our Parliament.
Yet, we have the Labor Party and the Greens, with a couple of crossbench senators, blocking what is a sensible reform which all the economic experts say is what we need to maintain our international competitiveness. Is it any wonder that Ken Henry, in his speech last week, warned about political tactics that confuse and frighten Australians? He is talking about the tactics of the Australian Labor Party with regard to corporate taxation. Ken Henry said:
Populism supplies the munitions. And the whole spectacle—
the dreadful spectacle—
is broadcast live via multimedia, 24/7.
He said 'today's dysfunction' stands in marked contrast to earlier periods of political success. He is talking about the Australian Labor Party, which, for political reasons only, is trying to confuse and frighten the public about the need for this tax cut.
There was a time when the Labor Party did know the importance of reducing corporate tax. This is clearly detailed in the book by the current member for McMahon and the current shadow Treasurer. It is called, Hearts & minds: A blueprint for modern Labor. There is a very charming picture of the shadow Treasurer on the front page, resplendent with his orange tie. Mr Deputy Speaker, you may be interested to know that this book has a ranking on the Amazon top-seller list. When I looked, it was number 7,222,116. With a few more copies after I discuss it today, we may be able to break that seven million barrier!
The book starts off with—on page 17—a quote from Vladimir Lenin, as, often, many Labor books do. Vladimir Lenin said in 1913 that 'the Australian Labor Party does not even call itself a socialist party'. I am not sure whether the member for McMahon is complaining about the comment or not. But the key section of the book is when we go to page 63. There is an entire chapter with the heading 'Promoting growth through cutting company tax'. I will quote from it:
One of the more controversial reforms by Paul Keating as Treasurer was slashing the corporate tax rate from 49 per cent to 39 per cent in 1989.
That was singling out one of many Keating reforms. It goes on—this is the member for McMahon:
I was a fresh-faced Labor Party branch member at the time, and I recall the party as a whole being incredulous that a Labor government would cut the tax rate for 'fat-cat companies'. I remember a motion at a Young Labor conference calling for the corporate tax rate to be lifted to 60 per cent to pay for a program of social reform.
The member for McMahon goes on in his book:
But Keating knew that the corporate tax rate needed to be cut to make Australia competitive, that capital and investment would flow to tax-competitive nations and that this was an important job-creation move. Today capital is even more mobile than it was then and it is important that our corporate tax rate is competitive.
None of us could have said it better than the shadow Treasurer, the member for McMahon. But today he has completely abandoned sensible economic policy to frighten, scare and confuse the Australian public with complete and utter populism that will damage this country in the long term.
It is interesting if we go back to that Keating tax cut of 1987-88. He cut the corporate tax rate, which was then 49 per cent, to 39 per cent. That is a 10 per cent reduction—an effective rate drop of 20 per cent. Members of the Labor Party would ask the obvious question: how much did that very large reduction in the corporate tax rate cost the federal government? What was the reduction in money coming into the Treasury from corporate tax as a result of Paul Keating's tax cut? I will tell you. You would expect maybe a 20 per cent reduction in the tax revenue, maybe a 15 per cent reduction. Actually, the exact opposite happened. The next year, 1988-89, at the lower rate of tax, we got 16 per cent more government revenue. The following year we got 26 per cent more and the following year nine per cent more. So, four years after Paul Keating reduced the rate of corporate tax, we got an extra 60 per cent in government revenue from corporate tax.
That is not the only example. What happened when Treasurer Peter Costello reduced the corporate tax rate from 36 per cent to 30 per cent? Again, as the educated socialists would ask themselves: how much did this cost in government revenue? Surely at a lower rate of corporate tax you would get less revenue. But again exactly the opposite happened. In 1999-2000, at a 36 per cent corporate tax rate, we were getting $23.9 billion in corporate tax revenue, but at the lower rate in 2001-02 we were getting 13 per cent more—$27 billion. In the next year, 2002-03, it increased again, by 23 per cent. In fact, five years after Treasurer Costello lowered the corporate tax rate we were not getting less tax; we were getting 80 per cent more corporate tax revenue.
This is not unique to Australia. Exactly the same thing has recently happened in New Zealand. In their 2010 budget, John Key lowered New Zealand's corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent. Again, if you follow the line of the Labor Party, this would have cost the New Zealand economy. They would have had to pay for that lower tax rate. What happened? Exactly the same thing. In 2011 there was only a small increase—2.7 per cent—but in the following year they saw company tax receipts increase by 24.9 per cent, then six per cent, then 2.7 per cent, then 11 per cent, then five per cent. Year after year, corporate tax revenue, at the lower rate, increased faster than their GDP. By the time they got to 2016, the New Zealand Treasury was getting 59 per cent more in corporate tax receipts, at the lower rate, than they had been getting at the higher rate.
Canada is another example of the same thing. In Canada they lowered their corporate tax rates in 2010 at the federal level from 18 per cent to 15 per cent and also at the state level. So, combined, there was a reduction from around 30 per cent to 27½ per cent, depending on the different Canadian states. Again, what happened? How much taxation revenue did that cost the Canadian government? Again, the answer is not a single cent. In fact, five years after the tax rate cut, they were getting 38 per cent more taxation revenue.
Why does this happen? This happens exactly as set out and mentioned by the former member for McMahon in his book. He understands that it is a Labor thing to reduce company tax because it promotes investment, it creates jobs and it drives growth. That is exactly what we need to do in this country. Labor members are out there misleading the public by pretending that, if you give a corporate tax rate cut to companies in Australia, that means you take the money away from somewhere else, which is a complete and utter fallacy. It is a deception, but it is a statement that we will hear repeated by Labor members over and over in this debate, because they do not understand how our economy runs.
If we have a lower tax rate, we encourage more investment, we get more jobs, we get more growth in the economy and, as the history of our country, of New Zealand, Canada and just about everywhere else has shown, when they lower the corporate rate of tax they end up, after a period of time, with a bigger economy and more taxation revenue. As we go into the decade ahead we need to make sure that we have a competitive nation in all respects. We already have electricity prices double the rate in the USA, and three or four times the rate in Canada. If we want to pay higher wages in the future, we cannot have uncompetitive international rates of tax and uncompetitive electricity prices. I implore members of the Labor opposition— (Time expired)
I am of course speaking in support of the amendment that has been moved by the member for McMahon to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. This bill does highlight this government's twisted priorities, and the twisted priorities of the Prime Minister, when it comes to the management of our economy and fiscal consolidation and reining in the budget deficit.
Here is just a brief overview of what this government is doing. First off, the Turnbull government have continued their crusade to cut billions of dollars from health. They are on a mission to increase the cost of health care for all Australians. First they tried to introduce the Medicare co-payment. That did not work. Then they tried to introduce a reduction in the rebate for diagnostic imaging. We all know they have frozen the Medicare rebate for a further three years and they have set up a privatisation task force into the Medicare system. They have also cut funding for hospitals and schools.
The then opposition made a solemn promise to the Australian people at the election in 2013 that, whether you voted for the Labor Party or the coalition, you would get the same policy on education. Then they went and broke that commitment to the Australian public in the first couple of years. That was, of course, a porky pie. We now know that the coalition, as soon as they were elected, turned around and cut $30 billion from the education budget by refusing to fund the last two years of the Gonski reforms. And while paying lip-service to Gonski's needs-based funding model, the government has simultaneously pulled the rug out from under our schools and our children.
That did not stop their path of destruction. In addition to their pursuance of an American-style healthcare system, they are also trying to introduce an American-style higher education system for universities. Deregulation of Australian universities would result in students being slugged with massive amounts of student debt as a result of their degrees increasing in cost—in many cases above $100,000. This, of course, would just further increase the pressure already heaped on young people through underemployment and housing affordability—an ongoing crisis, which this government has no policy at all to deal with.
But, rather than prioritise health and education, this government is instead intent, through this particular bill, on cutting $50 billion out of the budget by offering big business a tax cut. We are not talking about small businesses here; we are talking, over the course of the next 10 years, businesses with a turnover up to $1 billion. So they are by no means small businesses. It says so much about this Prime Minister and the government's budget position that it is dramatically deteriorating to the point where there is talk now of Australia losing its AAA credit rating and putting further pressure on businesses and, in particular, homeowners in the result of increases in interest rates. As a nation, we simply cannot afford such a massive tax cut for big business, especially when it comes at the expense of our nation's healthcare system and cuts to our children's future by impacting their education.
We have seen over the course of the last couple of weeks the government's proposals to introduce the omnibus bill and cut further social security measures, particularly pensions for single mums and for the unemployed, and paid parental leave. This bill represents this government's twisted priorities. Instead of focusing on investing in education, investing in health care, growing our economy and ensuring that the biggest companies pay their fair share of tax in this country, this government is intent on smashing the most vulnerable in our community—pensioners, the unemployed, people on single incomes, people on family payments—and giving big businesses a $50 billion tax cut through this bill. That is the wrong approach, and that is why I and my Labor colleagues are voting against this bill and supporting the amendment of the member for McMahon.
The detail of the bill contains three measures. The first is the reduction of the company tax rate to 25 per cent. The tax rate for businesses with an annual aggregate turnover of less than $10 million would be 27.5 per cent from the 2016-17 income year. The threshold would then be progressively increased so that, by the 2023-24 income year, all businesses would be at the 27.5 per cent rate. The rate itself would be lowered from the 2024-25 income year until it reaches 25 per cent in 2026-27. Again, it starts out for small businesses. The Labor Party has promised to support the tax cut to 27½ per cent for genuine small businesses, businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million per year, because they are small businesses. These are the people who struggle from week to week to earn an income; they put their life and their whole heart and soul into their businesses. They do deserve some support from the government and some relief, but this bill goes much further than that: it goes on to offer that tax cut down to 25 per cent for businesses that are earning up to $1 billion in turnover.
The bill also contains a measure to increase the unincorporated small business tax discount. This discount provides unincorporated small businesses a tax offset broadly equivalent to the small business company tax cut of 1.5 per cent. The discount is a tax offset equal to five per cent of a small business entity's basic income tax liability that relates to its total net small business income, capped at $1,000. And the bill increases the aggregate turnover threshold to access most small business tax concessions from $2 million to $10 million. The aggregated turnover threshold for access to the small business tax offset would be increased to $5 million, and the current aggregated turnover threshold of $2 million would be retained for the small business capital gains tax concessions.
The bill does represent the government's blind adherence to this notion of trickle-down economics that conservatives in Australia and in other parts of the world seem to be wedded to as their basic and main economic philosophy about how economies should be run. It is the most discredited, useless model for growing economies that has ever been. And it has been proven: nowhere in the world have reductions in taxes resulted in this trickle-down notion of greater wealth for all and growth in the economy. The classic example of that is the United States of America, where, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Reagan administration, followed up by the Bush administrations, introduced this notion of trickle-down economics by rapidly cutting taxes—income and company taxes—in the hope that it would result in greater profits for businesses, employing more people and growing incomes. It did not work. In fact, if you look at the United States today, the legacy of that is still there. It is an economy for which the middle classes have not had real income increases since the 1970s, since Reagan undertook this process of what was called Reaganomics but was trickle-down economics.
So this government's adherence to the philosophy of trickle-down economics is, once again, misguided. The government foolishly believes that massive tax cuts to multinational businesses and major corporations will boost economic activity and investment, the benefits of which will flow to the average Australian worker. It is complete rubbish, it is complete garbage and it is a discredited notion of economic advancement.
The actual benefits of this modelling, of this particular proposal that we debate today, have been modelled by the Treasury. The government put out, with last year's budget, a paper based on the modelling of growth in the economy from a corporate tax cut. The benefits are insignificant. The Treasury's own modelling—the government's own modelling—indicates that GDP would improve by 0.1 per cent each year, if this tax cut were implemented. That is less than one per cent over the course of a decade. It is a rounding error, and that is the government's own modelling. Even less is added to net employment over the course of those years.
The previous speaker mentioned the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the speech he recently made as support for the corporate tax cut. But the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Dr Philip Lowe, made the very important point last week that, from a global perspective, a corporate tax cut is not actually that useful because, although you may be reducing income taxation levels in one country, you are not actually growing the pie of investment globally. It just means that investment may shift from one country to another. So this notion that this tax cut, this bill, will improve the economy and will improve employment has been rubbished by not only the Treasury modelling but experts who work in this field. If you want to improve employment outcomes, rather than cut taxes for big businesses—that, frankly, do not need it and will hardly notice it—invest in the education of our children instead, invest in adult retraining, invest in vocational education and training, and properly support TAFE and training that will actually benefit the lives of Australians.
In line with our 2016 election commitments, Labor does not support these tax cuts for big businesses. It is part of our policy. Labor's policy on tax cuts for small business is: reducing the company tax rate to 27½ per cent for businesses with a turnover of $2 million—and that threshold remains consistent with the small business definition retained by the Australian Taxation Office—and increasing the unincorporated small tax discount from five per cent to eight per cent and only for businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million, and not proceeding with the increase in the small business entity threshold. Our position, costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, would save $4.4 billion over the forward estimates and $50.1 billion over the medium term.
In conclusion, what really gets to me and demonstrates the hypocrisy of this government and its members—all of its members, particularly the person who spoke before me—is, when the Gillard government proposed a reduction in the company tax rate from 30 per cent to 28 per cent, have a guess who voted against it? It was the then opposition leader, Tony Abbott, and all of his merry men and women of the coalition. They voted against a corporate tax cut for small businesses when it was proposed by Labor many years ago. So they come in here with this holier-than-thou notion that this is good economic policy and that Labor is playing politics. It is rank hypocrisy because they have form on this: they voted against it when it was proposed by the Gillard government for small businesses. And, unlike this government, who, in the face of a deteriorating budget bottom line, chooses to throw money at big business, Labor has its priorities firmly set on everyday Australians that need the support to go on to achieve great things. Investing in education, investing in health care, investing in renewable energy, and investing in vocational education and training are the best ways to do that. I urge everyone to vote against this bill.
I rise to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. This is one of the most important bills introduced into the parliament since the election. This bill delivers on the government's mandate from the election to provide tax relief for Australia small businesses.
This bill reveals a fault line in our parliament between those on this side of the House in the Liberal and National parties, who want to give a hand to small businesses—businesses who work hard and play by the rules, create jobs and grow our economy—and the Labor Party, which has no plan for economic growth, does not understand small business and is happy to see Australia have an uncompetitive tax rate.
The Liberal Party is the party of small business. We have run small businesses and we have come from small business families. We know that lower taxes mean that small businesses get to keep more of their own money. We know that, with more of their own money, small businesses can grow and employ more people. We know that, without this bill, Australia's company tax rates will be increasingly uncompetitive with the rest of the world. This is a particular danger for us in an age where there is a truly global market for both labour and capital. We should remove as many disincentives as possible for Australians to start a business and, as that business succeeds, have it remain based in Australia. And, unlike Labor, we know there is a difference between income and profit. That is why we know that restricting these measures to small businesses with only a $2 million turnover will not have the economic impact that our measures seek to create.
There are many virtues of starting a small business. As the son of a small business accountant, I see small business as a virtuous activity. Entrepreneurial Australians who start, run and grow our small businesses take responsibility for themselves and are not dependent on others. They take calculated risks and back themselves. They in turn provide employment for other people and give those people opportunities. Finally, small business owners create a legacy for their family and the country, and that is why small businesses play such an important role in the life of our nation.
To give an outline of this bill, it reduces the company tax rate for small businesses from 28½ per cent to 27½ per cent. By 1 July 2026, the corporate tax rate for all companies will fall to 25 per cent. This lower rate will apply to all companies with an annual turnover of less than $10 million. Since 1 July 2016, unincorporated businesses with an annual turnover of less than $5 million have been able to access an increased unincorporated tax discount of eight per cent—that is an increase of three per cent—capped at $1,000. The discount will increase to 16 per cent by 2026-27. Businesses with an annual turnover of less than $10 million will be able to access many small business concessions that were previously only available to businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million, including access to immediate deductibility for assets costing less than $20,000, until 1 July 2017, as well as simplified stock-trading rules, simplified methods of calculating PAYG instalments by the ATO, and the option to account for GST on a cash basis and pay GST instalments as calculated by the ATO. All these measures are helping small business and boosting the broader economy.
Australia's international tax competitiveness is vital to the success of the economy. Businesses shop around for lower tax jurisdictions to headquarter their operations. If you do not think this is the case, look at one of Australia's great global business success stories, News Corporation. For years it had its base and held its AGMs in Adelaide, but in the mid-2000s it moved to Delaware, in the United States, to take advantage of a more generous corporate tax regime.
In 2001, during the Howard years, Australia had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world. Australia's corporate tax rate is now uncompetitively high—currently the sixth highest in the OECD. Australia's corporate tax rate is currently at 28½ per cent. To compare this with other countries, the United Kingdom has a tax rate of 20 per cent; Canada, 26½ per cent; China, 25 per cent; and Korea, 24½ per cent. The EU average is 22.09 per cent, the OECD average is 24.81 per cent and the global average is 23.62 per cent. Our tax rate is currently around five per cent higher than the global average.
This bill is part of a broader small business agenda. Ask any small business owner about completing their BAS, and they will tell you that it is taxing not only in a literal sense but also in the time it takes to complete their paperwork. New, simpler reporting arrangements will be rolled out to all small businesses from 1 July 2017. This will free up time for business owners to invest in and employ additional staff, as well as take some well-deserved time off.
On this side of the House we understand the importance of reducing the paperwork burden for small business more broadly. That is why we have already delivered $4.8 billion in red-tape savings in our first two years in office. That is more than double our election commitment. Now we are broadening the regulatory reform agenda to focus on regulation reforms that directly enhance innovation, competitiveness and productivity. The government will simplify business reporting of tax and superannuation with the implementation of single-touch payroll, giving employers the ability to automatically report their pay-as-you-go withholding to the Australian Taxation Office.
On this side of the House we understand that small business needs access to affordable finance. As an emerging funding source, crowdsourced equity funding has the potential to spur innovation and complement the emerging peer-to-peer lending market that is giving small business greater borrowing choice. That is why we are removing regulatory obstacles to businesses using this source of funding.
The government's enterprise tax plan will have a positive impact on Berowra businesses. There are almost 15,000 small businesses in my electorate. From the thousands of examples, let me give you a few in the retail, manufacturing and services sectors which help illustrate how the enterprise tax plan will help Berowra's small businesses.
Pennant Hills Dry Cleaners is run by Berowra locals Tony and Joanne Fajloun. They know the positive impact of the enterprise tax plan. Recognised by Rotary with a Pride of Workmanship award, Tony and Joanne run one of the best dry-cleaning businesses in Sydney. Tony and Joanne represent everything that any Australian should aspire to. They are second-generation dry cleaners who have worked in the industry for over 15 years. They get up and go to work every day. They work hard, pay their taxes and put food on the table for their family.
I spoke recently to Tony and Joanne about the challenges they face in running their small business, as well as what a tax cut would mean for them. Tony and Joanne face increased power bills because of the increasing cost of electricity. They say their power bills have grown four times over the last 10 years. They have installed a gas system to try and reduce future costs, but a tax cut would obviously help them to reduce costs. A tax cut would give Tony and Joanne the ability to re-invest in their business and hire additional employees. A tax cut would allow them to employ someone so they can spend more time with their family. It is a rare occasion when Tony and Joanne are able to enjoy a weekend off. With tax relief, they would have more time to spend with their son, who works in construction.
Another great Berowra business success story is WashBox. WashBox is a product manufactured by Arcadia-based company GeoSentinel. WashBox is used on construction and industry sites where wet trades need to clean up. A WashBox at a location can save up to 3,000 litres of water a week, as tools are washed and the wastes are extracted from the water and not flushed into sewers or discharged elsewhere. Trades such as painters or plasterers can clean their tools and brushes in the box, which has several environmental benefits, including reducing the fresh water used by up to 90 per cent; eliminating stormwater, sewer and groundwater pollution; reducing trade waste to landfill; and 100 per cent recycling of liquid waste.
I asked Andrew Kenyon from GeoSentinel what a tax cut would mean for his business. Mr Kenyon told me that the benefits of the government's enterprise tax plan will allow GeoSentinel to continue growing and expanding their business. He said:
At the moment we're really focussed on international expansion. More assistance in the innovation space would be helpful, it is challenging to get private funding sometimes when you're a business like ours. Further tax concessions and cashflow support would really assist us in that capacity.
Ray Becchio runs a successful business in the construction management industry—Becchio Pty Ltd. Ray is from Hornsby but works all over Sydney with his son, who is a carpenter. Ray told me that the tax cuts proposed by the government will go a long way to helping small businesses like his across Berowra and Australia. Ray emphasised that, by having more money in his pocket at the end of the day, he and other small business owners will be able to reinvest in their business and hire more staff. This is exactly the kind of activity we need to be supporting—giving the Australian people the freedom they need to create more jobs and contribute to the overall economy.
A new business in my electorate is the Steam Yard Cafe. The Steam Yard Cafe is a small family business that has been operating for just over eight months in Galston village. Brigette and George Nader, along with their five sons—Jacob, Luke, Ben, Zack and Daniel—run the popular new cafe. I have to add that they make a great coffee and breakfast. The family have a couple of other employees, but they are working flat out to keep the doors open seven days a week. I asked them what a tax cut would mean to them. Brigette was thrilled to hear this was going to be spoken about in parliament today and she said that this would make a huge difference. She told me that the family would be able to put more money back into the business and help it grow. They would also be able to put more staff on and reach their goal, which they say is servicing the entire local community.
The final Berowra business I want to speak about is Julianne's Kitchen. Julianne Lever is another outstanding small business owner in my electorate. I am so proud of her success. Just a few years ago Julianne, a highly experienced chef, started her delicious range of handmade terrines, pates and fruit pastes out of her basement in Westleigh. The business quickly expanded and now operates out of a factory in Hornsby and sells products all over Sydney. Julianne's Kitchen is a husband-and-wife team. Julianne and Zlat employ four local residents and are constantly looking to expand. On what the proposed bill means to her, Julianne said:
I'm a very hands-on business owner. For us to grow our business I need to be able to get out on the road, increase sales and grow the business. We can grow our business and employ more people. These tax cuts are very important for what we plan to be doing this year.
Those were just a few of the 15,000 small business success stories in Berowra outlining why a small business tax cut is so important.
What are the alternative policies to our enterprise tax plan? Labor incorrectly believe that businesses with a turnover—not profit—of more than $2 million are large businesses. Such a position underscores how little Labor understand small business. Such microbusinesses are not large global corporations. Many are family businesses where mum-and-dad operators do not even pay themselves much of a salary in order to meet the payroll and expenses of their business. Labor's alternative is higher taxes for hardworking Australians and Australian small businesses. Labor's motto is: 'We put people first'—a very nice sound bite, but a horrific deception of the Australian people. By their actions Labor demonstrate that they do not understand small business and they do not understand the economy in general.
Labor are a threat to our AAA credit rating with their higher taxes, higher debt and higher deficit. Labor's policies would add $16.8 billion in higher deficits to the budget—with no plan for budget repair. Labor reject our enterprise tax plan. They want to deny small businesses more growth. They want to deny them access to further investment and growth opportunities. But this was not always the case. Labor used to support lower company tax rates. In 2011 the Leader of the Opposition said:
Cutting the company income tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth and leads to more jobs and higher wages.
In 2013 the shadow Treasurer wrote:
It's a Labor thing to have the ambition of reducing company tax, because it promotes investment, creates jobs and drives growth.
But that was then and this is now.
In conclusion, former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard epitomised the Liberal Party's strong philosophical and practical support for small businesses. As the son of a small business garage owner he was committed to the principle that by helping business, whether small or large, we are helping people to look after themselves, to look after their families, to look after their employees and to make a contribution to the entire country. At the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia conference in 2004, Mr Howard said:
… in the long run what is required is for a government and a country to give a climate which is conducive to hard work and risk taking and business enterprise, and also to produce an economic environment that encourages all of those things …
This is exactly what the Turnbull government is doing. Through this bill, through our National Innovation and Science Agenda, through our crowdsourced funding legislation and through a raft of other policy measures we are backing those Australians who want to back themselves and to turn good ideas into successful businesses that employ staff, create new products and services and make a huge contribution to our economy. It is with great pleasure that I commend the bill to this House.
Under this government what happens when company profits go up? They continue to prosecute their argument for $50 billion of tax cuts for big business and the big banks. At the same time we are seeing this government refuse to take any action whatsoever about the fact that low-paid and vulnerable workers are going to be taking a pay cut at the same time. Wages growth is terribly slow in this country. It is as slow as it has been since they started taking the WPI figures back in 1997. Underemployment is rife. It is at a record level since records started being taken in 1978. Company profits, though, are doing pretty well. So you would think that, if a government had its priorities right, it would not say: 'What can we do to change the way that we run the budget in this country? How about we get rid of $50 billion of revenue? We can give it away to big corporations and the big banks while at the same time we can continue to pursue cuts to university funding, cuts to family tax benefits and attacks on pensioners and make it harder for people to bear the cost of living.' Yet that is the bill we are debating here today, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016. It is a bill to give that tax revenue to big corporations and the big banks.
The potential dividend is very low. Look not at what the government is saying about this policy, which of course is in a sort of fantasy land where trickle-down economics just works—you just give more money to people who are already at the top end of town and somehow it just trickles down to the rest of us—but at what the independent experts are saying. They are very sceptical about the sorts of results and dividends that this policy will actually yield.
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member for Griffith will be given an opportunity at that time to complete her speech.
Twelve months ago, Labor announced our housing affordability policy, with reform of negative gearing and capital gains tax. That was 12 months ago. What has happened since? House prices continue to go up and the Treasurer continues to fail. We have seen double-digit growth in Sydney and Melbourne, we have seen Australia's major cities listed in the 20 least affordable cities around the world and we have seen the Treasurer lurch from excuse to excuse. The excuses are over, because our policy has been backed by a plethora of groups and eminent experts, from the Committee of Economic Development of Australia to the IMF—right across the board—and the Treasurer has had few allies and those allies are dropping off as we speak. I think I know what is going on. At our announcement, Stockland said they did not like it. Today, the chief executive of Stockland said, 'Reform is necessary.' Just in the last few minutes, guess who we have heard from: Aussie John. Aussie John Symond has said, 'We think we might need some reform.' I think I know what is going on here. The Treasurer, having lost in the cabinet room, is phoning a friend and saying, 'Hi. We're having real trouble getting negative gearing reform. Do you think you could come out and change your mind? I know I asked you to say it was a bad idea last year. Why don't you say it's a good idea today? I might get the numbers in the cabinet for once.' That is what the Treasurer is up to. The excuses are running out. Australia's young people deserve a foot in the door. They deserve the great Australian dream no more or less than any other generation, and this Treasurer— (Time expired)
Last night the Queensland Labor government, along with Labor lackey Independents in the Queensland parliament, used their numbers to vote against Queensland cane farmers. They voted in favour of letting a foreign multinational, Wilmar, continue to ride roughshod over the rights of thousands of Queensland's cane-farming families. In December 2015, Labor also voted against the successful amendments to the Queensland Sugar Industry (Real Choice in Marketing) Amendment Act, which enshrined into law the right of canegrowers to determine who markets their sugar. Ever since then, Wilmar has done its darnedest to flout the law and for several months it has failed to allow farmers access to a third-party marketer of their sugar. The current situation is critical. More than a thousand cane farmers came together to share their desperation with the Deputy Prime Minister when he came to North Queensland recently. While Queensland Labor is willing to sacrifice Queensland farmers to a foreign multinational, I am not and neither is the National Party. The Deputy Prime Minister gave cane farmers a commitment that this government will do whatever it takes to get a solution. We will go forward from here to pursue federal intervention to fix this situation once and for all. Wilmar take note: the heavy hand of government is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks because of your failure to do the right thing. What Wilmar should do in the next week is do the deal with QSL to allow these farmers to get on with life.
Not long ago, the Herald Sun published an article which called Brunswick East, a suburb in my electorate of Wills, the most difficult suburb in Melbourne in which to buy a house. According to a CoreLogic report, the median house price in Brunswick East is around $1 million and skyrocketed a staggering 26.6 per cent during the 12-month survey period. There are other suburbs in Wills that are not much more affordable. In fact, every suburb in my electorate is above the Victorian median house price of around $800,000. Demographia did an annual housing affordability survey in 2016 which showed that the average home in Melbourne costs 9.7 times the average yearly household income. Do you know what it was in 1975? Four times. This means that the great Australian dream is completely unreachable for ordinary Australians. In response, we get nonsense from those on that side of the House. Suggestions like 'Just get rich parents' came from the Prime Minister; 'Just get a high-paying job' came from the member for Deakin; and one comment was 'Just move somewhere cheap.' I think they all believe that one. They should be listening to Aussie John, maybe even to John Alexander, the member for Bennelong. People should not need to abandon their friends, family, ties to the community and everything great about our city just to afford to live. There is nothing more reasonable than wanting to own a house in your own town. Labor has positive plans to address negative gearing and housing affordability for all Australians. (Time expired)
A big issue for many people in my electorate is congestion on the M5. Importantly, this is being addressed through the WestConnex project. In February this year, the King Georges Road Interchange upgrade at Beverly Hills was completed. That has marked a very important first step towards resolving one of the worst traffic pinch points in Sydney. The lengthening of the on- and off-ramps at Beverly Hills was completed to increase capacity and to enable traffic to flow more smoothly. The federal government provided $1.5 billion in cash towards the WestConnex project and a $2 billion concessional loan to the state government to help make this happen more quickly. Tunnelling has begun on the duplication of the M5 East tunnels between Kingsgrove and St Peters. That will mean a doubling of the capacity on the M5 East. When those tunnels are completed in 2020, it will have a huge positive benefit in reducing travel times in my electorate, between places like Beverly Hills, Padstow, Revesby, Riverwood and other areas and the city. The travel times are expected to drop very substantially. WestConnex is a very important project for my community. I look forward to its further progress in the coming years.
All Australians need the security and stability of a home, yet this dream is increasingly out of reach. We have a housing crisis in Australia: home ownership rates are falling, first home buyers are just giving up, people are unable to rent near a job, homelessness rates are increasing, the percentage of social housing stock is decreasing, and young people despair. It is no wonder. If you look at the last decade, the median income—that is the big fat bit in the middle of the curve—in Australia has gone up by 43 per cent, yet the median house price in Australia has risen by 60 per cent; in Melbourne, it has risen by 90 per cent; and in my electorate of Bruce the median house price in the last 10 years has risen by 150 per cent. That means that it now costs 10 times the Australian median income just to buy a house in the middle of the suburbs.
This crisis, of course, is a human crisis that affects every part of society. The causes are complex, but the elephant in the room has to be named. We have this ridiculous situation in Australia where the most rational thing to do, if you are a high-income earner, is to run down to an auction and bid up the cost of an existing house. You do not put your money into a business that grows jobs. You do not put your money into a new house to add to supply. You go and push up the cost of an existing house. The government think the priority this week is to let people say more racist things. We have no housing minister, no assistant minister and no policy beyond, 'Get rich parents.' They are out of touch, they are divided and people deserve better. (Time expired)
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the 44th Volunteer Fire Brigades Victoria Urban Junior State Championships in Tatura. There were about 2,000 members and their families there at the Tatura Racecourse, and at the official opening and morning tea it was great to see everybody get involved. These championships have been running for 42 years, and there were about 70 teams from across Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia competing. The weekend's event has been one of the regular competitions happening across the nation since November. Young boys and girls in their hundreds were competing hard, shaking hands at the completion of all of their events, and setting themselves on a pathway to serve their communities. Tatura Urban Fire Brigade 2nd Lieutenant Alan Tyson says that these competitions are a great breeding ground for future firefighters. They are also a great opportunity for the students to compete, along with all the other groups around the state. These mature young people are being nurtured by the fire brigade to have the basic skills, the right ethics and the right attitude towards volunteerism and community service. And it certainly was great to see that Tatura was the brigade that actually won on the day. Congratulations to everybody involved.
As I move around Macquarie, I find that one subject people feel helpless about is housing, whether they are renters who can never see themselves owning their own home, older women who are fearful that once they stop working they are going to struggle just to pay rent, the teenage couch surfer who is trying to escape a home that is not safe and has no other safe place to go, or the most vulnerable in our community who do not even have a roof over their heads and are in the bush. All of these are issues that this government is not bothering to look at, it is so busy looking at itself.
So let us see the advice from those opposite on what Australians should do to get themselves into a home, in what can only be described as a feral property market in most cities, including in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury. Lesson 1 came from the former member for North Sydney: 'Get a good job.' Lesson 2 came from the Prime Minister: 'Get yourself some rich parents.' Lesson 3 came from the Leader of the Nationals: 'Move to the bush.' And lesson 4 came from the Assistant Treasurer: 'Get a highly paid job.' What? Looks like we are back at lesson 1! They are out of ideas.
And my children's generation looks on this with despair and sets aside the dream of ever owning their own home while this mob are in office. They have absolutely nothing to offer young Australians on housing affordability, and they reject the sensible ideas that we put forward on changing negative gearing and capital gains. They are an absolute disgrace and are letting down our next generations. (Time expired)
Mental illness is an invisible barrier that prevents so many in our community from reaching their full potential. But the Junction Clubhouse in Cairns is playing a key role in providing a range of support services to help with housing, employment, personal development and healthy lifestyles. Thanks to their involvement with the Junction's Bike Bank, 10 members are now training to ride in the 780-kilometre Cairns to Karumba ultramarathon in June 2017. It is a remarkable undertaking. They will boost their fitness and highlight the determination and courage of people recovering from mental illness, while raising money for BUSHkids, a very important regional charity.
I am pleased to be on the Changing Lives Project advisory group, which is made up of Grant Moulang, Monty Summers, Richie Bates, Russell Harris, Dorothy Dunne, Esther Ritchie, Brenton Koch, David Giordano, Jacqui Mansfield, Rob Pyne, Marcus Hill, Tracey Hannah, Heather Beck and Mary-Anne Elkington. I would also like to acknowledge the other Junction members who are taking up the challenge—in particular, Stephen, Jason, Susan and Tage, who are sharing their journey with us. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I ask my colleagues to show their support by visiting the GoFundMe website and searching for the Changing Lives Project and just making a very small donation.
There is a real issue in electorates like Werriwa in Australia at the moment with affordable housing. Young people trying to enter the housing market are being locked out because they just cannot afford the deposits or the loan repayments, given the amount that housing prices have risen in the last few years.
The Financial Review yesterday reported that investor demand for capital gains pushed house prices up by 2.6 per cent in February, with an annual growth of 18.4 per cent over the last year. That is the highest since 2002. Let us do the maths. That means that, for people looking to buy a house in my electorate, the amount they will have to pay has risen by an average of $20,000—that was in February. That is an extra deposit they have to find, and that is on top of the fact that their wages have not gone up in the previous few years and they are about to get a real reduction in their wages when penalty rates are reduced later in the year.
Almost a year ago, the Leader of the Opposition announced Labor's plan for affordable housing. By reforming negative gearing and capital gains tax, we can ensure our young people will be able to afford a house. It is not good enough to say that rich parents can help you. That is not a housing policy. Labor's policy to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax is.
It is the time of year when new school leaders get to put on their badges, and last week I attended the New Farm State School leadership ceremony. The year 6 students there took up their leadership positions with pride and enthusiasm, with their school community looking on proudly. I congratulate the New Farm State School leaders for 2017: school captains, Elise Ridoutt and Frode Sindel; school vice-captains, Meg McAllister and Jade Kingston; house captains, Katelyn Logan, William Fletcher, Desiree Fernandes, Eli Jones, Dane Mulder and Clea Hall; and project captains, Ashton Jones, Coco Garton, Jack Whittam, Zia Stevens, Claire Le Saveant and Holly Bell. I congratulate them and I congratulate all of the new school leaders across the primary schools and high schools around Brisbane.
Next month I will host a student leadership forum, where students from Brisbane schools will hear from local leaders from business, sports and the arts. We hope to inspire leadership and community engagement in some young people who one day soon will hopefully be making their own mark in our community. We will look at leadership, public speaking and conflict resolution—skills increasingly important to making a real difference. We may or may not discover the next Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop in this forum, but maybe—just maybe—this will be the first of many times that we get to hear of the achievements of these Brisbane school leaders mentioned here in the official records of this parliament.
As we all well know, home ownership is a very important part of our culture. But the great Australian dream is quickly becoming a nightmare for young Australians. That home among the gum trees has been immortalised in music, literature and the big screen and it has some meaning for two-thirds of us. But, sadly, it will be an ever-more unattainable dream for many young Australians unless 'Mr Harbourside Mansion' actually gets serious about housing affordability.
Ownership rates for young people have declined from 60 per cent down to 48 per cent, but the cost of housing continues to steeply increase. Over the last year across our five capital cities, it has increased more than 11 per cent, while real wages went backwards by half a per cent. One of my constituents, Juris, from Sherwood, an architect and built environment educator—known to the member opposite—wrote to me expressing his well-informed concerns about housing affordability.
Labor took a negative gearing policy to the election that would improve housing affordability. It is reported today that the head of Stockland, Australia's largest residential developer, believes that curbing the excesses of negative gearing on property investments should be considered. Even John Symond, from Aussie Home Loans, has cautiously backed a change to negative gearing arrangements. Yet still the only housing affordability policy we have from the LNP government is: 'Get a good job,' 'Get rich parents,' 'Move to the bush,' or, that gem from the Assistant Treasurer, 'Get a highly paid job.' All of Australia, but especially our young people, now really need a government with backbone. (Time expired)
To the young people of Petrie and elsewhere: have I got an opportunity for you! One of the best things I have done, back in 2011, right before I put my hand up to represent the people of Petrie, was to pack up my family and to set off and travel Australia. That might be why I am so taken with a federal government initiative that encourages people to head off on the Harvest Trail. If you are young or if you have no commitments, if you are on Newstart or even if you are an eager grey nomad, come down to my office and let's have a chat.
Connecting urban-based jobseekers with rural and regional Australia helps farmers to bring in the crops. Great for those on a gap year or at a loose end, the National Harvest Labour Information Service has released an updated 128-page guide. The guide covers where, what and when crops are harvested, as well as working conditions, transport options, accommodation and places to see on the way. From Brisbane, you could start tomorrow with veggies in Gatton or Laidley—just two hours away. In April, head north to Chinchilla for melons or south to Stanthorpe for apples and pears. In May, head north again to Emerald and Gayndah for citrus or over the border to Byron and Ballina for nuts. Travel this incredible country, picking to pay your way. I say to everyone in my electorate: it is a great opportunity. Come and see me and I would be delighted to talk to you about it. (Time expired)
We have seen extraordinary scenes during Senate estimates today. We now know that the Minister for Human Services will do anything to distract from his error-prone robo-debt system. The Minister for Human Services' department could not tell us if the private information he provided to the media on a number of occasions had received any authorisation from the secretary.
The minister is focused on personal vendettas and on smearing ordinary Australians, but he has no plan to fix his broken system. In his desperate attempt to cover up his failure at Centrelink, he has walked a very dangerous legal line. I cannot yet say if the minister or his office acted legally, but I know they did not act ethically. Running the moral spirit level over what has been revealed, nothing was even. It is not the role of a government to target individual citizens. This minister does not understand that the way to stop the negative headlines is to do a good job, not attack citizens.
The minister's department threw him under a bus today. They could not confirm whether his incredible disclosures were legal, because they had no idea what he had passed on. I have been a minister. It helps to talk to your department from time to time. Those opposite should bring their colleague into line, stop focusing on revenge and start focusing on doing their jobs. (Time expired)
Today I would like to recognise Australia Day award recipients from two of my local councils. From the City of Holdfast Bay, I applaud Citizen of the Year Sarah Tinney for the outstanding service she has given to the local community and for her considerable fundraising efforts. Sarah's mum was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, and Sarah took up the challenge of raising money to fund the fight against the disease. In 2014 Sarah organised the Marilyn Jetty Swim, in memory of her mum, Esther. This event sees women dress up as Marilyn Monroe and, armed with inflatable arm rings, they paddle and swim 400 metres around the Brighton jetty. This fabulous event has now raised over $120,000.
The Holdfast Bay Young Citizen of the Year was Olympic champion swimmer Kyle Chalmers. At just 18, Kyle made his Olympic debut in the men's 100-metre freestyle. He set a new junior world record and brought home gold for Australia. He is an inspiration to budding athletes across Australia.
I would also like to acknowledge recipients from outside Boothby but whose ceremony I attended at the City of Onkaparinga: joint Citizen of the Year recipients, Kellie Matalone and Keryn McElroy, and Young Citizen of the Year Jessica Perry. Jessica, in particular, is often spotted in and around Boothby, contributing to the community by organising leadership events, such as the 2016 Anti-Poverty Dinner, Youth Recognition Awards, leadership forums and National Youth Week, as well as working in her business with her sister.
There is a dispute between the Liberal and National parties which is threatening funding of critical projects in Western Australia and other regions. The dispute concerns the boundaries for the Building Better Regions Fund, in which $300 million of taxpayer money is allocated to development projects. Many MPs have raised their concerns—I see the member for Wakefield, the member for Macquarie and the member for Lalor in the chamber—but it was in WA that the Liberal member for Canning went so far as to accuse the National Party minister of redrawing the map to exclude Mandurah and Peel from the fund. He was so angry he took it to the Prime Minister and believes that he received a guarantee that the National Party minister would be overruled. He told his local newspaper:
The Prime Minister said it's very clear that Peel is regional and we're going to reinstate it.
We now know that this was not true because, in Senate estimates this week, the minister herself was adamant. She said: 'Just to be very clear, the boundaries have not changed.' We know there is a festering dispute between the Liberals and the Nationals in WA. It now appears to have come here. The Prime Minister and the minister have questions to answer. Have they misled the member for Canning? Has the Prime Minister misled the member for Canning or is the minister simply not in control of the project or her funds?
Today I would like to draw the attention of this House to the important work that Lithgow Aged Care carries out for the people of the Lithgow area. Lithgow Aged Care Ltd is a community based not-for-profit organisation operating a 95-bed aged-care facility over two adjoining sites. Dedicated aged-care services have been available in Lithgow since October 1968, and Lithgow Aged Care was formed with the merger of two of the Lithgow district's most respected aged-care institutions, Cooinda and Tanderra, in July 2013. Lithgow Aged Care provides services for residential aged care, occasional non-dedicated respite care and two separate dementia-specific units with 24 residents. It is currently running at 100 per cent occupancy and is considered to be a leading facility for aged care in the Lithgow area. It is a great supporter of the local community, with a team of dedicated staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to provide an exceptional service to their local community. They provide opportunities for employment in nursing, care, administration, education and building and facility maintenance in the region. I would like to make particular mention of Lithgow Aged Care's board of directors: Olwyn King, Leanne Plackson, Neville Kerrison, Ross King, Glynn Clarke, Peggy Quine, Jeff Carter, Margaret Cafe and Shane Wade. I also thank the hardworking and dedicated staff of Lithgow Aged Care and wish them well as they continue to provide this vital service to the Lithgow community.
Over the past two weeks, we have seen a series of revelations that show that this blundering Attorney-General, inexplicably kept on the front bench by this Prime Minister, has once again misled this parliament. It is less than six months since Senator Brandis's last misleading of the parliament was uncovered, when he claimed to have consulted the former Solicitor-General about his new legal services direction. That was entirely false. Last week, Western Australian Attorney-General Michael Mischin caught the Attorney-General out in his cover-up of the Bell matter. The Attorney-General told the parliament last November, in what he claimed was a full explanation, that the first he became 'personally involved' in a dirty deal with his WA Liberal mates, which could have dudded the Commonwealth taxpayer of $300 million, was on 3 March last year. That turned out to be completely untrue. Mr Mischin says that Senator Brandis spoke to him about the Bell deal in early February—a month earlier. Now the Attorney-General is trying the oldest trick in the book in saying he 'can't recall' having that conversation with Mr Mischin. Some may think this Attorney-General is providing comic relief with his constant stuff-ups, but the truth is he is a danger to good lawmaking, a danger to the workings of this parliament and a danger to the rule of law. Do Australia a favour, Mr Turnbull—do something popular for once: do not pack this failing Attorney-General off to London; make him resign.
I remind the member for Isaacs to refer to members by their correct titles—handy just before question time. I refer to his last sentence.
I am pleased to inform the House that the WA state Liberal government has recently committed $140 million in funding towards the first stage of the master planned expansion of the Joondalup Health Campus. The major hospital is located in my electorate of Moore but essentially services patients from the neighbouring electorates of Pearce and Cowan. As it is located in one of the fastest-growing areas in Australia, with a 60 per cent projected increase in population over the next 20 years, there exists significant need for increased capacity to ensure that our hospital is able to meet the healthcare needs of the community. A blueprint has been prepared for a $375 million future expansion leading to 2026. This funding commitment represents the first stage of delivering the master plan and includes 90 new public hospital beds, eight new operating theatres and an expanded emergency department. Joondalup Health Campus is operated under a public-private partnership by Ramsay Health Care, and I wish to acknowledge the dedicated team of staff, led by CEO Kempton Cowan, for its contribution in delivering a very high standard of health care for our community. I commend the efforts of my state parliamentary colleagues Jan Norberger, the Hon. Albert Jacob and the Hon. Peter Katsambanis in securing state funding for this project, and I make the case for the federal government to support the future expansion of Joondalup Health Campus.
This is a government that is utterly consumed with the leadership of its party. That is why the ministers are out the door and the Prime Minister is in the House—they are all discussing the leadership. But you know the government is in real trouble when it is considering the member for Dickson as a leadership option. Day after day, he comes into this House and tries to remodel himself. He has a new suit and the head is buffed. He is in this chamber trying to remake himself, but we will not forget that this is a man who boycotted the apology to the stolen generation. This is a man who joked about climate change. This is a man who had Border Force in downtown Melbourne checking Australians' IDs. This is a man who was punted off the National Security Committee of cabinet by his colleagues—by this Prime Minister. This is a man who signed the Cambodian deal, which gave Hun Sen and the government of Cambodia $50 million of taxpayers' money, and got nothing back. I mean, Hun Sen only gets one Peter Dutton in a lifetime. That is the story—
The member for Wakefield will resume his seat. I have cautioned members enough on using correct titles.
In Canning, 16 per cent of families are currently jobless. That translates to over 3,000 children under the age of 15 growing up with no working role model for the skills and experience that employers look for. Last week I welcomed the Minister for Employment to Canning. We spoke with business owners and community leaders about the challenging local labour market and how the coalition is making it easier for businesses to give young people a go through the PaTH program. The $750 million PaTH initiative will equip the unemployed youth of Canning with the tools they need to get and keep a job. It will prepare them for the job market through industry focused training, help them develop basic skills in the workplace, trial them in the workplace through a four- to 12-week paid internship and hire them, by offering a youth bonus wage subsidy to businesses for the training and development of new employees.
In addition to the PaTH program, I am working with local governments and peak bodies on a project that will provide jobs, investment and development for the Peel region. Transform Peel comprises three main subprojects: the Peel Business Park, the Peel Food Zone and the Peel Integrated Water Initiative. This project has the potential to deliver 33,000 jobs, an economic output of $16 billion per annum, an export value of $2 billion per annum and a gross value-added of $5.3 billion per annum. This week, all WA Liberal members and senators co-signed a letter that I submitted to the Treasurer supporting this project. (Time expired)
Honourable members interjecting—
Members on both sides will cease interjecting. The member for Grayndler and the Leader of the House, we have not got to question time yet. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the Prime Minister said, 'It is an element in a part of every modern award that it is the intention that any changes to awards will not reduce the take-home pay of employees.' But last week's penalty rates decision, which the Prime Minister supports, will reduce take-home pay. The Prime Minister has the power to fix this problem. Why won't he? When will the Prime Minister join with Labor to change the law so the take-home pay of all workers is not cut?
I thank the honourable member for his question, underlining yet again his extraordinary hypocrisy on the matter of penalty rates. Not only is he an Olympic champion in issuing 457 visas, he is a double gold medallist in cutting penalty rates again and again. There is quite a pile. There are all of these EBAs, all with his signature, all casting away penalty rates—some of them in return for payments to the union. It is not as though he gave away the penalty rates for nothing. The union got a payment out of it. Yes, it was $25,000 a year, I think, for Cleanevent—a minor detail, of course, that he did not share with the workers he was representing. No, he did not do that. He kept them in the dark—that is what he did—while the union took the money.
The reference that I made earlier today was to the decision of the Fair Work Commission. Paragraph 2016, for those who care to read it, states:
The vast majority of modern awards … include a clause in the following terms:
‘Neither the making of this award nor the operation of any transitional arrangements is intended to result in a reduction in the take-home pay of employees …
That is in their decision. That is in the decision of the independent umpire. Then, as Jennie George reminded us earlier in the week and as we noted on Monday, the tribunal go through the various ways in which they are considering transitional arrangements to ensure that workers' take-home pay is not reduced overall as the penalty rate changes come into effect.
That is entirely consistent with the law. It is consistent with their practice. They have called for submissions. They are an expert, independent tribunal, which the Labor Party manned. Every person on that panel was appointed by the Labor Party. The reference to look at penalty rates was given to them by the Leader of the Opposition. Again and again, he promised to respect, support and endorse the decision of the independent tribunal. He accused us of not supporting the independent tribunal, but now it is him—one backflip after another. The Olympic champion of 457 visas and cutting penalty rates—he has no credibility, no integrity and no consistency on this or any other matter.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the importance of economic growth for jobs and investment? What threats are there to the Australian economy, including in my electorate of Groom?
I thank the honourable member for his question. I recall my visit to Toowoomba when we looked at the developments there, including the new airport. We also saw the optimism there for the big export opportunities that we have opened up. The new Wellcamp airport is one that will be taking the finest produce of the Darling Downs to the dining tables, the restaurants and the homes of Asia. It will be able to do that because of those big export deals that the Labor Party opposed but that we supported, we carried through and we delivered. We are seeing that again and again.
We saw on the weekend a cut in the Indonesian tariff on Australian sugar, making Australian sugar competitive with sugar from Thailand and the rest of ASEAN. There was also a big increase in the availability of Australian beef cattle live exports to Indonesia. Every day we are working hard to create more opportunities for Australians to export, for the Australian economy to grow and for businesses to create jobs. And we are having real success, thanks to the hard work and enterprise of millions of Australians, including those in the honourable member's electorate. We have seen strong economic growth in the last quarter. Our economy is now growing faster than any of the world's biggest economies, any of the G7. That is despite economic headwinds and the inevitable downturn in the mining and construction boom. Nonetheless, the resilience of the Australian economy, supported by pro-business policies and opportunities created by the government, is enabling us to forge ahead.
We know that there are, however, many Australians in some parts of Australia who are doing it tough. They need support too. One thing they need more than anything is affordable and reliable energy. Those parts of Australia—and I am thinking particularly of South Australia—which have seen a decline in their manufacturing base and are seeking to re-industrialise to draw in and retain the manufacturing industry, need affordable and reliable energy.
What they have from the Labor Party is the promise of a 50 per cent renewable target with no plan to implement it and no idea of how it can be paid for with a $48 billion cost. If we look at South Australia with 40 per cent renewables already, they cannot keep the lights on and, when they are on, they cannot afford to pay for them. That is Labor's vision. In every element of their policies there are higher taxes, unaffordable energy, unreliable energy and an anti-business agenda we have not seen for a generation. That is the modern Labor Party. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. We all know what the Prime Minister meant when he said he supports the decision. What government policy was the Prime Minister referring to this morning when he said: 'Well, there's the, there's no question for you if you, um, well, the evidence seems to be very strong that if you have, er, lower penalty rates, lower rates on a Sunday or a public holiday, then there is less then there is more incentive, if you like, it's more affordable for businesses to employ people. That's common sense. But that's one consideration.' Prime Minister, don't Australian workers deserve better than that?
I thank the honourable member for his comic interlude and recall on the subject of penalty rates his time as an organiser for the SDA, the shop, distributive and allied employees' trade union. In those times the SDA negotiated one trade-away of penalty rates after another to the point that a shop assistant working in an independent small business clothing shop, dress shop or menswear shop on a Sunday is being paid substantially more than a shop assistant in Target. So how does small business compete?
Why don't you tell Target to renegotiate their agreement?
The member for Wakefield is warned!
The honourable member has the answer: what small business should do is knuckle down to the unions! That is what they want.
The member for Wakefield has just shown his guilty conscience. I have only warned him. He does not need to walk. This is not a cricket match. I suspect he should remain packed up though!
In cricket, I think, when the batsman starts his walk he cannot change his mind and come back to the crease; he should have kept going!
The truth is—and the member for Watson knows this as well as the Leader of the Opposition and so many of the former union officials opposite—they know that their unions have traded away penalty rates again and again. The Leader of the Opposition, of course, is distinguished for trading them away in return for undisclosed cash payments to the union. That was the subject of condemnation in the royal commission report. But, right across the board, penalty rates have been compromised by those opposite.
What the Labor Party used to say for only about 120 years—from its foundation, in fact—was that the independent umpire in matters of fixing wages and fixing penalty rates should be respected.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney!
The Leader of the Opposition said that again and again until January, when he did a complete backflip. We respect the independent umpire. They have done a very thorough job. They are now looking at the transition of the changes. They have considered all the evidence from hundreds of witnesses in thousands of pages. That is their job. They have done a good and thorough job. Honourable members opposite, as Jennie George said, should be careful what they wish for if they want to walk away from supporting the independent umpire and pick up the industrial policy of the Greens. I say to the member for Melbourne—
Ms Butler interjecting—
The member for Griffith is warned.
that if plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery then he should be sincerely flattered, because the Labor Party have picked up his climate policy, his border protection policy and now his industrial relations policy.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
I have asked the member for Sydney to stop interjecting. I think we are about to replay the previous sitting week the way we are going. It is Thursday again.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on yesterday's strong national accounts? Will the Treasurer outline how a strong economy supports a balanced budget and gives hardworking Australians the confidence to get ahead?
I thank the member for Banks for his question and I commend him on the great work he is doing as the chair of the House Standing Committee on Economics, particularly in relation to taking up the issues in the banking system. I commend those committee members for the work they are doing in that area.
Yesterday's national accounts represented a vote of confidence by Australians in their own economy, working together with the government to ensure that we are doing our part to drive growth in our economy. Australia's economy is, once again, growing faster than every G7 country today. Business investment and consumer spending has improved. New business investment was up for the first time in 12 quarters and the contribution to growth from household consumption more than doubled in the December quarter. So I find it puzzling that the Leader of the Opposition has just been saying in the last day or so that Australians have been closing their wallets. The December quarter figures show that they have more than doubled their contribution. The confidence of the Australian consumer in the Australian economy was demonstrated.
In addition to that, both volumes and prices of our exports increased in the December quarter. We have seen an improvement in income and we have seen an improvement in the terms of trade over the last three quarters. What that has meant is that our current account deficit is at the lowest point, the narrowest point, since 1980. That is supported by those high export volumes and prices.
The resultant improvement in our terms of trade from commodity prices is very welcome, but you cannot build your budget on the vagaries of commodity prices. You cannot do that. An improvement in commodity prices does not give a leave pass to increase spending or step back from the job of budget repair. That is the very firm view of this government. Our fiscal strategy, which is published in the budget, is to reduce the deficit and to reduce debt on every opportunity, if there is any improvement in commodity prices or improvement in the parameters that would lead to that result. That is the very strong view of this government.
You do not chase the commodity prices up the hill or down the valley. What you do is focus on the structural integrity of your budget. That is why, under this government, we have reduced the growth in spending from over 3½ per cent when the Labor Party was running the books to less than two per cent. We have reduced the growth in debt from 34 per cent, which was what the annual growth in debt was growing at when the Labor Party was running the books. We have reduced that by two-thirds. We must continue to ensure that we do the job of budget repair by getting expenditure under control.
You have doubled the debt!
The member for Fenner!
Bills have already been through this House that were voted against by the Labor Party, who have refused to support the government to get expenditure under control. They have a simple message for the taxpayers of Australia: they want eight out of 10 income taxpayers going to work every day to pay for that welfare bill. They want them to pay more. (Time expired)
Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—
The member for Lyons will cease interjecting.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Terry works in a newsagent in my electorate. Terry says he works on Sundays and sacrifices time with his family and friends at important events like birthdays to provide for his partner and a 4½-year-old son. Terry stands to lose almost $4,000 a year because of the Prime Minister's support for cutting penalty rates. He says the cut to penalty rates will just mean the same work for less money. Why won't the Prime Minister use his power to stop Terry's pay cut?
Government members interjecting—
Members on my right will cease interjecting.
I thank the honourable member for her question. I answer the question in the words of her leader: 'An independent umpire is fundamental to the industrial relations system in Australia.'
A government member: Who said that?
That was said by her leader. He said:
I think it is an anathema to the best interests of working people to start handing to a politicised Parliament control of wage rates in this country. You know—
said the honourable member's leader—
I see some on the Greens and far left say, well that's a simple answer, don't have an independent umpire. My concern is that would be loading a gun for a future conservative Government to pull the trigger and attack penalty rates.
We are a conservative government—a Liberal-National government. We are supporting the independent umpire, which the honourable member's party established, referred the issue to, appointed the members of and stood beside and stood up for until political cynicism, populism, overtook them. They abandoned the principle that the Labor movement had adopted for 120 years.
I would like to inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the honourable Rob Borbidge, the former Premier of Queensland. On behalf of the House, we extend a very warm welcome. I would also like to welcome to the gallery this afternoon Mrs Heather Henderson, the daughter of Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Prime Minister. It was revealed in Senate estimates yesterday that 75 per cent of the contents of ration packs for Aussie diggers are foreign produced, including items such as plain biscuits, fruit cake, tea, coffee and tomato sauce. Even the toilet paper is from China. Does the Prime Minister agree that Australian troops serving our country should be supplied with Australian goods in their ration packs, which would also support Aussie food manufacturing? If so, how would the government rectify this situation?
I thank the honourable member for her question. The revised Commonwealth Procurement Rules came into effect on 1 March this year. Senator Xenophon, in fact, advocated for the changes. The Commonwealth is now required to assess the economic benefit to the Australian economy of each procurement. I am advised that the vast majority of items in ADF ration packs are Australian and New Zealand products. I am advised that the Department of Defence always looks to maximise Australian content, in stark contrast to the negligence of the Labor government during its six years.
Leaving aside the very important issue of the ADF ration packs, I would remind the honourable member, who, of course, represents an electorate in the state of South Australia, that during six years of Labor government not one Australian naval vessel was commissioned from one Australian yard—not one. The naval shipbuilding requirements of our nation—the defence of our nation—were set to one side in the sea of complacency and neglect that so characterised the government of which so many members opposite were part.
The Department of Defence awards these contracts for the ration packs to the winning tenderer based on quality and value for money to meet the ADF's high standards. I understand that this particular tender closed before the new procurement guidelines came into effect yesterday, 1 March.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline to the House how increased investment will lead to increased earnings and opportunities for businesses and hardworking Australians in Mackellar and elsewhere? Will he also outline to the House how alternative approaches to the government's plan pose a risk to increased investment?
I thank the member for Mackellar for his question. As a former small business owner himself, he will know and welcome the national accounts results that we saw yesterday. The national accounts, if you look at them over a period of time, show that since the end of the mine investment boom wages and company profits have been in very tough territory. Prior to yesterday's results, which were heavily influenced by the improved mining profits from the spike in commodity prices towards the end of last year, there has been a real challenge in the area of profits and wages over the last five years. In fact, in the three years prior to the December quarter's result, on average company profits had been falling by 0.2 per cent every quarter. For 12 successive quarters, private new investment had also been in decline. In those circumstances, when you have businesses under such strain and pressure, is it any wonder that that wage growth has also been subdued? Over the same period the growth in the compensation of employees shown in the national accounts was very modest, but it was positive and growing at 0.7 per cent per quarter.
The government understands that small and medium-sized businesses have been carrying an enormous burden in our economy. They have been putting their hands in their own pockets for years now in a tough environment—
Dr Leigh interjecting—
The member for Fenner is warned!
to ensure that their employees stay in work and are able to have even the modest increases in wages that have been achieved. As they put their hands in their pockets, they have looked to this government to do what we did in the budget and say to them, 'We are going to take the tax monkey off your back', so we are in a position to be able to support them in their ambitions for their businesses, to grow their businesses and to support higher wages for their employees.
You cannot give employees higher wages if your business is going backwards. You cannot get a job in a business that is closed. The recipe of those opposite, the recipe of the Labor Party—yesterday, it was amazing that the shadow Treasurer, for the first time in a long time, did not bother to mention the national accounts or put a statement out on it, and he sneered at the idea that companies might make profits in this country. That is the nature of the modern Labor Party—to attack those who put their hands in their own pockets to run small and medium-sized businesses to ensure that they can provide the wages and the jobs that Australians who work hard rely on. Those opposite oppose the policies that will support those businesses to put more people in jobs, to support those businesses to invest and grow. It is not a modern Labor Party—it is a dinosaur Labor Party, which is wedded to that old ideology of attacking businesses in the absolute joke of an idea that they think that will help workers. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Margarita is a single mother with two children who regularly works Sundays at a hotel. The Sunday penalty rates help Margarita put food on the table and buy shoes for her kids. She stands to lose thousands in take-home pay. She says, 'Everything is getting more difficult. The bills go up, so why is our wage going down? Where's the balance?' Can the Prime Minister explain why he is willing to intervene in the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal and the CFA decision but will do nothing to stop Margarita's pay cut?
The lady that the honourable member refers to, Margarita, may be affected by the penalty rate change in the manner he describes—
Ms Chesters interjecting—
The member for Bendigo is warned!
Mr Laundy interjecting—
The member for Reid is warned!
We have learned not to take uncritically assertions of fact from the opposition. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition, again and again, stated that he would support the decision of the Fair Work Commission. He gave them the reference to look at penalty rates. When he did that, do we think that the Leader of the Opposition imagined that the Fair Work Commission was going to increase Sunday penalty rates? Was that his plan?
Mr Champion interjecting—
The honourable member for Wakefield says no. He obviously must have felt they would stay exactly the same. What is the point of asking for a review if penalty rates are going to be unchanged? Then, just before the 2013 election, the same Leader of the Opposition, then the Minister for Workplace Relations, promised to give $300,000 to COSBOA, the small business peak body, to argue their case in the Fair Work Commission. Did he imagine that they were going to go in there and say, 'Our members want to pay higher penalty rates'? I do not think so. Did he think they were going to bother to go there and say they should be unchanged? He knew what COSBOA was going to say and he was going to pay them to say it. The hypocrisy of this Leader of the Opposition strains the boundaries of traditional political practice. He has moved into the post-truth environment with a vengeance.
Ms Catherine King interjecting—
The member for Ballarat is warned! The member for Ballarat is interjecting while I am warning her. The member for Lalor is also warned. She has been interjecting continuously for the last couple of days, but particularly loudly today. I remind the member for Bendigo that she has already been warned and she will not be warned again.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister advise the House on actions taken by the government to help hardworking Australian businesses capitalise on new export opportunities? How will this benefit our state of Western Australia?
I thank the member for Moore for his question, and I note his deep concerns about the importance of the resources sector for the Australian economy. Yesterday, as the Treasurer has indicated, the national accounts showed that fuel exports, driven in large part by new LNG plants in Australia, rose by almost 25 per cent. Liquefied natural gas will play an increasingly important role in Asia's energy needs. In fact, the International Energy Agency has assessed that by 2030 LNG demand will almost double. Australia is already the second-largest exporter of LNG, and over the next three or four years, due to large resource projects in Western Australia, we will become the largest exporter of LNG in the world—overtaking Qatar.
About two weeks ago I was able to visit Geoje in South Korea for the naming ceremony of the INPEX corporation's largest semi-submersible vehicle in the world. The Ichthys project LNG platform will be towed down to the Browse Basin and about 200 kilometres off the North West Shelf of Western Australia. During the construction phase of the Ichthys project, there were about 10,000 Australian jobs, and many of them were in Western Australia. And now, during the operation phase, there will be many jobs. It is estimated that the Ichthys project will produce about nine million tonnes of LNG a year, and 70 per cent of that is already onsold in long-term contracts to Japan. So this demonstrates the importance of LNG exports to our export income and therefore the strength of the Australian economy and the Western Australia economy.
It is quite apparent to those with an understanding of the resources sector that investment confidence must be maintained. I congratulate Premier Colin Barnett for his leadership and his vision in relation to large-scale resource projects.
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but bring on Barnaby!
But the member for Moore will be interested to know that the Western Australia Labor Party is dashing investor confidence, first, by admitting they had a 50 per cent renewable energy target and then by denying that they would bring it in after the election. And now we find that the Western Australian Labor Party is refusing to release its costings in advance of the election. How can investors have any confidence, let alone Western Australian voters, in yet another dishonest, deceptive Labor Party that should not ever be in government in Western Australia?
Mr Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. Linda lives in Katoomba in my electorate. Linda says she works on Sundays as a hotel chef because her rent is more than half her wages and she needs the money. Linda previously relied on Centrelink, but reskilled to become a chef. She is proud she got off Centrelink and into a job. Linda cannot understand why the Turnbull government wants to cut her wages. Why, when the Prime Minister has the power to act, is he refusing to stop Linda's pay cut?
I thank the honourable member for her question and for her description of her constituent Linda from Katoomba, who has retrained as a chef. That is a great success on Linda's behalf. I trust the honourable member will be advising her constituent that the decision about penalty rates is not a decision of the government. What the honourable member said in her question is quite misleading. It is a decision of the Fair Work Commission, an independent tribunal established by the honourable member's party, supported by the honourable member's party, endorsed repeatedly by her leader, who lacks both the courage and the courtesy to do anything other than turn his back in this House. He cannot take it. He is back again—that is good. That is good; a bit of common courtesy goes a long way.
The bottom line is it is a decision of an independent tribunal. There are transitional considerations being undertaken, as the Fair Work Commission have described, and they will seek to ensure that all workers covered by these changes will not have a reduction in take-home pay over all, as set out in the report from the paragraph I quoted earlier.
Ms Owens interjecting—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The member for Parramatta and the member for Moreton are once again cautioned. If the volume does not lower, I will be a lowering it very shortly.
Mr Speaker, my question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
Opposition members interjecting—
It's your fault, Ed!
My bad! It's my fault. I asked for him.
The member for Page can resume his seat.
I'm gone!
The member for Chifley is a regular interjector.
Mr Husic interjecting—
You are going to be doing whatever you are doing back in your office in a second. I am going to ask the member for Page to repeat his question. I think I have made it pretty clear there are a number of people who have been warned. There is also a number of regular customers, and one of them is pointing now. Yes, Member for Moreton, I will have no hesitation—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
You can just leave now. I am addressing the House. It will make it much quicker. Just leave now under 94(a).
He was yelling the entire time!
The member for Morton will leave immediately!
The member for Morton then left the chamber.
The member for Page can begin his question again.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the Australian agriculture sector is driving growth in the economy? What does this mean for the horticulture sector, particularly for expanding businesses like Mountain Blue Farms in my electorate of Page? Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of any threats to the sector and the thousands of hardworking regional Australians it employs?
I thank the honourable member for his question and note that in his electorate the blueberry sector has had a record harvest of 11,000 tonnes, worth $218 million, in that sector of our economy. Of course it is part of what has been an incredible result for Australia. We had 1.1 per cent GDP for the last quarter, and no sector has contributed more than agriculture. We have been working hard on this side of the House: we now have record beef prices, record meat sheep prices. In fact, even our wool prices have never been higher since 1987 or 1988. We have a turnaround in contracts for wine, new markets. All these things are now contributing and are assisting the 322,000-plus people who are directly employed by agriculture. And you can see it in a seminal way in a B-double that you would take to Roma, which is in Queensland. At the start, when the Labor Party was in, you would get about $60,000 for it. Now you get about $90,000-plus for it—an absolute increase in people's standard of living. And this has been supported by three free trade agreements—
Mr Watts interjecting—
The member for Gellibrand will leave under standing order 94(a).
The member for Gellibrand then left the chamber.
nine new live animal destinations; 100 per cent write-off for water; 100 per cent write-off for fencing; write-off over three years for grain storage—you can see that in the member for Parkes' electorate; the dog fences we are rolling out so that you can get sheep back into areas; the $2½ billion water policy.
You always wonder: does a difference in government make a difference? I looked at the last 12 months of Labor. In the last 12 months, we have gone up by 23.7 per cent. In the last 12 months of the Labor government, growth was minus 0.5 per cent. That was the difference. They were minus 0.5 per cent; we are positive 23.7 per cent, an absolute record. So I thought I would try and find out about the Labor Party's policy and I found this seminal tome by Bill Shorten. If you want to understand the next Prime Minister of Australia, this is essential reading. So I decided to read it. He had three pages on agriculture:
A hotter drier climate combined with more extreme weather events is also making life difficult for Australians in some of our oldest industries, notably agriculture. All these changes force us to re-assess how Australian industries work and what place each has in our … future.
He even doubts its future. He goes on. If you were not depressed by then, he goes on to say:
Higher temperatures will produce more crop-damaging pests. … Three-quarters of the land Australia currently uses for viticulture will be unsuitable.
And on and on it goes, until you feel like topping yourself. This is exactly the sort of negative—
The Deputy Prime Minister will withdraw that remark.
I withdraw. The reality of course in agriculture is this: this is exactly what is happening, mate. This is exactly where it is going, and we have turned around Australia's agricultural output, because we are the better government.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Ruby lives in my electorate and works two casual jobs while studying part time at university. She says she works in retail on Sundays because it makes a huge difference to her low income. Ruby says this pay cut would be devastating, and the owner of the business will just keep the money taken from her pay. Why won't the Prime Minister stand up for the penalty rates of workers like Ruby and use his power to stop the pay cut?
I thank the honourable member for his question. The fundamental issue for the Labor Party here is: do they support the independent umpire in industrial relations? That is the fundamental question. It was a question that need not have been posed at all a few months ago, until the Leader of the Opposition abandoned a 120-year commitment to the independent industrial umpire. Are honourable members opposite suggesting that, if members of parliament think that the decision in the next minimum wage case is 50c out or 40c out, there should be an act of parliament to correct it? Are they going to suggest that?
An opposition member: No.
The honourable member says 'no'. That is the fundamental point.
The Fair Work Commission considered carefully the impact on wages and it considered carefully the impact on employment. It heard evidence from many small-business operators saying that a reduction in penalty rates on Sundays and public holidays would enable them to be open when they are not open now, employ staff when they cannot currently employ them. And this is how the Fair Work Commission described that evidence—this is a commission, every member of which was appointed by the Labor Party on a reference from the Leader of the Opposition, chaired by Mr Ross, a former official of the ACTU. The commission said the evidence given by hospitality industry employers was 'cogent', 'relevant' and 'persuasive'.
That was the Fair Work Commission's judgement after considering that evidence. They went through one case after another of people running restaurants, running hotels, who said they would be open longer. They heard Mr Trengove, owner and manager of the Mulga Hill Tavern in Broken Hill, with 33 employees. He said the hotel is run by skeleton staff on Sundays and public holidays—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition on a point of order.
On direct relevance, the Prime Minister is talking about the hospitality industry. The question is about the retail industry. The Prime Minister is talking about the Fair Work decision, and the question goes directly to why he will not act now.
Mr Pyne interjecting—
Stay at the dispatch box, please. The Leader of the House keeps interjecting. I am trying to hear the point of order. It is really delaying question time. He needs to cease interjecting, particularly when I am trying to hear a point of order that he expects me to rule on. I say to the leader of the House, if he is interjecting and I cannot hear the point of order correctly, I might well just go with it. The Manager of Opposition Business will begin his point of order again.
On direct relevance: the Prime Minister is talking about the hospitality industry. The question was about the retail industry. The Prime Minister is talking only about the Fair Work decision, and the question was about why he will not act to intervene on it. On every level of this answer, it is not relevant to the issues asked in the question.
I thank the Manager of Opposition Business for his point of order. As I said yesterday, the Prime Minister needs to be relevant to the question by remaining on the policy topic. Whilst I know that is frustrating, I am not going to cover all that ground again and detain question time other than to say the standing orders, of course, mean that the opposition gets to write the question but they do not get to write the answer. The Prime Minister is relevant, and I am listening closely to his answer. The Prime Minister has the call.
The commission is now turning its attention to how to transition these changes in penalty rates so as to achieve the objective that workers' take-home pay overall is not reduced. One of the ways it has canvassed doing that is by bringing the changes in over a number of years. I heard today the Leader of the Opposition denounce that as a ridiculous suggestion. He said that was a ridiculous idea. When modern awards came into operation in 2010, when the Leader of the Opposition was the relevant minister, they were phased in over five years. It is a longstanding practice to ensure that the objective of modern awards—namely, that changes do not result in a reduction in take-home pay—is achieved. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Will the minister outline to the House how Australia's strong export growth is supporting our economy and creating jobs for hardworking Australians; how does the government's economic plan help family budgets; and is the minister aware of any alternative approaches to trade?
I thank the member for North Sydney for his question. All members on this side of the House are very focused on implementing the government's strong, positive plan to keep growing export markets for our country, because we on this side of the chamber fundamentally know that it is through driving exports, through opening up markets for Australian businesses, that we will continue to drive economic growth and continue to drive jobs for Australians. Indeed, we saw only yesterday, with the national accounts that came out, that exports contributed in a very major way to Australia's economic growth. In fact, the strength of our commodities exports contributed to just under half of the growth in the year to December. Our strong export performance delivered Australia its largest ever trade surplus, of some $4.7 billion, for the December quarter and our lowest current account deficit since 2001. It is this export growth, the work that this coalition government has done in opening up global markets for Australian exporters, that is part of the reason why we have enjoyed 26 years of continuous economic growth, and the benefits that flow from that are being felt across the Australian community.
This coalition government remains focused on providing opportunities for Australian exporters, and that is not confined just to exports. Through our consistent approach and our commitment to free trade agreements, we are also seeing benefits flow for Australians in terms of the cost of living. The fact is that our commitment to a liberalised trading environment, including through bilateral and multilateral agreements, has meant that the cost of major Australian household appliances, such as fridges and washing machines, has fallen by 14 per cent over the last 20 years, which means a difference of roughly $75 on a family top-loader that is retailing for around 500 bucks. The cost of audiovisual equipment has also fallen by up to 91 per cent. This means that televisions and radios are significantly cheaper today than they were 20 years ago—a consequence of putting in place lower tariff barriers for those that are importing into Australia. These are making a material difference to the budgets of Australians all around the country, helping them to pay their bills and making sure that they get access to good-quality products as well. It is through our commitment to open markets that we are making sure that we are making these items more affordable for all Australians.
We are rolling back prices. We are seeing a different approach from the Labor Party, though. We are rolling back prices, but the Labor Party, unfortunately, is rolling back policies—
Opposition members interjecting—
and the consequence of that is that we are seeing the Labor Party adopt a much more revisionist approach with respect to trade policy. They are actually crab-walking backwards, away from a good, solid approach.
I could not have been clearer before about people who have been warned, and people who interject regularly have been warned. The member for Fenner has been warned; I have warned him a couple of times. He will leave under 94(a).
The member for Fenner then left the chamber.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the Prime Minister has heard from just some of the nearly 700,000 Australians who will have their pay cut because of the Prime Minister's support for the penalty rates decision.
Government members interjecting—
The Prime Minister has the power to stop these pay cuts, and he will not.
Government members interjecting—
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The level of interjections on my right is now far too high—I am going to ask the Leader of the Opposition to begin his question again—and, if that continues, there will be members joining the member for Fenner and others. The Leader of the Opposition will begin his question again.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the Prime Minister has heard from just some of the nearly 700,000 Australians who will have their pay cut because of the Prime Minister's support for the penalty rates decision. The Prime Minister has the power to stop this decision, and he will not stop the cuts. Why is this Prime Minister doing everything he can to give big business a tax cut but doing absolutely nothing to stop workers getting a pay cut?
Nobody in this place has done more to give workers a cut in penalty rates than the Leader of the Opposition! He is a man with a record. What about the workers at Melbourne Olympic Park? What about them? They did not get penalty rates. Oh, yes, they got 25 per cent extra to work—
The Leader of the Opposition knows the rule on props.
apart from that, nothing. He talks about 700,000 workers being affected. Well, we have seen the reports today that there are around 286,000. That is a very substantial number, but it is not 700,000, and it shows the way—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon!
the honourable member is loose with the truth. We have heard this week about his great track record in trading away penalty rates for the workers that he represented. We have heard about how he traded away penalty rates for the workers at Cleanevent, some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, and got a cash payment back to the AWU. He did that.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon is warned!
But it gets worse than that. When in government, this Leader of the Opposition, against the advice of his department—so it is reported—issued 457 visas for fast-food workers for McDonald's.
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition.
I seek leave to move the following motion—
An opposition member interjecting—
Yes. You can run but you can't hide, mate. Let's bring it on.
No. The Leader of the Opposition needs to resume his seat. I am sorry I recognised the Leader of the Opposition, because he can only jump in the middle of an answer on a point of order. He can certainly jump at the end of the answer.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
Member for Grayndler, it might be your 21st anniversary in this place, but I do not want you finished before the end of question time. I am not going to allow that device to be used in the middle of an answer. The only reason I will be recognising members in the middle of an answer is on a point of order. The Prime Minister has the call.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition again and again traded away penalty rates for the low-paid workers under his union that he was meant to be representing. He had the power not to sell them out, but he did. He stood up and said again and again that he supported the independent umpire and then he ran away from that. He does not have the courage to stick with one position for any period of time that commits him to being a man of integrity. He backs away from supporting the independent umpire, which has been a fundamental part of the Labor Party's approach to industrial relations for over a century. He has no integrity or consistency. This is hypocrisy from the Leader of the Opposition. Now, as he starts to try to revive the momentum of his blundering outburst a moment ago, we will see how he goes— (Time expired)
I seek leave to move the following motion:
That the House:
(1) notes:
(a) unless this Parliament acts, the decision to cut the Sunday penalty rates of nearly 700,000 Australian workers will come into force as early as 1 July this year;
(b) on Monday, the Labor Party sought to introduce legislation to stop this pay cut;
(c) on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said he supported the decision to cut penalty rates;
(d) the Prime Minister has been willing to legislate when he has objected to past decisions of Australian courts, tribunals and commissions including;
(i) legislating to overturn a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal decision;
(ii) legislating to pre-empt a Fair Work Commission decision about the Country Fire Authority; and
(iii) introducing legislation to overturn a decision of the Full Bench of the Federal Court about Native Title;
(e) the Prime Minister has the power to stop these pay cuts for nearly 700,000 Australians; and
(f) under the Turnbull Government, when companies receive record profits, they get a tax cut, and when wages flatline, workers get a pay cut;
(2) calls on the Government to legislate to prevent the pay cut from going ahead; and
(3) agrees therefore, to suspend so much of standing orders as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition immediately introducing the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, the bill being given priority over all business for passage through all stages without interruption, and if consideration of the bill has not concluded by 3.30 pm today, any necessary questions to complete consideration of the bill being put without delay.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith:
That the House:
(1) notes:
(a) unless this Parliament acts, the decision to cut the Sunday penalty rates of nearly 700,000 Australian workers will come into force as early as 1 July this year;
(b) on Monday, the Labor Party sought to introduce legislation to stop this pay cut;
(c) on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said he supported the decision to cut penalty rates;
(d) the Prime Minister has been willing to legislate when he has objected to past decisions of Australian courts, tribunals and commissions including;
(i) legislating to overturn a Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal decision;
(ii) legislating to pre-empt a Fair Work Commission decision about the Country Fire Authority; and
(iii) introducing legislation to overturn a decision of the Full Bench of the Federal Court about Native Title;
(e) the Prime Minister has the power to stop these pay cuts for nearly 700,000 Australians; and
(f) under the Turnbull Government, when companies receive record profits, they get a tax cut, and when wages flatline, workers get a pay cut;
(2) calls on the Government to legislate to prevent the pay cut from going ahead; and
(3) agrees therefore, to suspend so much of standing orders as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition immediately introducing the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, the bill being given priority over all business for passage through all stages without interruption, and if consideration of the bill has not concluded by 3.30 pm today, any necessary questions to complete consideration of the bill being put without delay.
This is the most out-of-touch government in Australian history. You could not write the plot—a conservative government offering on one hand tax cuts for multinationals but on the other hand pay cuts for low-paid workers; a government which will fight tooth and nail to give big banks a tax cut but do absolutely nothing to stop a pay cut for hundreds of thousands of workers. The motto of the Turnbull government is: tough on those who are doing it tough and soft on the big end of town.
This pay cut is not about a spreadsheet, it is not about a set of figures on a desk or a table and it is not about simple economics; it is about the lives that people live. Today in question time several individual stories of people who will be affected by this pay cut from 1 July were put to the Prime Minister. What response did we get from this out-of-touch Prime Minister? 'It's not my business. It's not my decision. It's not my problem.' What they do instead is just attack the Labor Party. The problem they have got here is that this pay cut could not have come at a worse time for Australians.
I acknowledge that the big end of town is doing well under the Turnbull government, but what I do not accept is that, when wages growth flatlines, somehow cutting wages is an economic recipe for including all Australians in our prosperity. It is incredibly interesting that yesterday in the national accounts, which the Treasurer is so proud of, corporate profits were shown to be the highest in 40 years, but what we see is that wages in this country have risen at the lowest level in 20 years—and, yes, I do think that last fact is a shame.
We see young people getting it in the neck again. This is a government at war with young people. It wants to increase their HECS, it wants to make it more expensive to go to TAFE with the loan system it has, and what it also wants to do is make it impossible for them to buy their first home with its trenchant defence of negative gearing in the future, and now we have a pay cut which will disproportionally fall on the young. No wonder young people are bemused at it being called the 'Gilmore gift', because young people do not deserve the sorts of attacks they are getting from this government.
Then, of course, there are women. If we hear one more time—
Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—
The member for McEwen is warned!
from the Prime Minister that women hold up half the sky and then he is not prepared to see them get half the pay, it shows what a rank hypocrite this man is. Then look at the regions. My goodness me! What did the regions ever do to deserve Barnaby Joyce? And now they have this pay cut too.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. I have made myself very clear on numerous occasions that members will be referred to by their correct titles. I have sat the Deputy Prime Minister down and refused to allow him to complete his answer. The Leader of the Opposition has latitude, but it only goes so far. He will refer to members by their correct titles. The Leader of the Opposition.
The Leader of the National Party—the hostages to One Nation; they could not learn to fight with them. What we have seen is some of these coalition members of parliament saying: 'It's a minor matter. It is a marginal matter.' No, it is not a minor or marginal matter for most Australians. What has been the defence that we have seen from the government? I have never seen so many startled wallabies in the headlights as this government when this decision came down. What its first defence has been is that, through enterprise bargaining, unions have negotiated on behalf of members flexibilities in return for increases in pay. What this government wilfully chooses to do is confuse a pure pay cut with the process of enterprise bargaining in this country.
Then we had the ghost of previous banquets, Senator Abetz, making his contribution: the proposal of grandfathering. I noticed that the Prime Minister was saying today, almost in a parallel universe, 'But the commission says that there will be a transition, so no-one will be worse off.' No, Prime Minister, that is not correct. The decision means that on 1 July there will be a reduction in penalty rates.
Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—
The member for McEwen can leave under 94(a).
The member for McEwen then left the chamber.
The Prime Minister is trying to pretend and say that there is nothing to see here, and then he gets onto his great friend, the independent umpire. This is a fellow who, when it suits him, not only trashed the decision of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal but sacked the whole umpire. Last year we saw the farcical images of the Prime Minister donning some CFA gear and saying, 'I'm with you all the way,' and then he came in and pre-empted a decision of the Fair Work Commission. So they are happy to do it when it suits their political cause. I ask the Prime Minister, though: what political cause could you possibly be championing when you choose not to do it on behalf of 700,000 Australians? There will be a reduction.
As for Senator Abetz's proposition, where you could just grandfather everything and anyone currently getting the penalty rates will be all right and any new workers in the future will have to take their chances, what a wilfully mischievous idea. In industries like retail and hospitality, with a 50 per cent turnover in a year, what chance do people on the old rates stand for employment when an employer can pay someone to do the same job as they are doing on the new rates? And what chance do the companies that choose to stick with the old rates have in competition when the system will allow new companies to compete with them and pay their people less? Grandfathering is not the solution. Labor's solution is the only solution to protect the take-home pay of Australian workers.
What amazes me most about this whole debate is when the government say, 'It's not our decision.' What they have been trying to say that, because it is the umpire, they do not have to cast an opinion on the merit or the morality of the decision. When you become Prime Minister, your job is not to find somewhere to hide to avoid making a decision. People expect governments to intervene in the community when there are decisions made which are harming a lot of people. There is no government worth its salt in this country that could sit on its hands and do nothing to protect the conditions of 700,000 Australians.
Then he says that this is not his government's decision; it is someone else's decision. If it is not his government's decision, why was his government making submissions to these hearings? If it is not his government's decision, what will it do when the next hearing comes along? The government cannot hide in the middle of the traffic; it cannot sit on the fence.
The Prime Minister said he supports the decision. What he needs to do is reverse his position and no longer support this position. It is an out-of-touch government backing in an out-of-touch proposition. The future of this country is not going to be found in a race to the bottom by cutting workers' conditions. The future of this country and productivity will not be found by reducing the pay of the lowest paid in this country. The future of this country will not be found in standing by and cutting the penalty rates of hardworking workers. There is no compensation for them. Labor will fight this issue in the House, we will fight it when we go out of this place, and we will fight it all the way to the next election. (Time expired)
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
The counsel assisting the royal commission into trade union corruption summed up the Cleanevent enterprise agreement, which the Leader of the Opposition and the AWU conducted, very well when he said:
… the benefits to Cleanevent and the AWU are obvious.
The persons who miss out are the workers.
Ms Rishworth interjecting—
The member for Kingston is warned!
The persons who missed out there were the workers.
Ms Rishworth interjecting—
The member for Kingston will leave under 94(a).
The member for Kingston then left the chamber.
Again and again, the Leader of the Opposition traded away the penalty rates of the members of the AWU in return for deals with employers. Whether it was the Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust, whether it was Chiquita Mushrooms—more low-paid workers—or whether it was Cleanevent, Cirque du Soleil or Cut & Fill Pty Ltd, right across the board, one agreement after another, penalty rates were negotiated away by the Leader of the Opposition. He is as experienced in trading away penalty rates as he is in giving away 457 visas—an Olympic champion; a double gold medallist.
The Fair Work Commission he is almost at the point of declaring enemies of the people—we can see it is getting pretty close to that. But let us just go through them: President Ross, hand-picked by the Leader of the Opposition when he was workplace relations minister, formerly an assistant secretary of the ACTU; Vice President Catanzariti, also hand-picked by the Leader of the Opposition when he was workplace relations minister; Deputy President Asbury, promoted by the Leader of the Opposition when he was workplace relations minister; Commissioner Hampton, appointed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was workplace relations minister; and Commissioner Lee, hand-picked by Chris Evans when he was workplace relations minister, and a former Australian Services Union official. So this is a panel every member of which was there because of a decision by a Labor government. They considered this matter about penalty rates on a reference by the Labor Party. I quote the Leader of the Opposition when he said, as minister:
Under the fair go workplace system Labor put in place, penalty rates in modern awards are set by the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia, after extensive consultations with employer representatives and unions. The tribunal is currently holding a major check-up of the operation of penalty rates and public holidays in modern award rates.
Employers, employees and their representatives are able to appear before the independent umpire and put their views forward. That's a fair system, one that balances the rights of employers to make a profit with the rights of employees to fair treatment.
And, as to the suggestion from the Greens that parliament should intervene, he dismissed that. He said that would be 'playing with fire'. He described the Greens as occupying a 'sideshow position'. And he said, remember:
… what the government has the power to put in, a future government has the power to dismantle. The independent umpire, the system of conciliation and arbitration, has served this nation well for 120 years.
Bill Shorten, doorstop interview, Geelong, 16 May 2016. And 120 years of Labor Party history would have supported him. But now it is abandoned—thrown away, in a desperate political populist move, and of course promoting a monstrous falsehood of the kind for which he is famous: the suggestion that a decision of the Fair Work Commission is a decision of the government. So was it the government's decision to strike the minimum wage at $17.70? Will it be the government's decision to increase it this year? This is absurd. He knows, and Australians know: this is a decision of an independent expert tribunal.
The Fair Work Commission carefully examined the case presented by unions and employers and their representatives, and it concluded, as I said earlier, that they found the evidence from the hospitality sector—that a decrease in penalty rates would result in more jobs, more employment and more opportunities for young people to get some work on the weekend—cogent and convincing and persuasive. And they made exactly the same finding in respect of the evidence of the retail sector. These are the words of the Fair Work Commissioner; these are the words of the man shortly to become the enemy of the people, according to the Labor Party, President Ross; this is what he said about the retail penalty rate awards: 'While these provisions no doubt have some history, they are plainly inconsistent and appear to lack logic and merit.' That was his judgement. That was the Fair Work Commission's judgement. They have come to that conclusion and they have proposed some changes.
To ensure that workers are not worse off in terms of their pay packet, they have set out the mechanism for doing that. And they have described how, when the modern awards came into effect in 2010, they were phased in over five years; they have suggested they could phase these in over a period of at least two years. So they have set out a road map to ensure that workers are not worse off in terms of their pay packet. This is a carefully considered, lengthy examination, doing exactly what the Leader of the Opposition asked them to do. We respect this independent institution. We respect this independent umpire. The Labor Party, for 120 years, used to, but now it does no longer.
The Labor Party is not only threatening the integrity of this industrial relations independent umpire; it is threatening the jobs of every Australian. It has a set of policies, every single one of which is guaranteed to discourage investment and employment. They want to have higher taxes on business, in a competitive world where the Governor of the Reserve Bank himself points out that we need to be competitive in terms of tax. Labor is saying, 'No, it's time to soak business and get them to pay higher taxes.' And what will happen then, when businesses relocate overseas? What will happen when they take their business overseas, when they do not expand in Australia and when they do not move to Australia? That will be the consequence of Labor's populist approach to politics.
And then we see their approach to energy. Fundamental for every business is affordable and reliable energy. Labor have shown us what they do in South Australia—a state which is struggling, with manufacturing industries closing, desperately needing to reindustrialise. It has the least reliable and the most expensive electricity in Australia, courtesy of the Labor Party.
We have also seen their approach to trade—jumping on the protectionist bandwagon. In the last national accounts, we saw record figures for agricultural exports, as our exporters are taking advantage of those big export markets. We have opened them up; Labor would shut them down. We have been able to get greater access for all of our exporters, whether it is cattle, whether it is sugar, whether it is wool or whether it is wheat. We have been able to do that right across the board. Labor opposed those free trade agreements—particularly, and most disgracefully, the China FTA.
As far as company tax is concerned, remember that it is not so long ago that the member for McMahon—who is no longer with us—wrote a book extolling the virtue of reducing company tax and said it was a 'Labor thing to do', citing Paul Keating. Then we had the Leader of the Opposition in this place saying that reducing business taxes increased productivity, increased investment, increased opportunity and increased jobs. He was right then, but he is wrong now, because what he is seeking to do, yet again, is turn Australians against each other, turn workers against business, divide the country, stifle investment and stifle employment—all in his campaign to do anything to secure election to government on the basis of a populist anti-business campaign. He has no principle, no consistency and no integrity. It is a chronicle of hypocrisy posing as a political platform.
Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—
The member for Lyons is warned.
Well, wakey, wakey everybody! This is an important suspension motion—that is why I seconded it—because this is a very important issue. This goes to whether this parliament should support low-paid workers in this country. The argument that has been posed by the Prime Minister—the only argument—is that a decision was made by the independent umpire. Well, let's be very clear here: in this place, this Prime Minister has actually contravened decisions of independent umpires on at least three occasions. Let's be very clear here. Within one sitting day of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal safe rates order coming into effect, the government introduced legislation with the intention to cancel the order and indeed legislated to abolish the tribunal. Within seven sitting days of the resumption of parliament, the government legislated to restrict paid firefighters' bargaining rights. And, within one sitting day of the McGlade decision, the government rushed legislation through the House. It is a fig leaf for the Prime Minister to hide behind the fact that the independent umpire made this decision.
This decision will hurt Australians. If this Prime Minister had any fairness and any strength in him, he would defend those workers; he would join Labor to defend those workers. So I asked myself: why is it, given the precedents he has set himself, that he has not intervened and joined Labor to support those workers? It may well be that he wants to save face. I understand: he has made the wrong call, he feels embarrassed and he does not want to change his mind. He is a very smart man—just ask him! But the fact is that there might be another reason. If you go to a paragraph in his contribution to the Work Choices debate, when he voted for Work Choices, he said the following:
You have to let the free market do its work and let the cost of setting the clearing price—be it for labour, shares, home units or loaves of bread—be as low as possible.
So, effectively, what he said was, 'Let the market rip.' That is what he meant when he said that.
The fact is that that laissez faire view—that 'let the market rip' view—may well be a popular view at merchant banker luncheons or on yachts in Sydney Harbour, but I can assure you of this: the Australian public do not hold that view. The Australian public believe in fairness and decency, and they would expect their Prime Minister to defend workers in this country, not hide behind a fig leaf to attack them.
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
The Minister for Urban Infrastructure will cease interjecting.
I tell you what: I will back this Leader of the Opposition to defend workers any day before I would back this Prime Minister. The only time he seems to get excited is when he defends banks—when he intervenes to oppose the royal commission on banks. In fact, the Prime Minister is the shop steward of banks; let's be honest.
There is a more powerful way of putting this and a more serious way of putting this. It is really an utterance of so many workers who have been referred to in question time today. I just want to finish on one. Ruby, who lives in Newstead and works in retail, said: 'I am unable to live pay cheque to pay cheque at the moment. I rarely save money. Losing that bit extra makes it a bit harder. People like me in my situation, we spend money on little luxuries that go back into the community and it means I'll have less money to do that, pay the rent and other essentials.'
Some people might find that funny. I do not find that funny; I find it tragic that those members on the other side do not understand that this decision will have dire effects on hundreds of thousands of Australians. Yet this Prime Minister, who has the power to intervene and join Labor and defend these workers, refuses to do so. I do not find that funny at all. Quite frankly, I find it an outrage.
I believe the Prime Minister has an opportunity here. For the last four days he has defended his decision not to join Labor, but I think he should rethink this. This decision by the independent umpire, if implemented, will hurt a lot of people. It is up to the Prime Minister: he can either keep laughing at the anecdotes and the statements made by workers, or get behind these workers and look after them. Join Labor and do that, Prime Minister.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Members, either leave the chamber or resume your seats.
I note that it is the 21st anniversary today of the class of '96. Together with the member for Jagajaga and the member for Hunter, we make up a very select group. I do note that Labor are now a majority of the class of '96. We certainly were not at the time!
I thank the member for Grayndler for that. I am a member of the class of 2001. Can I just say that 2 March 1996 was a happy day for both of us, for different reasons.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Grayndler proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government’s failure to invest in productivity boosting infrastructure.
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—
One of the advantages of being in government is that you have access to the ideas of some pretty smart people, and the government should start listening to them. Last Friday, the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, had this to say:
I have been saying this for some years now: with interest rates so low right around the world, including here, we have been trying to induce households to spend money through lower interest rates. It would be a better strategy to create new assets rather than current consumption. The best new assets to create in our country at the moment are infrastructure assets, particularly in transportation networks.
That follows similar comments from Glenn Stevens, his predecessor. It follows the comments last week from the former Secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry. He said:
… we do not have the infrastructure capacity to support today’s population, far less the population of the future.
In the first two years of this government we saw a 20 per cent decline in public sector infrastructure investment. Every single one of the current government's 12 quarters that they have been in office has had less public infrastructure investment than all 21 quarters when we were in government from the time of our first budget in the June 2008 quarter right through to September 2013. When we came to office in 2007, we were ranked 20th in the OECD for investment in infrastructure as a proportion of GDP. When we left office, we were ranked first—No. 1. We are not any more.
What we see from this government is policy failure. It is policy failure based upon ideology. It is policy failure based upon the fact that when they came to office they made a decision to stop all public transport infrastructure investment—money that was in the budget for the Cross River Rail in Brisbane, the Melbourne Metro, the Gawler line electrification in Adelaide and public transport in Perth.
If you want an example of the government's infrastructure failure, you can have a look at the difference between the rhetoric and the reality. Minister after minister will use this fantasy figure of a $50 billion infrastructure plan. It is a nonsense. The budget papers show that the figure is $34 billion up to the year 2019-20 and then $8 billion into the future until some unspecified time. They are simply making it up as they go along. Indeed, they do not even invest what they say they will. In their 2014 budget they had an undertaking for $8 billion in the last financial year, 2015-16. The actual final budget outcome for investment was $5½ billion. In the face of these facts we have Orwellian propaganda. In the lead-up to the election in the first half of last year, they actually cut the infrastructure budget some $18 million to fund infrastructure ads on TV.
The government have no plan for productivity, traffic congestion or housing affordability. The examples are there. The East West Link in Victoria has seen 45c for every dollar invested. If anyone on the other side wants to give me 100 bucks, I will give them back $45 the next time I see them and we will call it a good deal! That is the way that they see investment in infrastructure.
With WestConnex in Sydney, the tunnel has begun but they do not quite know where it is coming up. Last week residents in my electorate got told that it was a good idea to have a construction site virtually on the grounds of Leichhardt high school. They would not do it at Newington. That would not do it at Trinity Grammar. But apparently a local public high school is fair game and does not matter. In a letter that went to residents, the government actually said that they were still working out the final route. They have begun the project and they have begun the tunnel; they just do not know where it is coming out! That is an example of failure from this government.
But they have learnt nothing. On the Perth Freight Link, they are committing the same mistakes over and over again. It was hauled out of a Wheaties box in the 2014 budget. At the time, the WA parliamentary secretary for transport, Jim Chown, told a parliamentary committee:
… at this stage we have not actually got plans that are worthy of public scrutiny …
All these years later they still do not have a plan that is worthy of public scrutiny. We ask in this parliament of the Prime Minister, who flicked it to his minister: what about the three kilometres in between where the road stops and where the port actually is? The port is on the waterfront. You cannot move the port. You have to take the road to the port—but it is stopping three kilometres short. The minister did not even know that that was the case. The Prime Minister did not know. When he went to Perth on the one visit of his campaign—he will not be back there again, I am sure—he still did not know. He said, 'There will be another final stage.' But we asked in Senate estimates this week about this so-called final stage, and of course the department said they have not received any information about it. Mr Roland Pittar of the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development said:
We have not seen a draft project proposal report for that.
The government are literally making it up as they go along.
But it is worse than that because of what they are saying will happen with this dud proposal if Labor is elected on 11 March. Let's be very clear: Mark McGowan has a mandate to not proceed with the Perth Freight Link and to instead fund Perth's Metronet and a range of road projects that actually are ready to go, will improve road safety and productivity and will go to an end point.
What he has said is: they will hold over that $1.2 billion. Just like they are treating the people of Victoria with contempt—which is receiving 7.7 per cent of the national infrastructure spend, with one in four Australians, with it being the fastest-growing state in Australia and having the fastest-growing city in Australia, Melbourne—they will hold the people of Western Australia to ransom. It stands in stark contrast to what we did in government—Gateway WA, Perth City Link, the Swan Valley Bypass, the Tonkin Highway, the Leach Highway, the Great Northern Highway, the North West Coastal Highway, Esperance port, the upgrade to the transcontinental railway, the upgrade to the state's grain rail network—which was a contribution of $135 million. Then this mob's idea of a project is either to go and open a project so they have had something to do with it or—and sometimes they are quite creative—change the name and pretend it is a new project. A new name is not a new project. The Swan Valley Bypass is the same as NorthLink. It was funded by us.
The fact is that we on this side of the House look forward to working with a Labor government in WA to invest in infrastructure, support jobs and support productivity.
I welcome this debate. I know it is the member for Grayndler's birthday. It is very kind of him to give me this present. I do appreciate your generosity, member for Grayndler, in giving me the opportunity to come here today and put on the public record some of the facts.
The member for Grayndler has come to the dispatch box and whinged and complained, but he did not want to actually talk about any of the facts and go into this government's $50 billion infrastructure investment program. It is a program that is building for the future. It is changing lives and saving lives right around our nation. It is creating jobs, it is reducing congestion in our major cities, it is improving productivity and it is improving connectivity in our rural and regional areas.
I know that the member for Grayndler is a bit frustrated with the job that he has at the moment. He is the people's choice and he wants to be the Labor Party leader. I know he does not want my job. I know he wants to be the Labor Party leader. I know he is frustrated. I know he is disappointed. But that does not explain why he hates good news so much. There is good news in infrastructure from one end of Australia to the other. Right now, as we stand here talking about the roads and rail, and infrastructure needs of our great nation, there are thousands of people on the ground building those roads and building that rail infrastructure. They are out there building for our nation's future. It is about building infrastructure that our kids and our grandkids will thank us for. This government, this Turnbull-Joyce government, is getting on with the job—from some of the iconic multibillion-dollar projects, whether it be the Western Sydney Airport or the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, right through to some of those smaller projects in our smaller communities, through the Roads to Recovery initiative or through the Black Spot program, which are saving lives and reducing the number of serious injuries in our community.
I want to thank the member for Grayndler again for giving me this opportunity. I want him to have many, many more birthdays, but I am worried about him. I think this relentless negativity is starting to play on his health a bit. I think he should try to be a little bit more positive about the government's agenda. We have an agenda which will see improvements from Melbourne to Sydney, to Brisbane, to Perth to the Northern Territory, and right through our smaller country towns. He likes to talk about the $50 billion infrastructure investment program like it is not true. But, when you look at the budget figures, we are investing $50 billion from 2013-14 to 2019-20 in critical road and rail infrastructure. It is about jobs; it is about growth; it is about prosperity. At the same time, it is about saving people's lives in the community through road safety initiatives. We are very proud of our nation-building program which will see some enormous improvements right throughout the nation.
The member for Grayndler does not want to talk about the $9 billion which is being spent this financial year across Australia. There are about 1,000 projects currently underway. If you listen to him, there will be a suggestion that there is nothing going on in Australian right now, whatsoever. He likes to selectively look at numbers. The dirty little secret that the member for Grayndler did not want to touch on is: the Australian government's spending on infrastructure averaged around $6.3 billion per annum in the four-year period under Labor ending 2013-14. In the four years since, spending under the coalition has averaged around $7.3 billion. Those numbers again: in the four-year period under Labor ending 2013-14, the average figure was $6.3 billion per annum; in the four years since, under the coalition, spending has averaged around $7.3 billion.
It is 5.5 in actual spending. It's just not true.
The member for Grayndler is interjecting that it is just not true. The numbers do not back you up in the comments that you are making, member for Grayndler. Our capital investment in transport, as well as Defence and communications infrastructure, is contributing to positive growth in our economy right around the nation. Our economy is now growing faster than seven of the biggest economies in the world. So he can come in here and be negative, he can whinge, he can complain, but he cannot dispute the fact that there are thousands of projects underway right now across Australia—in our capital cities and right through to the Roads to Recovery projects and Black Spot projects.
Thousands?
He knows they are out there. He is smiling now because he knows they are out there. It is about jobs; it is about supporting our communities.
There is a genuine commitment from this side of the House to support local jobs and contractors as we roll out our infrastructure programs. There are some classic examples of that. We have seen with the Northern Connector project in South Australia, NorthHub, an employment skills and training centre, is helping northern job seekers secure some of the 480 jobs a year on average which are associated with the project.
Now, the Pacific highway—
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler continues to interject. Surely, he would acknowledge that the Pacific highway is a great project. From Sydney to Brisbane, there is record spending on duplication of the Pacific Highway. This upgrade is creating thousands of jobs along the New South Wales coast. The peak employment period is expected to be this year when 16,000 jobs—4,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs—will be supported across all of these Pacific Highway projects. Surely, those opposite will concede that is a great project. That is a project of national significance which is rolling out. But, if we listen to the member for Grayndler and to his comments earlier, it is as if nothing is happening whatsoever. He needs to go out there and drive that road. He needs to go out there and drive the Pacific Highway and see the thousands of workers out there every day right along the east coast of Australia.
There are other projects. Local products like Arrium steel are being used on the Northern Connector and the Adelaide to Tarcoola freight rail upgrade. That is happening right now. We are supporting the community on the Pacific Highway right down to local organisations such as the Grafton men's shed in the member for Page's seat and Beamer Tree Services, who are working to improve the environmental outcomes associated with this project by building and installing nest boxes as part of the Pacific Highway project. It is not just about the national significance of this project; it is right down at the local community level that the benefits are being felt.
Under this coalition government we are delivering a $50 billion infrastructure investment program, and the member for Grayndler knows it.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler continues to interject. He does not want to talk about the good news. The coalition is supporting the right projects and delivering on our plans for the future. We have committed funding to 15 of the 18 projects in Infrastructure Australia priorities. The member for Grayndler wants to talk about Perth Freight Link. He wants to talk about Infrastructure Australia's priority list. Infrastructure Australia assessed the Perth Freight Link project as a high-priority project. The member for Grayndler calls it a dud project, but Infrastructure Australia has it as a high-priority project. The member for Grayndler was the one who established Infrastructure Australia in the first place. He established the independent body. Perth Freight Link is a high-priority project, and he says it is a dud. If he does not like a decision, he just whinges about it.
From Perth Freight Link to the inland rail project, to Western Sydney Airport, to a range of projects right around the nation, we are getting on with the job of delivering our plan for Australia's future. The coalition is lifting the productive capacity of our nation through our national freight transport routes. To go through the list would take me more than the 10 minutes I have available to me. They are projects like NorthLink, Perth Freight Link, the Great Northern Highway, the Bruce Highway in Queensland, the Pacific Highway in New South Wales, Murray Basin Rail, Northern Connector in Adelaide, Tarcoola rail upgrade, Forrestfield Airport Link, Sydney Metro, Parramatta Light Rail. We offered funding for Melbourne Metro but the Victorian government said they could do it by themselves and they did not need it. Gold Coast Light Rail, Flinders Link and the Canberra light rail—the list is virtually endless.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler continues to interject. He wants to talk about Victoria. The Andrews government tore up the East West Link contract and gave $1.2 billion to contractors to not build a road. What Labor genius! $1.2 billion to not build a road! The people of Victoria are meant to thank Daniel Andrews for that. What a genius! Faced with that situation, we had to clean up Labor's mess. We went in there with a $1.5 billion plan and asked the Labor Party to match that funding commitment, and now we have projects rolling out across Victoria as a direct result of this government and this Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, getting on with the job of delivering for Victorians.
All I can say is that the contrast between Labor and the Turnbull-Joyce government could not be clearer. We have seen it here today. The member for Grayndler had 10 minutes. I know it is his birthday. He had 10 minutes to come here and build a plan for the future. He built a complaints box. He had one long whinge session, one long complaint after another. On this side of the House we are building for the future. We have positive plans and we are delivering them right across the nation. We are delivering infrastructure that Australia needs. We are getting on with the job of creating new opportunities for young people in regional areas. We are creating jobs and improving productivity right throughout the nation. The contrast could not be clearer. We are building for the future, and Labor is whingeing about it.
Well, well, well. Here we are on 2 March 2017, a fine day and the last sitting day in this place before Western Australians head to the polls on 11 March. What a great day that will be. The run-up to that day started in this place on 7 February 2017. The seventh of February was when team WA federal Labor came into this place and started the conversation about how it is that Western Australians have been horribly let down for the last eight years under the stewardship of Colin Barnett and his state Liberals. Day in and day out, in this place and in the Federation Chamber, in 90-second statements, matters of public importance and constituency statements, team WA federal Labor rocked up, unified, united, speaking time and time again on ways in which Western Australians have been let down under Colin Barnett. And not a federal Liberal was to be seen. There was no-one to be seen on the other side even to offer up a fig leaf of a reason why Western Australians should re-elect Colin Barnett. The whole time the silence was deafening.
They know it is over.
I could not agree with the member for Grayndler more. I think they know that the last dance has been danced, but it is only today that I see the member for Tangney and the member for O'Connor finally rocking up. It remains to be seen whether they will actually get on their feet and stump up with what might be too little too late in relation to defending this hollow, broken shell of the government, but I tell you what: the timing of the member for Tangney is impeccable. He comes in at the last minute. Do you know what they are calling the member for Tangney over in Western Australia right now? They are calling him Houdini—the former state Liberal director of the party. He is nowhere to be seen. He is an escape artist of the highest order.
Speaking of nowhere to be seen, I am reminded about the honourable member for Pearce. For reasons that still escape me, Western Australians voted to elect federal Liberal members of parliament in 11 of the 16 seats. I still cannot work it out, but go figure. You would be forgiven for thinking it was precisely the other way around in this place, because they are MIA. Not once have we heard them get up and go in to bat for their state Liberal counterparts. That is probably for two reasons. Firstly, they say: 'If you don't have anything nice to say about anyone, don't say anything at all.' That could be it. The second thing might be the absolute lack of subject matter, and that is at the heart of this matter of public importance. We wonder why Western Australians are just so disappointed after what they have had served up to them over the last eight years, and perhaps disillusioned in the political process.
If I had longer, I would go through all of them. Let us look at some of the broken promises in relation to infrastructure that besiege this state Liberal government. The MAX light rail in my electorate—cancelled. On 2 September 2012:
Mr Barnett and Mr Buswell unveiled details of the proposed route, which would link Mirrabooka with the CBD via Alexander Drive and Fitzgerald Street.
Cue forward: 21 June 2016—duh dong. Gone. Colin Barnett said, 'Yes, yes, we did break that promise'—perhaps a shard of honesty in this debate. You would think breaking a promise once is perhaps just one of those things that happen. What about breaking promises twice? That is just careless. The Ellenbrook railway line—do you remember that? What a gift left to his electorate by the honourable member for Peace. In 2009 WAtoday.com.au said:
After matching Alan Carpenter's commitment to build the $850 million, 20km spur off the existing Midland line, Mr Barnett was sworn in as Premier on September 23, less than six weeks before the railway-cancelling email was sent.
Six weeks. Barely enough time for the seats to warm up before that promise was pulled, but not before the member for Swan Hills, Frank Alban, had sent out a pamphlet to all of his electorate—I hope this was not under the member for Tangney's watch—to promise the rail line. There are so many more but so little time. Airport rail link delayed. The Yanchep railway line delayed. So many more delays, nothing but delays. (Time expired)
I am delighted to speak today, and I want to acknowledge the fact that it is the member for Grayndler's birthday, apparently. I grew up in a house where, when it is your birthday, you would have your cake—I do not know if the member for Grayndler had this experience—and you would be able to close your eyes and cut the cake. When you do, you make a wish. We all know the member for Grayndler's wish—that is, that he was the leader of the opposition. Along with the rank and file of the Labor Party, I think he would be a far better—
A government member: The people's choice!
the people's choice indeed—leader of the opposition. I have always thought that the reason he is not is because of the union hold on the Labor Party and the way the unions just call the shots. But the fact that he has put forward today a topic on which the Labor Party has no credibility implies at least that it is also due to his complete lack of judgement. Why the Labor Party would actually wish to debate publicly the topic of investment in productive infrastructure baffles me. It is a key flaw of the Labor Party. The member for Perth, who was the previous speaker, only wanted to talk about WA. Clearly, he does not even support the very motion being put forward by the member for Grayndler. That is okay, because why would you when you know the history?
In the 2010-11 budget, the Labor government said they would spend $6.8 billion on infrastructure in the 2012-13 financial year. Six months later, they reduced the $6.8 billion down to $6.1 billion. Do you know what the actual spend was? The actual spend in 2012-13 by the Labor government was not the $6.8 billion they promised. It was $3.6 billion. They get excited about their track record during their years of government, and of course that is all about their stimulus packages in the GFC. But I remind them that the biggest package in the GFC by Labor was in 2009 and, from memory, that was $42.5 billion. Nearly $15 billion of that was for school halls. What productive infrastructure that was–productive infrastructure indeed.
The problem with talking about productive infrastructure is that you can go wrong in one of two major ways: (1) you can not spend enough money, which is exactly what the Labor Party was guilty of in government—again, $6.8 billion down to $3.6 billion in 2012-13; and (2) you can spend money on the wrong things. That is exactly what they did through their stimulus packages. Compare that to $50 billion being invested by the coalition government—$50 billion. Now I am a Queenslander—
A proud Queenslander!
A very proud Queenslander, thank you very much, Member for Fisher; I agree. As a Queenslander, if I look at my patch from the sunny coast down to Brisbane, let me tell you about what the coalition government is doing there. If you looked at the Infrastructure Australia report—it came out on Monday—it talked about the Bruce Highway through to the north coast. Nearly $930 million invested—80 per cent funded by the Commonwealth—and it starts construction within the next few months on the Sunshine Coast Bruce Highway. Up the road, at the Maroochydore interchange on the Sunshine Coast, $187 million will be spent on starting construction over the next couple of years.
The coalition committed, and is delivering, $6.7 billion for the Bruce Highway. How much did Labor, with the member for Grayndler in charge, commit to the Bruce Highway? Only $4.1 billion—$6.7 billion is actually higher than $4.1 billion—and the problem that the member for Grayndler likes to ignore is the fact that they only wanted to fund it fifty-fifty. They were not prepared to come to the party. I will finish with this about the Sunshine Coast: it took a coalition government to deliver on a concessional loan of up to $181 million for an upgrade of the airport. Labor are full of it. With that said, a very big happy birthday to the member for Grayndler.
I am very glad to rise today, of all days, to speak on investment in infrastructure—the day of the birthday of the member for Grayndler. But I cannot imagine that the member for Grayndler, that great champion of infrastructure in this nation, has had many happy birthdays over the last four years, given the Abbott-Turnbull Liberal government's utter failure to invest in productive infrastructure for our country's needs.
I just want to take you through a few of the great projects that the government claims to have given to the great state of Western Australia, some of which you may have heard of, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough. We have the Gateway project. This is one of my favourite projects not only because it allows the people of my electorate to get to the airport quickly so they can get on a plane to fly up to their places of employment in Karratha, Pannawonica and other centres in the north-west of Western Australia but also because this project was, in my view, famously opened by the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, which was quite interesting because he opened it and it was not finished. But he had his comeuppance on that because, clearly, the people in his own party thought that was such a bad idea that two weeks later they got rid of him—that is how much they thought of that project.
The member for Grayndler mentioned before the NorthLink project, another Labor government funded project rebadged by this government so they can try and claim credit for it. Then we have—and this is one of the minister's favourites—the Forrestfield Railway development to the airport. What is great about that project is that the government, in this chamber, loves to claim that that is a project that they funded as a rail project in Western Australia. But no, the funding for that project was to make up for this government's failure to fix the GST allocation problem for Western Australia. When you look at the budget, when you look at the tables and you see how much of the budget is allocated for rail, it is very clear; there is a very lovely table there. And I use that term 'lovely' ironically because, when you look at WA and when you look at money for rail, it says '$0'. That is how much this government thinks about investing in productive infrastructure for Western Australia.
I would like to also cover some of the projects that this government should be spending money on to make sure that we have adequate and productive infrastructure in Western Australia, particularly for the people of Burt. One of the great projects that Labor committed to at the last federal election and that WA Labor has committed to at this state election is not only the building of the new Armadale Road bridge or the new North Lake Road bridge—depending on which side of the freeway you like to come from—but also bringing forward the widening of Armadale Road. This is a critical piece of infrastructure to make sure the people in my electorate are able to get to jobs closer to the coast. That is why the state member, Tony Buti, and Labor candidates, Barry Urban and Yaz Mubarakai have been out there championing this Labor project, to make sure that we are able to have that productive infrastructure. I have been very happy to work with my colleague the member for Fremantle on making sure this project comes to fruition because just building the road, as the member for Tangney will know, will not be enough; we also need the bridge.
Do you know what is interesting? The local state member for where the bridge actually is, the Liberal member, seems to deny that that this is a useful project. I cannot really say he goes around denying it because, from all reports, 'No-Show Joe' does not show up anywhere to talk about this project—or about anything else for that matter.
We then of course have that great project of removing the Denny Avenue level crossing. This is the most dangerous level crossing in Western Australia. Denny Avenue is also the most dangerous road in Western Australia when it comes to traffic accidents. What has been interesting is that the state Liberal government said there is no problem here. The federal Liberal government said: 'No, we're not going to fix it.' The member for Canning, during the by-election, said he was going to fix it on his how-to-vote cards yet there was no other mention of it whatsoever. They have denied saying it ever since and have done nothing about it. Federal Labor committed to fixing Denny Avenue, and WA Labor is committed to fixing Denny Avenue, because we understand, as does the state member for Armadale, Tony Buti, and WA candidate for Darling Range, Barry Urban, that this is a critical piece of congestion and a road safety issue that needs to be fixed in Western Australia, if we are to have productive infrastructure that allows people to get to work safely, to get to school safety.
In closing, right now the WA economy is desperate for a boost. We need to have investment through infrastructure development, and that is why we need to see the election of a Mark McGowan WA Labor government on 11 March because they understand these priorities. (Time expired)
I would love to think that we have heard a lot of vision today but we have not heard a lot of vision. I point out that one of my great political favourites was FT Roosevelt. What did he do? He built stuff. We, as a country, are collecting roughly $404 billion of income—that is, royalties, taxpayer revenue. We are spending about $434 billion. We are running at a deficit.
The critical part for us to remember is: of that $434 billion, $154 billion is in the welfare budget—one-third. To our shame as a country, we are only spending $6 billion on road and rail. The challenge for us, as a country, is we need to find ways of reducing our welfare expenditure and moving our investment into infrastructure in a greater capacity. Ultimately, we have got Frank Lowy, we have got the Governor of the Reserve Bank out there saying that we should be spending $30 billion a year on infrastructure. What I have heard in the chamber today is one side does something better than the other, and the other side does something better. Really, I have heard no vision from a lot of people in this chamber. We should be aiming for a figure of $30 billion in infrastructure spending. It is not just money; it is management.
We built a project in Mildura recently called the Sunraysia Modernisation Project for $103 million. We put six business people over the top of this project so when they built things they looked at how they could do it and do it efficiently. Instead of the project at full scope costing $160 million, we were able to build the whole thing for $120 million. We actually invested in infrastructure and put management over it.
Now is the time to be increasing our investment in infrastructure. We have the free trade agreements which have been delivered by the coalition government. These have given us great opportunities to hit the marketplace. We have opportunities for the products we produce like we cannot believe. We have the capacity. We are investing in our people through the prepare, train, hire program so that we can have Australians who can have a good job as they reap the benefits of the free trade agreements.
But we do not have the infrastructure capacity to capitalise on the free trade agreements. Do you know you can shift a tonne of wheat from the central parts of Canada to the port, 3,000 kilometres cheaper than you can shift a tonne of wheat 400 kilometres in Australia? This is to our shame. We should be investing in infrastructure. Sure, we are doing a lot, but we should be doing more. Thirty billion dollars should be our aim. It should be well thought out, and there should be good management around that.
We as a country are run by people on this side who have been in small business, and people in small business know there is a difference between a cash flow in and a cash flow out capacity in the business, when you are taking borrowings, to set up your business for the long-term structure and future. I have run a business for 20 years. I understand how this works. At a time when we can borrow money at 1.75 per cent and when we have a mining industry that went from the construction stage to the extraction stage, there is both a capacity to build in the economy and a capacity to access finance to build the things that are going to allow us to capitalise on the free trade agreements.
My only fear is that, because the Labor Party, when they were in government, ultimately cemented long-term structural parts in our budget, we are now spending $154 billion out of our welfare budget. That makes it a little bit more difficult for us to then free up money to put into capital and building infrastructure. I think separating parts of our budget and saying we are going to borrow more and build for the future is something that would be welcomed by many Australians.
This is also a way of stimulating the state governments, because when you build infrastructure you create payroll tax, which is a state government tax; and when you build infrastructure you create stamp duty, which is a state government tax. We should be making the argument to state governments that they should take more of a share of funding health and education, and we should take more of a share of funding infrastructure. Doing so would both stimulate their capacity to have a robust economic boom in their state and remove capacity constraints so that we can capitalise on the free trade agreements that we as a coalition signed. What I have seen here today are lots of arguments between us, but not much vision for spending $30 billion a year— (Time expired)
First off, happy birthday, Member for Grayndler! Investment in infrastructure is necessary if we are to address the urgent need for improved productivity growth in this country. Without this investment, slower growth and missed economic development opportunities are inevitable. This is a position held by the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, who recently said that without high-quality infrastructure 'our ability to compete and to be as productive as we can be' is impaired. Mr Lowe also said:
Good transport infrastructure … opens up opportunities for people and opens markets.
Unfortunately, this is a message which the Premier of Western Australia, Mr Barnett, and the Prime Minister have chosen not to listen to. Instead of looking to what is best for the state, Mr Barnett has racked up record debt and is looking to sell state assets to pay for his mismanagement. The WA Liberal-National government inherited a debt of $3.5 billion and a $2 billion budget surplus from Labor 8½ years ago. Where has that gone? Today, state debt in WA is spiralling towards $40 billion and there is a $4 billion budget deficit. Mr Barnett and Prime Minister Turnbull have stubbornly stuck to dumb, hastily conceived and unplanned projects rather than admit they have made a mistake.
And the Perth Freight Link is a massive mistake, one of gargantuan proportions, with Senate estimates this week confirming this white elephant really is a road to nowhere. Well, it is certainly not a road to its intended destination, with its missing three-kilometre link to the Fremantle port. Infrastructure Australia says in this report I have here that the Perth Freight Link seeks to address the problem of 'suboptimal access to Fremantle port'. Suboptimal? I'll say! The current Perth Freight Link that fails to link freight to the port is the most suboptimal project you could ever imagine. It is a disaster for Western Australia.
On the other hand, WA Labor leader Mark McGowan and his team have real plans to invest in people, the state and its future. Mark McGowan as the WA Labor leader will invest in WA and has plans to create new jobs across many industries, such as investing in tourism and promoting WA as one of the world's great tourist destinations. He will create Defence West to utilise existing infrastructure, and improve it, and facilities and skilled workers already in place in WA when it comes to realising defence projects that mean a lot to my electorate of Brand and also to my colleague's seat of Fremantle.
Instead of wasting more than a billion dollars on the Perth Freight Link, Labor knows the importance of investing in quality, productivity-boosting infrastructure and will do so with. METRONET. METRONET will connect Perth's suburbs. It will address the grinding congestion on our roads. It will transport people to jobs and training opportunities. Someone really should tell the Liberal government about the benefits of public transport, because, if we look at their record, since 2008 only eight kilometres of rail have been built in Perth. They have no plan for public transport in Perth and will not invest in the public transport that the city and the metropolitan area desperately need.
In threatening to withhold $1.2 billion of infrastructure funding to Western Australia should WA Labor win the upcoming election, on the basis of Labor infrastructure promises the Prime Minster has told Western Australians that his government will not invest in linking the Mandurah line—which takes the people of my electorate of Brand either north to the city or south to Mandurah—to the Thornlie line, which again opens up employment opportunities. The WA government is also telling the people of Western Australia that it will not invest in building a new train station at Karnup, another much-needed infrastructure project to enable people living in the fast-growing southern suburbs of Brand to get to work without facing gridlock on an already congested freeway.
Already in progress is this Liberal government's failure to invest in the communications infrastructure that would lift thousands of residents in Baldivis out of the nightmare of the communications black hole they find themselves in. There are no internet ports to connect to. There is no infrastructure in place. There is no funding to address the mobile black spot problem that we have. Small business owners, people working from home and students are all left without the means to engage in a 21st century digital economy in the southern suburbs of metropolitan Perth. It is a disgrace. This government's failure to invest in the infrastructure of the future is deplorable.
This government is not listening, and in doing so it is failing Australians. It is failing them by not investing in improving productivity, failing them by not providing the public transport they need to get to work and study, and failing them by not investing in the infrastructure needed to take us forward.
We all know, and we have heard a lot about it, that Western Australian people are going to an election the week after next. They have a clear choice between a tired, unproductive and, frankly, grumpy government and a vibrant, hardworking, unified Western Australian Labor team that will bring a fresh approach to that great state. They have a clear choice on infrastructure: the flawed Roe 8 Perth Freight Link, with its missing link, or productivity-boosting infrastructure, such as METRONET and the development of the outer harbour at Kwinana.
What a delight it is to stand here on the last sitting day before the WA state election and talk about the most important issue facing Western Australians: the Perth Freight Link, Roe 8 and Roe 9. Some people say that there is no difference between the two major political parties, but on this issue there is a great difference. There is a great story to tell as a Liberal in relation to the jobs we will create and how we are going to effectively get a freight link through to the Fremantle port. Very importantly, I am going to share with you some very important facts—
Opposition members interjecting—
You do not want to hear. You know about them, but you do not share them.
Mr Josh Wilson interjecting—
There has been a lot of misinformation, member for Fremantle, on some of these facts in relation to this project.
Order! There is too much noise.
I will start with what we know and what the member for Grayndler knows, and that is that this is a very important project that is highly rated by Infrastructure Australia. Isn't it amazing that once again we see the Labor Party not backing the recommendations of an entity which it set up? Building Roe 8 and Roe 9 will create up to 10,000 jobs. Those 10,000 jobs are needed in WA today. It will provide very important east-west access across our city and access to Perth Airport, the Fiona Stanley Hospital, the St John of God hospital and Murdoch University. Roe 8 and Roe 9 will bypass 14 sets of traffic lights on Leach Highway and Stock Road and will create a safer road environment for all road users. Despite the lies and misinformation from Labor, cars will not pay a toll.
It's still a toll road.
Cars will not pay a toll, member for Burt, to use Roe 8 and Roe 9. There are many more benefits. An independent property report shows that there will be increased property prices as a result of the construction of Roe 8 and Roe 9. Roe 8 and Roe 9 will take 7,000 trucks and 74,000 light vehicles off local roads each day—off Leach Highway, Farrington Road, South Street, Stock Road, North Lake Road, Beeliar Drive and other local roads. Importantly for someone who has discovered the joy of cycling in the last few months, there will also be investment in creating better access for cyclists around the Beeliar Regional Park. I am looking forward to that. I was thinking quite a lot about that when I went for a bike ride only last week to inspect the progress of the construction work.
Did you go to the picket?
I rode past them. Not many people on the Labor side of the chamber can do what I can do, and that is open their wallet and produce a heavy vehicle driver's licence.
But I've got a motorcycle licence.
Yes, you would. I am surprised the member for Burt does not have a moped licence. Unlike the member for Burt, I can drive a truck and I know the impact that stopping and starting those trucks at all those lights has. We need to remember the 450,000 tonnes of CO2 that will be saved with the construction of this project. We hear a lot about the environmental impacts of this road. Less than half a per cent of the construction of Roe 8 impacts on the Beeliar Wetlands. Construction is on land already partly cleared for powerlines. Wetland bridges are being constructed over North Lake and Horse Paddock Swamp.
Labor have been absolutely exposed. They want us to think that they are committed to an outer harbour. Let us look at the facts. Let us look at their own policy document, which says they will 'maintain Fremantle Port as an operational port' and 'improve the management of truck movements to and from Fremantle Port'. You do not hear from Labor—and I would like the member for Fremantle to address this, because I assume he will be speaking next—that the Labor Party is committed to extending Leach Highway between Carrington Street and Stirling Highway. That is in your policy document, member for Fremantle.
In 2008!
It was published in January this year. We need to know the impact that that will have on the Fremantle Golf Course, how many homes will be subsumed and what impact there may be on Fremantle Cemetery. Roe 8 and Roe 9 are good for WA and will create jobs. (Time expired)
I am so sorry that I do not have my full five minutes or much longer, because there are so many things the member for Tangney has said that I would like to respond to. He should get in contact with the former Treasurer and former Minister for Transport—one of about 17 ministers for transport in the current Western Australian government—and ask him about the project that he has just been talking about. The Perth Freight Link is an absolute fraud. It was announced before Infrastructure Australia ever caught sight of it. It was not assessed by Infrastructure Australia in advance of its announcement. There was never a cost-benefit ratio analysis. There was never any planning, and there still is not. We have learnt this week from Infrastructure Australia that a detailed project proposal beyond Roe 8 has not even been received and that Commonwealth funding certainly is not going to be provided.
Let us get to productive infrastructure more broadly. Despite nine years of government at the state level and a healthy complement of federal coalition representatives, Western Australia has been left to fall off the cliff when it comes to new productive infrastructure. That is neglect and incompetence on a grand scale and at a terrible time. The Treasurer and the foreign minister come in here and try to tell Western Australians that things are going great guns in WA, but anyone who has ever been on the other side of the Nullarbor would know that that is not true. Last year demand in the WA economy shrank nearly eight per cent. We have the highest unemployment in the country. Underemployment is at the highest level ever recorded. Employment participation is at the lowest level ever recorded. We desperately need any investment in productive infrastructure, and from the Western Australian Liberals and from the coalition-Liberal combo we have had nothing—absolutely zero.
All we get now are threats from the Minister for Urban Infrastructure that if, God forbid, the people of Western Australia dare choose another government, they will withhold Commonwealth funds. I look forward to campaigning in coalition-held seats in Western Australia on that promise—less than nothing for the people of WA. We will see how that goes for you next time. It is going to be a great campaign. We are going to love it.
I think the member for Fairfax asked for some facts. The former Labor government invested more in public transport than all previous governments combined. In the lowest year of a former Labor government we invested more in infrastructure than this lot have invested in their best year. We doubled infrastructure funding on a per capita basis in Western Australia. Federal Labor and state Labor have a vision when it comes to productive infrastructure in that state. We want the Kwinana trade coast developed. We want the second stage of the floating dock at the Australian Marine Complex. We want METRONET. All of these things will unlock productivity and create jobs in Western Australia.
The coalition believes it is entitled to govern and to represent Western Australia in perpetuity. The foreign minister said today in question time that the Liberal government should never change—it should never be varied from—and that she wants a one-party state in Western Australia.
The Fair Work Commission decision to cut penalty rates in the fast food, retail, hospitality, pharmacy, restaurant and clubs industries will be a kick in the guts for around 700,000 of Australia's lowest paid workers who already face increased cost of living pressures, a reduction in work hours and increased uncertainty about future work. The cuts will mean losses of up to $6,600 per year for some workers. The people affected by this decision are some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in the community: single parents trying to juggle family responsibilities with work; new migrants who have few work options because of language difficulties, non-recognition of qualifications and limited employment options; young people attempting to balance work and study. These are workers who have no certainty of income from week to week, work unsociable hours and do the work that most people do not want to do.
The Fair Work Commission's decision affects workers in six industry sectors, which in itself complicates the matter because each sector is unique and the current penalty rates are the result of individual negotiations and trade-offs over many years in each of those sectors. Supporters of the changes use selective extreme examples to justify their arguments. For most workers what really matters is the net take-home pay. Even with a 150 per cent or 175 per cent loading, the hourly rate of pay for many workers affected by this decision results in a lower hourly rate for Sunday work than most people earn during normal work hours. Full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings are currently about $1,530 a week, or $40 an hour. So many of the people affected, even with their penalty rates, receive less than the average hourly rate of pay. For example, a fast food worker currently on a 150 per cent loading is paid $29.16 an hour on a Sunday. Under the new rate where the loading has been cut from 150 per cent to 125 per cent, that same worker will be paid $24.30 per hour. That is just 60 per cent of the average hourly rate. Had the decision handed down been coupled with an increase in base pay so as to ensure that there had been no net loss in a person's income, the decision would have been seen in a different light, but that was not the case.
The decision comes at a time that wages and salaries have had their largest fall in 20 years, whilst corporate profits are at their highest in 40 years. Simultaneously, essential living costs, on which low-income earners spend all their money, have continued to rise. For example, private health insurance costs have increased by 23 per cent over the past four years, whilst in my region council rates have increased by around 15 per cent over the same period, adding hundreds of dollars of annual expense to those people.
The following is a direct quote from an email I received last week after the Fair Work decision. It reads:
In 2013 I quit being a police cadet for SAPOL as I realised teaching primary students is where my passion lies and where I am best suited.
Unfortunately going back to university full time meant I was back into retail work and working every weekend.
To do this I've sacrificed sport … social and family commitments.
Like any retail place, working weekends mean busier days and usually customers are in a rush and can be more irate.
I also live out of home and while I do get some support from Centrelink, it is my penalty rates that allow me to pay my bills each week.
Whilst I will not identify the person, I can do so if required.
I contrast the earnings of people affected by the penalty rates decision with that of the top 14 highest paid executives of Australia's publicly owned entities. For example, in the 2015-16 financial year, Ahmed Fahour of Australia Post received $5.6 million, Bill Morrow at NBN Co received $3.6 million, and Mark Lamarre at the ASC received $2.6 million. These are all public entities. I also note, for that matter, that most Commonwealth public servant heads are also paid in excess of $800,000 per year.
Workers around Australia feel that there is one standard for the rule makers and another for everyone else. They now feel betrayed by the Fair Work Commission and by the Turnbull government. I wait with interest to see the transitional arrangements that the commission is yet to hand down, but we all know that the Prime Minister could restore the fairness now by supporting Labor's private member's bill. I remind the Prime Minister that it is not unusual for parliament to intervene when courts hand down decisions that are inconsistent with public expectations, as parliament often does.
In adjourning the House tonight, I want to take the opportunity to speak about and draw attention to the problems of cultural genocide. In my former capacity as Australia's Human Rights Commissioner I was honoured to speak on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide at Sydney Town Hall. At the commemoration we paid recognition, of course, to the lives that were lost, but it was also an important occasion to remind people that the toll was not just human; it was also cultural. There was a deliberate attempt by some to remove not just Armenians but also their memory by destroying evidence of Armenian heritage and culture, such as artworks and architecture. In short, there was not just a human genocide; there was also a cultural genocide.
The official Armenian genocide centennial website tells the stories of the cultural genocide to wipe the memory of Armenian people from the Ottoman Empire. It states:
… purposefully massacred Armenian clergymen, destroyed churches, monasteries and other properties of church, including thousands of medieval handwritten manuscripts.
Further:
An Arab witness to the Armenian Genocide, Fayez al-Ghussein, writes in his memoirs "… After the massacres of the Armenians, the government established committees that were engaged in selling the abandoned property. Armenian cultural values were sold at the cheapest prices. I once went to the church to see how the sales of these things were organized. The doors of the Armenian schools were closed. The Turks used science books in the bazaar for wrapping cheese, dates, sunflowers".
The Ottoman Empire's aim was to erase the lives and memories of the Armenian people. All members should be committed to ensuring such events never happen again. Of course, having a quarter Armenian heritage myself, this is a subject in which I take significant interest. And the best way that we can stop any efforts to repeat cultural genocide is also to stand up and call out similar attempts that occur in the world today.
That brings me to the wonderful electorate of Goldstein, which is blessed with a very large Jewish community, and I have to say I am deeply honoured to represent them and stand up in defence of their culture, their faith and their freedom. That is why I want to condemn the resolution from last October by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization titled 'Occupied Palestine' that sought to deny the historical links between the Jewish people and the Temple Mount. I agree with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said at the time:
To say that Israel has no connection to the Temple and the Western Wall is like saying that China is not connected to the Great Wall of China or that Egypt has no connection to the pyramids. I believe that historical truth is more powerful, and this truth will prevail.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is clearly right: the truth will prevail, as it always does. But we should not turn a blind eye to the intent of this resolution. This shameful resolution does not sit in isolation. It sits amongst a string of resolutions from UN bodies that frequently seek to condemn Israel and its human rights record in defence of its legitimate right to exist, while turning a blind eye to the horrific human rights records of many other countries—and often their records of abuses against their own people.
It is quite clear to me that, while some people and countries are intent on denying the Jewish people their homeland—and they are—sadly and tragically they are also determined, through resolutions such as those that went through UNESCO in October last year, to commit a form of cultural genocide as well. And I would hope that all members would do the honest, the decent and the honourable thing, and call out such behaviour as required, because we know the enduring connection the Jewish people have to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. We know of their enduring connection, obviously, to the land that is Israel. And we should be standing tall and proud in their defence.
Not a week goes by where the issue of housing affordability is not discussed with me in our community. The question that is often asked is: 'How are our kids going to be able to afford to live in the community that they grew up in?'
House prices in my home city of Sydney continue to increase at an astonishing rate. In the past year we have seen further growth, at the rate of 18 per cent annually. That is the highest annual growth rate in 14 years, since the 12 months ending December 2002. In the last decade, house prices in Sydney have almost doubled—almost doubled in 10 years. That is quite simply ridiculous. What is more, they are forecast to continue to surge throughout 2017.
Discussing all things property and housing affordability has become the popular thing to do at barbecues and social functions around Sydney. A growing number of leading commentators on the issue continue to lament the endless price increases and the social impact that they are having, particularly on our city and on our nation's young people.
Commonwealth Bank senior economist Michael Workman said recently that housing affordability will continue to deteriorate even if house price growth slows. The amount required as a proportion of annual average household disposable income for a 20 per cent deposit continues to move out of reach of most households, he said, and he pointed the finger squarely at the Turnbull government for their lack of action on negative gearing and capital gains tax, which are boosting demand and lifting home prices to ridiculous levels.
The Reserve Bank's Governor, Philip Lowe, also recently pointed out the fact that many Australians are now burdened with more debt than ever before, with the debt-to-income ratio at a record 187 per cent for Australian households. Mr Lowe pointed out to a hearing of the economics committee of the House of Representatives last week the effect that those high debt levels are having on our economy. Because Australians have so much personal debt, and because wage growth is so low, they are simply not spending in our community, and that is affecting consumption growth in our economy, and that has been one of the major drags on our economy in recent years.
Contrary to the government's statements on this matter, housing affordability is not just an issue of supply. It is not just an issue of building more houses—particularly when you consider the rate at which new housing supply is being snapped up by investors. It absolutely beggars belief that, in the current environment, we have a situation where, due to this government's policy, an investor who is looking to purchase their sixth or seventh investment property and negatively gear it can get more support from the government than a young couple seeking to buy their first home. It just does not make sense. Negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts continue to give a leg-up and an advantage to investors compared to first home buyers.
The struggle is indeed very real for first home buyers. The proportion of first home buyers to non-first home buyers in New South Wales is well below the long-term average of 17.4 per cent, by more than half, at only 8.1 per cent. And I have done some research. The proportion of all buyers who are investors nationally continues to grow. In 1992, the proportion of all housing finance that went to owner occupied housing finance was 84 per cent; to investors, it was 16 per cent. In 2000, that figure for owner occupiers had fallen to 69 per cent and investors had grown to 31 per cent. Then, in December 2016, the proportion of all finance going to owner-occupiers was 60 per cent and the investor finance had grown to 40 per cent. There is something going on, and it is that negative gearing and capital gains tax are giving an unfair leg-up to investors over owner-occupiers and first home buyers, and that is the reason we are seeing this extraordinary increase in growth in house prices.
Labor understands. Labor is listening to the community about these issues. That is why we have developed a good policy that will take pressure off house price increases, particularly in the bigger cities. Our tax reform package includes ensuring that we reduce the amount of negative gearing by grandfathering it and ensuring that we reduce the 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax. Labor is working to fix this issue of national importance. It is time the government pulled its finger out and did the same thing.
Last Saturday I was at the Berwick Show down at Akoonah Park, and it was a great day. At the show we launched a petition to get tough on crime. One of the couples who signed the petition, a young couple who lived in Officer, were eager to sign because they had had a very bad experience. They told me how they had been the victims of a burglary. When I inquired further, I noticed that the female occupant of the house was very upset. The reason she was very upset was that they had been in bed at 3 am when five Africans broke into their house, into the garage, and stole a motorbike—but even more concerning was the fact that one of them was actually holding an axe. This is an absolutely outrageous thing to happen in anyone's house anywhere. This occurred in my electorate, and I feel very sorry for the victims involved. The good news is that a number of offenders have been caught. I do not know whether or not they are on visas but, sadly, this is a reflection of what is going on in our community.
I am pushing for a number of measures—for example, adopting a 'one strike and you're out' policy when it comes to bail and serious crimes. I have to say that Daniel Andrews and the state Labor government have caused this problem. In my time as a police officer, if a person got charged with a serious crime and got released on bail and they then committed a further offence you would charge them for a breach of bail. State Labor got rid of that. So we are now in the situation where people can be on five lots of bail. We talk about, for example, as I mentioned before, those from the African community—most of whom have been on humanitarian visas. The situation is that there is no early intervention at all to help them. The first time they will become aware of the potential for their visa to be cancelled is when they are in custody, because that is the first time the immigration department become aware. It is an absolute outrage.
Another measure I would like to see is a change to the presumption laws when it comes to remanding for violent offences. What does this mean? At the moment, if a police officer charges a person for a serious offence and takes them before the bail justice, the police must prove the case as to why that person should be remanded in custody. It should be the other way around. If a person has been charged with a serious offence, they should say: 'I am no longer going to be a danger on the street. I'm no longer going to be a danger to witnesses or the community.' The onus should be on them.
Another point is to establish a multi-agency task force comprising the Australian Federal Police, the Victoria Police, Immigration officials, intelligence analysts and youth workers to take on violent gangs. Why a joint task force? It is because this works effectively overseas—in the USA where the FBI team up with the local sheriffs and in the UK with Scotland Yard. Here we are finding it is working very effectively with outlaw motorcycle gang members when you have the states working with the police. The Commonwealth brings in extra powers and extra resources when the state police, who are doing a magnificent job and have that knowledge on the ground, need that extra assistance. I would also like to see task forces of this kind in both the south-east and also the western suburbs—the two hotspots at the moment. This is desperately needed.
I would also say that in the same building there need to be Sudanese youth workers and Islander youth workers, so that, if a young person is charged, rather than them just walking out the door and having their next experience before a magistrate or a judge, we have that diversion in place to say: 'How can we assist? What courses do you need to undertake? Do you need to undertake extra English courses?' The problem at the moment is that so many of the migrants who come here, especially the African migrants—and we have heard this throughout our committee hearings—have difficulty staying in the education system. Why is that? It can be because the first class they go into may be a year 9 class when they only have year 7 English ability. This is something that we are looking at as a committee. We need to change this and we are working on it at the moment.
We have a major problem in Victoria when it comes to gangs and when it comes to crime. If we compare that to the situation in New South Wales, we see that their serious crime is going down and ours is going up. We need action. We need to get tough on crime—and we need to get tough on crime now.
The young people of today have every right to be angry. They should be angry that they have a federal government and a Prime Minister who are completely out of touch with their lives and unconcerned about the challenges that they are facing. My generation, our generation, should not be saying to the generation following us, 'You will not be better off than your parents.' We must not accept a passing-on of a lower standard of living to the next generation.
Young people today are facing the combined impact of many issues. Indeed, just in this adjournment debate, my colleague the member for Makin was talking about the impact on young people of penalty rate changes and my colleague the member for Kingsford-Smith was talking about the impact on young people of housing affordability. This generation of young people enter their adulthood with debt from university and TAFE study, and this government wants to introduce $100,000 degrees. It wants to make that debt burden even more significant. This generation of young people faces rising rents and decreasing housing affordability, with many convinced that they will never own their own home. They have seen attacks by this government on their income support. Their work is often irregular and unreliable. They rely on wages from casual, part-time and contract work without the security that full-time employment provides. They now see stagnant wage growth and attacks on penalty rates—which are often the only thing that allows them to meet their costs of living. And all this government does is continue to blame those young people.
It has offered helpful solutions to the housing affordability crisis such as the minister responsible for addressing housing affordability telling young people to just 'get a high-paying job', much like when Joe Hockey told them to 'get a good job that pays good money'. The Deputy Prime Minister told them just to move to the country. Even our Prime Minister told them to get parents who can afford to 'shell out' to help their kids with the deposit for a home. This far-from-good advice is not limited to housing either. The member for Gilmore, my colleague Ann Sudmalis, this week told young people that the cut to penalty rates was 'a gift'. It is unhelpful and, indeed, downright hurtful. All of these statements come from a very out-of-touch government.
Issues of intergenerational unfairness and how we tackle them are of increasing concern and importance to me personally but also to the party that I am a member of, the Labor Party. At the last election, Labor announced a raft of policies to tackle intergenerational unfairness. These include a national TAFE funding guarantee, a commitment to taking serious action to tackle climate change rather than leave the burden to the generations that follow us, protecting penalty rates and ensuring that access to health care remains universal. These are all issues that matter to the next generation. Inequality is at a 75-year high, wages growth is at record lows and underemployment is at record highs. More and more young people are subjected to irregular, insecure work, forced to take what they can get. Only recently in the Illawarra we have seen, through the work of the South Coast Labour Council, the exposing of an extensive degree of exploitation of young people in the workforce. So they do not just face the issue of losing penalty rates; they are not even being paid the amount that they should be paid. These things are happening to the people to whom we should be ensuring we leave a better standard of life. Surely, that has to be one of the most significant things that we can do in this place.
Young people have every right to say to each and every one of us in this place, 'What are you doing to give us the benefits that your parents gave you when they worked to ensure that you were a generation who had improved life chances?' I was the first in my family to go to university. Will this generation say to us, 'What were you thinking when you stood by and watched our standard of living deteriorate and you left us a legacy worse than that left to you?' (Time expired)
I want to take the opportunity this afternoon to highlight a number of community groups in my electorate who are doing good things in the Banks community and thank them for their contribution. Last year on 12 December, I attended Marist Catholic College Penshurst for its presentation day at the Hurstville Entertainment Centre. It was good to join the school community for a celebration liturgy and to present awards which acknowledged students who had done good things during the year. The school principal at Marist Penshurst, Ray Martin, is my old mathematics teacher from many years ago, and it was good to see Mr Martin, the P&F president, Reg Soares, and all of the other people who contribute to Marist Penshurst. Marist Penshurst had some big news this week. Andy Wright, an alumnus of Marist Penshurst, won an Academy Award at the Oscars for his work on sound editing and sound mixing on the film Hacksaw Ridge. So I give a big congratulations to Andy and to the broader Marist Penshurst community on all of their efforts.
On 21 February, I represented the government at the opening of a new senior school centre at Georges River Grammar school. Georges River Grammar is an independent school located in Georges Hall and draws students from around south-western Sydney, including from numerous suburbs in my electorate such as Picnic Point, Panania, Revesby, East Hills, Lugarno and a number of others. The government was able to provide $700,000 in funding towards the new facilities at the school. Those facilities were particularly impressive, I have to say. We saw the art facilities, flexible learning spaces, new computer labs and a range of other facilities on the day. I say thank you to Principal Denis Lee for his hospitality on the day and to Reverend Daniel Dries for his involvement, and also to the school captains, who spoke with great eloquence.
Oatley RSL Youth Club is one of the most important sporting and youth groups anywhere in the Banks electorate. It has been there for many years and runs a whole range of services for local kids, including gymnastics, football and a range of other activities—netball, of course, chief among them. Each year, members of the youth club assist the Oatley RSL sub-branch in their Anzac Day celebrations, and it was good to see local author and former sub-branch president Bill Wright there on the evening, and also the coordinators of the youth club, including Peter Emmanouilidis, Nicole Graham and Robyn Ellis. Robyn has been working with the Oatley youth netball club for many, many years, and her efforts in the community are very much appreciated, as are all the efforts of the volunteers at the youth club.
On 17 February, I attended a meeting of the St George branch of the Association of Independent Retirees. I like to meet regularly with the independent retirees down there at Club Grandviews in Peakhurst. Every time we meet, we have a cup of coffee and a chat and always a very frank and robust discussion about a range of different issues. On the morning that I visited, it was good to talk about issues such as the overall economic picture in Australia, the Australian economy and issues related to our budgetary position and the banking industry, amongst other topics. I would like to thank the president of the St George branch, Mary Bourke, for her invitation to attend, and Robert Curley, the vice-president, who chaired the meeting in Mary's absence. Robert is a contributor to the Association of Independent Retirees, not just in St George but across the entire nation, and does a lot of the research and legwork, frankly, from which association members benefit. So, Robert, thank you, and thank you to all the members of the association for another very interesting and robust discussion.
House adjourned at 17:00
I want to support Labor's Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, which was tabled by the Leader of the Opposition on Monday. It is a bill that seeks to amend the Fair Work Act, to stop the decision by the Fair Work Commission to cut penalty rates from taking effect. This bill will ensure that modern awards cannot be varied to reduce the take-home pay of an employee.
The decision to cut penalty rates will affect the hospitality, retail and fast-food industries, and is expected to affect some 700,000 Australians—a large number of them in my electorate of Calwell. These are some of the most vulnerable workers. Many are young people, mostly students, working to support their education and, of course, women who are juggling family and work.
These workers are vulnerable because necessity requires them to take whatever job they can in a job market where mass casualisation and underemployment has already given the employers the upper hand to play the game in their favour. The cost of living has risen, wage growth is at an historic low and life is really tough for the lowest-paid workers, so how can the Turnbull government remain so unmoved and so unwilling to support them? Instead, my constituents are being shafted for company tax cuts to corporations that, quite frankly, are not short of a quid.
There is dignity in work, and that dignity extends to people being paid a fair wage for a fair day's work—in particular, when that labour is given on Sundays. Penalty rates and overtime are iconic features of Australian wages. In fact, an entire postwar generation of migrants who built this country worked shift work and weekends in order to get ahead, save, become self-sufficient and build their lives in Australia. In that same way, newly-arrived migrants today in my electorate especially continue to rely on penalty rates as a way of helping them get ahead.
Australian workers fought the battle for their pay and working conditions many times over and the Australian Labor Party and the union movement have stood alongside them always, and will continue to do so. If this government really believes that the abolition of penalty rates will lead to more jobs then my constituents had better start looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because it does not necessarily follow that business will create more jobs once penalty rates are cut, despite what the Turnbull government and the Business Council say. There are too many examples of exploitation and underpayment scams by employers—7-Eleven, Domino's and Caltex, to name a few—for Australian workers to place their faith in employers using the penalty rate cuts to create more jobs.
We know that it is an employer's market, not an employee's market. The race to the bottom on wages happens because there will always be someone else's vulnerability and desperation to take advantage of and exploit. Allan Fels, chair of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce, said that this exploitation proves that existing laws are not tough enough. So my constituents have every right to be very afraid about their prospects of a fair go and opportunity.
So, whilst this government is still in place I call on it to drop its one-sided support of business and instead walk in the shoes of some of our lowest-paid workers. (Time expired)
It is a pleasure to rise to speak about an issue that is very important to all Gold Coasters, and that is the funding of the M1. The reason that this is an important issue is because the M1 has proven to be, for many years now, a thorn in the side of the city. In principle, this is because we have a lot of traffic on one of the key roads that runs between Brisbane and Sydney; in fact, the M1 has become heavily congested over a number of years now because there have not been suitable investments by the Gold Coast City Council—
You should fund it!
or by state governments in arterial roads.
I heard the interjection from the Labor member opposite that we should fund it. I have very good news: this road project is so important to the Gold Coast, and the coalition is so committed to the Gold Coast, that we have actually funded the widening of this same section of road, not once but twice. In 2007 the coalition government provided $455 million worth of funding to widen this road—funding that I delivered, together with the then member for McPherson, Margaret May. We stood on the side of the M1 and announced the $455 million worth of coalition funding to widen this road. Unfortunately, the state Labor government of the time took that $455 million worth of funding and diverted it to another road project. Subsequently, we have now put money on the table again. In fact, it is only the federal coalition government that has put money on the table again for the widening of this road—a further $110 million or thereabouts.
The Labor Party talks a lot, but the fact is that they are not putting money on the table. The federal coalition has funded this project, as I said, not once but twice. But I will throw a bouquet to the state Labor minister, Mark Bailey, who is constructively engaging in conversations with the federal coalition to make sure this project is finished. I understand that constituents are justifiably sick to death of hearing squabbles between state and federal governments over who should be funding what and by how much.
I want to put on the record that I am committed to getting this project done. I am so committed that I have delivered funding for this project twice. I will continue to make sure that the widening of the M1 happens. It is an important part of the Gold Coast infrastructure. It is a way in which the federal government can play its role. I also demand of the Gold Coast City Council that they do their bit with boosting arterial roads and taking local traffic off an interstate highway, and that the state government also does their bit with other arterial roads as well.
I am delighted the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment is with us because I am going to issue him with a challenge. He knows and members generally know that Queensland sugar cane growers have been locked in battle with the Singapore-based miller, Wilmar. Barnaby Joyce, the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, has been saying he will fix this problem. He says that if the Queensland parliament does not fix it he will intervene. I want the trade minister to guarantee me that the government will not intervene in any way which offends the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which would have serious consequences for trade between those two countries. The minister scurries out of the chamber, and I understand why: he knows there is a real threat here from the agriculture minister, who says he will intervene. He is not prepared to say how he will intervene, but he has said he will intervene in a way which will hurt—that was the word he used—that Singapore-based company involved.
I just want to quickly say that we know only too well about the digital divide between our capital cities and those of us who live in rural and regional Australia. There is a very significant divide of disadvantage in the regions. In my own electorate, we also have a digital divide locally: the divide between those who have the Prime Minister's inferior fibre-to-the-node NBN and those who fear now getting fibre-to-the-node NBN. Those who have it in my electorate, particularly those living around the western side of Lake Macquarie, hate it. It is slower than their old ADSL2 service, but worse, it keeps dropping out. Worse again, their landlines keep dropping out.
Take Barney from Edgeworth. I will only use his first name. On a daily basis Barney loses his landline. He talks to my office about how frustrating it is to attempt to talk to Telstra about the problem. He does not have any criticism of the staff at Telstra, but it is clear to Barney that they are just not capable of fixing his problem because of this hopeless NBN introduced and given to us by this Prime Minister.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 10 : 09 to 10 : 30
Employment self-sufficiency remains one of the major priorities in my electorate. It is being addressed through economic development initiatives designed to create more local jobs for a growing residential population. Recognising that the efficient movement of people and freight is one of the major factors in promoting growth of industry and productivity within our region, both the federal and state Liberal governments have been working cooperatively to invest in key road infrastructure necessary to facilitate the growth of businesses.
For our local economy to develop, efficient supply chains must be implemented through efficient transport, materials handling and logistics. Local businesses require distribution channels for goods by road, air and sea freight for export. Supply channels are required for inward-bound stock, bulky goods, construction materials and supplies. In addition, the development of our local tourism industry requires better transport connections between Perth Airport and our iconic tourist attractions such as Hillarys marina, Joondalup Resort, coastal nodes and our regional city of Joondalup.
The Mitchell Freeway Extension to Hester Avenue, incorporating the eastbound extension of Neerabup Road and the associated widening of Wanneroo Road and realignment of Flynn Drive, is on track for a midyear opening. The federal government has provided $209 million in funding for these roadworks, which are designed to provide access to the Neerabup Industrial Area, creating up to 20,000 new jobs.
The grade separation of the Ocean Reef Road intersection with Wanneroo Road, for which $20 million in federal funding has been committed, will provide an improved east-west link between Moore and the other major industrial areas such as Wangara. Similarly, federally funded major upgrades to the Reid and Tonkin highways as part of the $1.2 billion NorthLink WA project will provide a more efficient route to Perth Airport and key industrial areas such as Malaga, Welshpool and Kewdale.
More locally, there is the widening of Ocean Reef Road andWhitfords Avenue to dual carriageways near the coast in readiness for the future Ocean Reef Marina redevelopment and growth in strategic activity centres. Similarly, upgrades at the intersection of Hepburn Avenue and Whitfords Avenue are also designed to alleviate traffic congestion as major development occurs along the coast and district centres. Major roadworks at the intersections of Ocean Reef Road and Joondalup Drive are also designed to improve traffic movements. (Time expired)
I rise today to speak on the importance of properly funding our education system. In particular, today I want to focus on the important roles of trades training centres and what a difference they have made within my electorate of Richmond. In 2013 I announced funding for a whole range of trade training centres right throughout my electorate. Federal Labor made that commitment to invest in the new trade training centres to ensure that local young people got the skills that they need to compete for the jobs of tomorrow. This of course is all in contrast to the Liberals and Nationals, who cut funding for trades training centres.
The fact is that these centres really do address skills shortages and are very important. I would like to run through some of the ones within my electorate. First of all, in 2015 we opened the Lindisfarne Anglican Grammar School trades training centre. It was a very welcome addition to the Mahers Lane campus at Terranora. The former Labor government committed $1.2 million to the centre, which provides state-of-the-art facilities for students to study hospitality, food technology and IT as well. It is a great resource.
Also in 2015 we opened the St Joseph's College trade skills centre. St Joseph's College, of course, is located in Banora Point. That was $1.5 million from the former federal Labor government for that trade skills centre. It focuses on electrotechnology, hospitality and construction as well. That is a wonderful resource there.
In 2016 we opened the Kingscliff High School's trade skills centre as well. That was $975,000 from the former Labor government for a great trade skills centre which focuses on agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture. I thank the school for that great opening and for showing me how all those wonderful resources were working.
Recently I also attended the Tweed River High School trades skill centre and inspected their metals and engineering facility. I am very proud the former Labor government committed $1 million to build this outstanding facility. It really has a whole range of different metal based training. They showed us some of the great resources they had there with the class that was in place.
I would also like to make mention of Aunty Chris Morgan, who is the Tweed River High School Aboriginal education officer. Alongside the opening of their wonderful trades training centre, Aunty Chris was honoured and farewelled after 34 years of service assisting and supporting Indigenous students both at Tweed River High and in the wider community. We do acknowledge the wonderful work that she has been doing right throughout our schools. The students spoke at the time about the effort that she put into everything she did for them and the endless encouragement that she provided to all of those students. So I thank Aunty Chris for her wonderful commitment to our local schools.
Labor does have a very strong commitment to education, whether it be in our primary schools, in our high schools, in apprenticeships or at universities. Right across the board we understand the importance of that, and these trades training centres are making a massive difference in my electorate of Richmond.
I rise to thank everyone who attended last week's Great Ocean Road Summit in Lorne. Almost 100 people attended the Lorne Bowls Club to hear from key stakeholders such as the Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism like the Committee for Lorne, the local shires and the Apollo Bay Chamber of Commerce. I am incredibly proud that our government has led the way in delivering $100 million in partnership with the state to upgrade the iconic Great Ocean Road.
I was out in the community, hearing from local stakeholders, from tourism operators, from traders and from local residents about how we should spend this money. We had some fantastic feedback very much focused on road danger spots, road safety, driver behaviour, erosion and improving basic tourism infrastructure. The need for better international driver education is an issue that I have raised with Victorian Minister for Roads and Road Safety Luke Donnellan on many occasions, and I am yet to receive a satisfactory response. It is becoming an increasingly important issue. There is the poor state of the Great Ocean Road in some parts such as in and around Mount Defiance, between Lorne and Wye River, the need for better infrastructure at Skenes Creek and Wild Dog Creek, a need for improved and more strategic signage and better vegetation clearance to enhance ocean views. Better car parking, particularly for buses, is needed. A proper bypass around Anglesea is important. There is a need for toilet facilities. The lack of proper toilet facilities along the Great Ocean Road is a massive issue for our regional tourism industry. Places like Kennett River, Wye River, Lorne and right through to Apollo Bay are suffering from a lack of investment, and that really resonated very positively. It was also a great suggestion to produce an app guide to assist people in different languages with navigating our wonderful tourism icon.
The summit was so successful that I am very pleased to announce we are holding another summit in Apollo Bay at the bowls club on Friday, 17 March at six o'clock. This is a great opportunity for the people of Apollo Bay, Marengo and Lavers Hill to come along and express their views about the importance of this wonderful road. This is part of a $1.5 billion infrastructure investment package that the Turnbull government is delivering into Victoria. We are incredibly proud of what we are doing to invest in better roads and better rail, including, of course, the iconic Great Ocean Road. I say to everyone in Apollo Bay and all around that part of the Great Ocean Road: please come along Friday, 17 March at the Apollo Bay Bowls Club. Share your views because your voice matters.
I rise to again talk about the disasters that often affect our region—in particular, most recently, the terrible Carwoola bushfires and what they revealed once again about the strength of our communities and the way Australians rallied around that community. It was a vicious grass fire that swept at a rapid rate across an area that threatened not only the residences of the Carwoola area but also Hoskinstown. Unfortunately, in that fire, 11 houses were destroyed and 12 houses were damaged. We were fortunate that there weren't more houses destroyed because of the response by our wonderful fireys and also, importantly, the preparations that were conducted by a number of members of the community themselves. It does emphasise, once again, the importance of proper preparation of properties in the context of this bushfire season. That is a message that we need to get across loud and clear.
There was also, given that they were rural properties, quite a lot of extensive damage done to the infrastructure that those people need to support their businesses and small farm activities: 45 outbuildings were destroyed and another 40 damaged. So altogether 3,500-hectares of land was burnt out. Of course, if the wind had been blowing in the other direction, that fire would have swept across the ridges and into Queanbeyan where possibly we would have seen even more houses lost, including my own home across the ridge and river from that fire.
A lot of livestock and wildlife were injured, but a lot of the livestock was able to be evacuated and was temporarily housed at the Queanbeyan showgrounds, which was a great response and capability there. It was also supported wonderfully by donations of feedstock by the Gibbs Farm Centre in Queanbeyan. I want to really send a shout-out to them for supporting our community.
There were over 200 firefighters and 50 units out there fighting it from our local area, the ACT, and the outskirts of Sydney—thank you to all those who came down and volunteered, in particular the 10 aircraft that supported that effort. It was really that air effort that stopped the forward edge of the fire line from sweeping through Hoskinstown. We were blessed with a change of weather on Saturday, 18 February that brought that welcome relief and about five millimetres of rain that prevented further spread of the fire.
Also, it is important to now look after the victims of this fire. We have raised $130,000 through the Carwoola bushfire appeal—$20,000 in one donation from the Queanbeyan Lions Club; $70,000 from the GoFundMe Facebook page is an extraordinary effort; Canberra Grammar School parents, and friends have raised $27,000 for two of their students. So this is tremendous community response. Also, the Royal Hotels in Bungendore and Queanbeyan who put up those who were displaced, and I really want to encourage the community to keep that effort up.
There is a lot of commentary at the moment about the health of Western democracy. Unsurprisingly, many people are sceptical that our system of government is not working. This is especially the case among young Australians. The AEC estimates that at the last election, over 800,000 Australians were not enrolled to vote. Of this number, over 350,000 are estimated to be aged 18 to 25. What is more, an online survey of 10,000 18- to 29-year-olds by Triple J—yes, I do tune in—last year found that 44 per cent see no difference between the major parties; and 80 per cent do not believe that politicians work in young people's best interests.
If those numbers are to be believed then we, the elected members, representatives of this place, must work harder together to win the trust of Australia's youth. This is why I was heartened to receive a number of emails from students at Mandurah Baptist College recently in my electorate of Canning. The school's grade 10 civics class was exploring the question: is Australian democracy broken? They wanted to know what their local MP thought, and I was more than happy to share my thoughts.
Last Thursday I visited Mandurah Baptist College to speak directly with the students. I spoke to several classes of year 10 and year 11 students about how parliament works, the nature of our Westminster democracy and a wide range of policy and political issues. Afterwards, I also sat down with the a small group of year 12 politics students and together we discussed and debated—I should say debated—a range of topics, including tax, same-sex marriage, youth mental health, defence spending and euthanasia.
My message to the students was simple: it is up to us on both sides to be good stewards of our country; and it is up to us to pass on the country in good shape with low debt, secure borders and our institutions preserved and upheld as they are now. But they are Australia's future. I said to them, 'Be informed, be engaged, be involved. Our democracy is not broken. We enjoy great freedom, peace and prosperity compared to much of the rest of the world. But these things are fragile, and so it is up to all of us to ensure they continue for generations to come.'
I would like to thank teacher Catherine Eppen for organising the visit and for her hospitality as well as the grade 12 students I spoke with: James, Caleb, Stella, Lauren, Kate and Monique. I thank James particularly for his honesty. I also make special acknowledgement of all the students who spoke to me directly. I hope I was able to offer some encouragement that, when you speak, your MP listens.
I live in and represent an amazing community in the electorate of Longman. It is an electorate that really is a community of communities. As I mentioned in a speech yesterday, the average median income in my electorate is just $27,000 a year. That is just over $500 a week. If the people in Longman have not had enough financial stress in their lives, now they are faced with the Centrelink robo-debt debacle. If that was not enough, we have now seen this government take things to a level beyond belief. They have now exposed personal details. Can you actually believe this? The government's handling of this issue has been what can be called quintessential LNP—careless, heartless and dispassionate. These are just ordinary people in Longman who do not need to be harassed by a robotic system that lacks any semblance of empathy.
One Longman resident is a 63-year-old lady. She was the victim of one of these robotic attacks last year. She came to me for assistance. She asked that her story about this debacle be told. She said that it had to be brought to light, but that her personal details should not be. She was told that she owed over $4,000 for an overpayment of her Newstart allowance. I cannot even begin to imagine how she felt when she went to the letterbox and opened that envelope. But what makes this story worse is that this was not the first time. Back in 2013, she was erroneously informed that she owed $300 to Centrelink. Imagine her having finally settled that last issue, which was quite stressful, only to be faced with this yet again. I am sure what still sits in the back of her mind is: 'When will the next letter arrive? Do I have to go through this once more? Can I deal with this again, with the process of going through Centrelink?' and having her debt cleared because she actually did not owe one. Does she have to do this again at the age of 63?
On behalf of the people of Longman, enough is enough. The other robotic system that lacks empathy, the Turnbull government, must fix this mess. They must fix it respectfully and protect the privacy of all Australian people, including the people of Longman.
The Clarence Valley has produced Olympic athletes and some of the country's leading businesspeople, but we also entertain and sing to the world. I would like to acknowledge two international acts today. Firstly, 10-time Golden Guitar and two-time ARIA award winners the McClymont sisters are from Grafton, and Troy Cassar-Daley, who has two ARIA awards for best country record and Golden Guitar Awards, is a Clarence Valley boy.
The McClymont sisters, Brooke, Samantha and Mollie, are celebrated by our community. Their mother, Toni, and father, Peter, or 'Porky', McClymont, tell how their daughters were like any other sisters—fighting and never out of bed early. But, of course, that changed once they discovered music. Brooke, the eldest, started entering talent shows at the age of 11, and Mollie and Sam followed. Mollie started competing at the age of six, while the youngest, Sam, waited until the ripe old age of nine. While still at Grafton High School, the girls performed at many local events. By 2015, the sisters were celebrated, being awarded the highest selling Australian album of the year and achieved 52 weeks in the ARIA top 40 country album chart. Interestingly, their music teacher, Leonie Hayes, was also the music teacher for Troy Cassar-Daley.
Troy's love of music started when his cousins Melissa and Carmen French taught him a few guitar chords when he was just a youngster. Troy lived at Halfway Creek in the Clarence Valley with his mother, Irene. As a kid, Troy started his first band, Little Eagle, along with Andrew Hegedus, Carl Daley, Michael Hatgis, Andrew Blackadder and Anthony Manahan. He was looked up to by many, and with the help of his mother, Leonie, he mentored many young Indigenous boys who were in hard times. Whenever he performs, Troy always pays tribute to his traditional country of Gumbaynggirr and the mighty Clarence River that runs through the heart of the valley and gives it life. Our community salutes both Troy and the McClymont sisters, as indeed, does our country.
In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
I refer to His Excellency's speech on opening day in which he said:
You come to this place with the honour of being elected by the people to serve as their voice, to represent their interests, in the great debates that will shape our nation's destiny.
I thank the electors of Moore for entrusting me as their representative in this parliament for a second term. It is a great responsibility, which I will continue striving to fulfil to the best of my ability. The challenge for the government is to provide Australians with economic security, national security, essential services and nation-building infrastructure. The coalition government faces a multitude of policy choices in its legislative program. At the core is an economic plan to strengthen economic growth through policies that encourage jobs, growth and investment backed by a budget strategy which features strong fiscal discipline and control of expenditure growth.
I advocate on behalf of prudent Australians, who work hard, save and invest their earnings over a lifetime to provide for their financial security in retirement. I refer to the aspirational Australians, sole-funded, independent retirees in our community. Just because they have the capacity to pay taxes as a result of their effort, diligence and savings does not mean that they should become the target for higher taxation. We must shift the focus on those who deserve to pay and reduce spending on less deserving causes to balance the budget.
Public overhead costs in developed societies are increasing at a disproportionate rate to taxation revenue, leading to budget deficits and ever-increasing national debt. There are not many developed and advanced First World nations in surplus. If we want to maintain income and company tax rates in the 20 to 30 per cent range, we have to create a more disciplined society, with less waste and more social responsibility. Consider the example of Singapore.
To balance the budget, we must implement a wide range of measures which seek to incrementally achieve savings and efficiencies over time, without being too drastic, giving the public the chance to adapt to changes and modify their behaviour. These measures include programs to increase workforce participation, clamp down on law and order issues, ensure health costs are sustainable and ensure that education funding is administered more prudently. In terms of workforce participation, historically the ratio of persons in the workforce to those dependent on welfare was 10 to 1. Today, it is estimated that the ratio is five working persons to each person on welfare, and this is projected to increase to an unsustainable rate of three-to-one in the future. The government has encouraged the estimated 800,000 unemployed younger Australians of working age back into the workforce through mentoring and training to alleviate the situation. Greater workforce participation by youth, women, Indigenous, mature aged and long-term unemployed persons is facilitated through a range of initiatives, such as the Youth Jobs PaTH Programme, which seeks to create opportunities for work for up to 120,000 young people.
Our health system is under rising cost pressure from the ageing demographics of our population, advances in medical technology and developments in pharmaceuticals. Spending on health care is justifiable for the aged, those with illness or victims of accidents. However, the cost to the health system by those intoxicated by illicit drugs or as a result of criminal behaviour ought to be the subject of cost recovery after treatment. With a strong commitment to Medicare, the government has commissioned a clinician-led task force to conduct a review of some 5,700 items on the Medicare Benefits Schedule. This will ensure that the subsidised medical services provided are based on the best evidence and are appropriate to today's patients. The government has reached agreement with all states and territories on funding for public hospitals and will continue to work together with states and territories to improve quality and safety and to better coordinate the care of patients with chronic and complex conditions.
Our higher education system is very generous by world standards. It is estimated that unrecoverable student loans will exceed more than $11 billion by 2018. Modelling from the Grattan Institute suggests that the total value of student debt will almost double from $33.8 billion in 2014 to $63.6 billion in 2018, with the government estimating that only $52 billion will be repaid. Reforms should be implemented to ensure that students are provided with appropriate career counselling to promote courses which are relevant to workforce demand and for which there are realistic employment prospects on graduation. Contractual conditions should include satisfactory pass marks, completion of the course and repayment if employed overseas.
The provision of more local employment opportunities continues to be a major priority within my electorate, with up to 75 per cent of residents commuting long distances to work daily. The federal government provided $209 million of infrastructure funding towards the extension of the Mitchell Freeway and Neerabup Road. Construction is nearing completion and will accelerate development of the Neerabup industrial area, which is forecast to create 20,000 new jobs. There are also a number of economic development projects in progress across the city of Joondalup, including the construction of landmark office buildings, commercial premises and medium-density residential developments in central Joondalup. The Western Australia state government has recently announced a funding commitment of $105 million towards the redevelopment of the Ocean Reef Marina, which will see 55 hectares of prime coastal land transformed into a residential, retail, hospitality and tourism precinct, generating over $800 million in private sector investment. The Smart Cities Plan will play a role in coordinating investment, planning and reform across three levels of government, with the aim of delivering better outcomes.
At the core of our master-planned regional city is the Joondalup Learning Precinct, which includes Edith Cowan University, the North Metropolitan TAFE, the police academy and a number of vocational education and training organisations. I am committed to supporting the expansion of these tertiary educational institutions as they play an important role in research and development and producing the skilled workforce of the future.
The National Innovation and Science Agenda will drive investment of innovative business, assisting in the transition from mining to services, exports, information and technology. There has been a renewed focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In terms of the Digital Transformation Agenda, as of February 2017 more than 1.9 million homes and businesses have an active connection to the National Broadband Network, with more than 4 million premises across our nation able to connect to a service. In order to promote technology and the digital economy, the local city of Joondalup has developed a Digital City Strategy. The government has committed to investing in Australia's critical research infrastructure with reforms to research funding to promote a more collaborative approach between researchers and businesses and to achieve commercialisation of intellectual property.
I pay tribute to the vision and entrepreneurial leadership at Edith Cowan University by Vice-Chancellor Professor Steve Chapman, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Strategy Partnerships Professor Cobie Rudd, and the Director of the Office of Research and Innovation Professor Margaret Jones. The attraction of international students to study at Edith Cowan University's Joondalup campus is testament to the National Strategy For International Education which builds on the success of Australia's $19 billion international education sector.
Joondalup Health Campus is a major hospital which is located in the Moore electorate but which services patients from three neighbouring federal electorates, including Pearce and Cowan. Joondalup Health Campus recently celebrated its 20th anniversary of its being operated under a public-private model by Ramsay Health Care. I wish to acknowledge the dedicated team of staff, led by CEO Kempton Cowan, for its contribution to delivering a very high standard of health care to our community. The facility is located in one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia, with a 60 per cent increase in population projected over the next 20 years, so there exists a significant need for increased capacity through an expansion of the facility to ensure that our hospital is able to meet the healthcare needs of the community. A master plan has been developed providing a blueprint for a $375 million future expansion leading to 2026. The Western Australia state government has recently announced a funding commitment of $140 million to deliver the first phase of this expansion.
In the current era, which has seen the emergence of terrorist attacks both abroad and on home soil, counterterrorism must be at the forefront of the government's national security agenda. I fully support the proposed Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, with control orders to be issued against young offenders. I also fully support a nationally consistent post-sentence preventive scheme, with appropriate protections against high-risk terrorist offenders, and the implementation of a cybersecurity strategy, which is a core element of the government's national security framework.
In a volatile region characterised by territorial disputes and the militarisation of many nations in our region, it is important that Australia's sovereign defence capability is maintained and that our nation develops a globally competitive defence industry. I welcome the implementation of a $195 billion investment in defence capability over the next decade.
Export growth attracting investment and boosting economic and domestic competitiveness is a key strategy for increasing the living standard of Australians. This will be achieved through expanding our overseas diplomatic presence through the construction of new embassies and through new free trade agreements, which will increase market access for Australian business in foreign markets. In the future we look forward to greater regional economic integration through finalising a comprehensive trade agreement with Indonesia, forming a regional comprehensive economic partnership with our largest regional partners and forming new trade agreements with Pacific island countries.
Although I represent an urban electorate, I am always cognisant of the fact that rural and regional Australia is where a substantial share of Australia's economic wealth is created. I have great respect for our rural representatives and the issues that they work tirelessly to resolve. The almost eight million Australians living in rural, regional and remote communities are responsible for generating approximately 67 per cent of Australia's export earnings. There remains huge untapped growth potential in outback Australia. Through the $200 million Regional Jobs and Investment Package the government is helping boost employment by providing support for investment in and diversification of rural economies, new business start-ups and innovation. The Building Better Regions Fund is designed to support rural, regional and remote projects such as improving digital connectivity, fixing mobile phone blackspots and building critical road, rail and marine infrastructure. Similarly, the Agricultural competitiveness white paper will strengthen farming and agribusiness through research and development, new infrastructure and access to water supplies to promote enduring, sustainable agricultural production which will yield economic benefits.
I strongly support the traditional family unit as the foundation of our society and the existing definition of marriage. Since the dawn of human civilisation the concept of marriage has evolved over thousands of years in societies around the world to what is universally considered the social norm—that is, marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of others centred around a family unit. This anthropological social arrangement existed long before religion evolved, and certainly before the concept of parliament or the legislation with which to define it. Prehistoric humans organised themselves into social units, and this basic cohabitation relationship evolved as civilisation progressed. Today, traditional marriage and the family unit are almost universal across the world in societies across geography, race and culture, stretching from Europe to Asia, the American continent and Africa. Marriage predominantly exists between a man and a woman. Exceptions exist in traditional tribal cultures where polygamy and communal living are practised; nevertheless, in most nations traditional marriage dominates as the norm. Traditional marriage is not perfect; there are many issues with family breakdown, divorce and dysfunction. However, it is the best social institution we currently have.
The journey towards advancing reconciliation and promoting multiculturalism will continue during this term of parliament. As an Australian of Eurasian heritage—of both European and Asian ancestry—I look forward to advancing this process in a balanced way. My observation is that the role of Western civilisation in shaping the economic prosperity, governance and culture of Australian society must equally be recognised and celebrated. The early British settlement of our country is equally important as our Indigenous heritage and the subsequent influence of generations of migrants from across the world, who have all contributed to and shaped modern Australia into the great Commonwealth it is today.
Conflicting multiculturalism is an awkward topic that politically correct society seeks to avoid, as characterised by the current debate and parliamentary inquiry surrounding section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. What happens when cultures collide? Which culture or legal system prevails? Will one be criticised for intervening on the basis of being prejudiced? There are many cultural conflicts in a multicultural society which are often left unresolved. For instance, different cultures have different views on issues such as the equality of women, attitudes to work, what is acceptable social conduct. What happens when new cultures conflict with long-held Australian social norms? As a nation we have struggled with this dilemma and have been reluctant to publicly debate and resolve cultural conflicts. There has been a clash of cultures in existence for some time in certain communities across Australia, and these matters have not been adequately resolved due to a politically correct regime that is reluctant to offend. It is a reality that we cannot be all things to all people, yet we can select from the best in the world and adapt.
I subscribe to a selective approach to multiculturalism in Australian society which contends that we should be selective and only adopt those aspects of multiculturalism which are synergistic or complementary, and that Australian culture should prevail where foreign cultures are inconsistent with long-established social norms. Where there is a clash of cultures, a conflict of ideals, then I advocate adherence to the prevailing Western culture in Australian society in terms of conforming to social norms, maintaining the Protestant work ethic, being diligent, embracing scientific methods and being respectful, which are the things that make our society strong. There is no room in Australian society for divided loyalties or separate legal systems. To be truly Australian is to embody a fusion of cultures. In His Excellency's closing remarks to members and senators, he said:
Though you come from, and represent, many different viewpoints, I urge you to work together to provide Australia with economic security, national security and strong and sustainable support for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society.
With these remarks in mind, I look forward to forming cooperative and constructive working relationships with my fellow members and senators in the 45th Parliament for the advancement of all Australians.
I rise on the 21st anniversary of my election to the parliament, which happened to be on my birthday as well, way back in 1996. So in terms of the issue before us today, the address-in-reply, this is the eighth opportunity I have had as the member for Grayndler to speak on it. It is a great honour to serve in the House of Representatives, and it is one that I certainly do not take for granted.
Indeed, I had a big decision to make after the electoral redistribution, because the draft boundaries placed my home, as well as my electorate office, in the electorate of Barton. After the final boundaries came out, though, my electorate office was put back into Grayndler. But my home remained just outside the boundary, which became the railway line rather than the Cooks River. Hence, I became a resident of the Barton electorate rather than of Grayndler.
I chose, however, to run for Grayndler because overwhelmingly that is the community that I have represented. I have only lived in three suburbs in my life—Camperdown, Newtown and Marrickville. They are all in the inner west and Grayndler is primarily the inner west electorate.
The other advantage for me contesting Grayndler rather than Barton is that it enabled Linda Burney to be the candidate for Barton and to become the first Indigenous woman to be elected to the House of Representatives. That was a great thing for this parliament and I have no doubt that Linda Burney will be an outstanding representative. She rose in the New South Wales parliament to be the deputy leader of the Labor Party, as well as a senior minister. And she was the first Indigenous person elected to Australia's first parliament, the New South Wales parliament.
It is a very good thing indeed that this parliament has not just Linda Burney but also of course Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and Senator Pat Dodson as representatives from the Labor Party. And it is a very good thing indeed that Ken Wyatt has become the first Aboriginal person to be a minister in an Australian government. That is a good thing for the nation and I certainly wish him well. And we also have Jackie Lambie in the Senate, so there is considerable Indigenous representation in this parliament.
We need to do much better with female representation. This parliament should reflect the nation if it is truly to be representative. I think that bringing in people from different backgrounds to reflect the multicultural, modern nation that is Australia would be a very good thing.
One of my key opponents in the electorate of Grayndler was not a member of the Liberal Party but was a Greens political party opponent. That was the way that campaign was fought out on the ground. In Grayndler and in many similar seats around the nation—like Batman, Sydney and Melbourne—there has been a considerable change in the composition of the population. Many of the newer residents are from generations that have been uplifted by the former Labor governments that opened up our nation's universities, giving the children of working-class families the opportunity to access qualifications and well-paid work. These people are politically savvy and they are very much engaged. My community is a very political community. It has quite large meetings about issues, and the election campaign was no different.
The relative financial security of many of these residents means that they will make judgements on their political allegiances based upon the values and convictions that they hold rather than upon their immediate personal economic concerns. In short, they do not need the state to take any particular action in order to improve their personal economic circumstances. That presents a challenge to political candidates, because certainly they are not self-interested but they are engaged in what is in the national interest. During the election campaign I put forward what was very much my vision for the national interest—about health, about education, about public transport—and I regard the success that I had in that election as being because I communicated and engaged with my electorate on the issues of concern to them. These are people who know that Medicare is critical for those who need health care. They know that we must invest in good schools to extend opportunity to all Australians regardless of their background. They accept that when we are the beneficiaries of opportunities at the hand of government we must stand firmly against any move to reduce opportunity for others. Above all, my constituents understand that the best way to achieve genuine progress is to support a political party that aspires to govern. That is one of the big distinctions between the Labor Party—and the coalition parties for that matter—and minor political parties. We seek to make decisions around a cabinet table, not to protest after decisions are made.
My opponent in Grayndler from the Greens political party made this clear in a video that the Greens party posted, where he argued that he would rather have people protesting on the streets about Indigenous issues, climate change—a range of issues—with Tony Abbott as the Prime Minister than have no-one protesting, with Bill Shorten as the Prime Minister. Essentially, he advocated that it was somehow in the interests of progressives for Tony Abbott to be the Prime Minister. This statement, of course, was made whilst Tony Abbott was in the prime ministership, before he was replaced in a coup by Malcolm Turnbull.
It seems to me that one of the big distinctions amongst progressives is between those people who want to improve the lives of others—and that is what drives me: making a difference to people's educational opportunities, making a difference to their living standards, making a difference to the environment in which they live—and others for whom the protest is the end in itself. I think that is one of the problems with the elements that control the New South Wales Greens political party: for them, the protest is the end in itself, not an outcome. That is why they have been rejected—not just by me, it must be said, but by people like former senator Bob Brown, who has rejected the political ideology of the leadership of the New South Wales Greens.
The 2016 election, of course, was one in which infrastructure policy played a role. In terms of infrastructure, we worked in the context of Australia moving from the investment to the production phase in the resources sector and a considerable drop-off in infrastructure investment. We saw a 20 per cent decline in public sector investment in infrastructure in the first two years of the coalition government.
That primarily came about because of the ideological position of Tony Abbott, outlined in his book Battlelines, that somehow there was no role for the Commonwealth in urban policy and particularly no role in investing in public transport. He argues in the book that in a car man is king and that the private motor car is the focus of a sense of individualism, and somehow public transport is a form of collectivism that brings people together and therefore it should be opposed and the Commonwealth should never invest in public transport. In this, to be fair—unlike the cuts to health, education, pensions, the ABC and SBS that took place—he did foreshadow it prior to the election. He certainly did that with the cuts to the Cross River Rail funding, to the Melbourne Metro project, to public transport in Perth and to the Gawler line electrification in South Australia that were in the budget.
This ripping out of all public transport funding was done, of course, without replacing it, because the projects that were chosen were not projects that stacked up: projects like the controversial Perth Freight Link, which still has not commenced and will be rejected, I believe, by the people of Western Australia on 11 March, and the East West Link in Melbourne, which had a benefit of 45c for every dollar of investment, a dreadful return, and which simply did not stack up and therefore has not proceeded. So we saw, as a result of that, a decline in public investment.
During the election campaign, we offered transformative funding for public transport projects like the Metro, Cross River Rail, AdeLINK, the Perth Metronet, the Western Sydney rail line—including through Badgerys Creek airport—and a new bus mall in Hobart. These are the sorts of projects that we need to engage in and build if we are going to avoid what Infrastructure Australia has identified as $53 billion of costs by the year 2031.
We also had plans to deal with freight. We found out from Senate estimates just this week that, for the Inland Rail line, the government have not yet identified what their preferred corridor is, they have not purchased any land, and they have not dug a hole or laid a sleeper on that project. It was a project that the coalition promised would be under construction last year, by 2016. We promised to proceed with the Inland Rail, but we also supported important projects like the Port Botany freight line. At the moment, between Mascot and the port you have one track that, of course, is two-way, so if freight is going in it cannot go out. It has been duplicated all the way up to Mascot. A lot of infrastructure development and productivity could be gained in that last mile, whether it be road or rail. An investment of just over $200 million could fix that, and could fix the issue around Moorebank by creating a loop to separate the lines there. That would have an enormous productivity benefit, yet this government just does not seem interested in investing in it.
During the election campaign we saw from the government total commitments of $850 million to 78 small road projects around the nation, most of which could best be characterised as local or at best state government projects. There was not a single major national infrastructure commitment during the election campaign. That is the first time in the eight election campaigns that I have contested where one side of politics has not proposed a single major infrastructure project. It was quite extraordinary. Instead, we had projects like the $1 million allocated for a road at Gresford in the upper Hunter Valley that is used for a billy cart race. That is not nation-building; that should not be the priority for major infrastructure and national government. I am sure it is a very good race and I am sure it is a lot of fun, but there is nothing fun about congestion in our cities. The government has to deal with that. The government cannot continue to go around and pretend that projects like the Great Eastern Highway and Gateway WA—projects that were funded by the former Labor government—were something that just appeared when government changed in 2013. The government has to get on with major infrastructure development. It was told that again last Friday by the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, who said very clearly what was required.
During the campaign we also committed to major road projects like the M80 ring road; the Queensland Gateway and Pacific highway merge just north of the Gold Coast, between the Gold Coast in Brisbane; and the Wanneroo and Roe highway overpasses in Perth. We promised also to create the authority for a high-speed rail line. That is the sort of vision that we need in this country. Every other continent on the planet is seeing high-speed rail rolled out. When we have such a concentration of our population as we have down the east coast, between Brisbane and Melbourne via Sydney, it is a doable achievement to have high-speed rail along that route. We need to get on with the planning and with the reservation of the corridor to make sure that that can happen.
What we have seen under this government is a decline. Under the former government we lifted per capita infrastructure investment from $132 per Australian to $225. When Labor took office we were 20th on a list of OECD countries for infrastructure investment as a proportion of GDP. When we left office Australia was first. Australia is no longer first, sadly, because this government does not have an agenda for infrastructure and does not have an agenda for growth and jobs. It has a slogan; it does not have any substance behind it.
I thank the member for Grayndler for that enlightening contribution. Can I also, on behalf of the House, wish you a very heartfelt 'Happy birthday!' on this celebratory day. It is no mean feat to celebrate the time in parliament that you have on this anniversary date. Allow me on behalf of the parliament to offer my congratulations to you.
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It is always a great privilege to rise in this House to respond to His Excellency, the Governor-General's address. This is my fourth response to the Governor-General's address and my fourth parliament to represent the great constituents of the Gold Coast. Let me put on record my great thanks to the team that came out to ensure that the Liberal-National Party retained the seat of Fadden in some pretty tough conditions. Hundreds of volunteers were out there selling a message of hope and optimism of growth and jobs. I am very proud to be a member of a political party, a movement, that works with community volunteers. We do not have the large bulk of union members that roll out on command. We have everyday Australians, donating their time, money and resources to deliver good outcomes for communities.
I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on how the Gold Coast has changed over the 10 years that I have been representing the north. Over that time, I have been very proud to fight for the community I love. I do not live on the Gold Cost because my families have lived there for generations. Very few families have lived on the Gold Coast for generations. In fact, in the 1954 census only 19,000 people lived on the Gold Coast—a city of now 600,000. It is one of the most extraordinary urban growth stories in the country. I chose to live on the coast over two decades ago, after I finished soldiering.
Like many Gold Coasters, we are looking forward to hosting the Commonwealth Games next year, as the world's eyes turn to our fabulous part of the world. There is no better opportunity for us to showcase the great part of the world we live in than next year's games to a billion viewers. I welcome the affordable ticket pricing announcements that have occurred, and I am looking forward to volunteers across the Gold Coast for being involved. The federal government has stepped up. We have put in $147 million in cold, hard taxpayers' cash to assist with putting on the games. There has been some very serious financial lifting by this federal government. The real value, of course, of this investment is through the local infrastructure that will be about legacy post games—facilities like the Coomera Indoor Sports Centre and the Goal Coast Hockey Centre. It is important to have a central hub for the games, but these new infrastructures, which will allow various sports to be played right around the Gold Coast, will have a tremendous legacy impact on our city.
For my area, it is important in catering for the new growth. New residents are coming to the Gold Coast in droves—and, frankly, why wouldn't they? Why sit in the congestion of cities, especially large cities down south, when you can come and hang out in, literally, nirvana? The Gold Coast is growing strongly, especially up in the north. Only 45 minutes from Brisbane and 30 minutes from the centre of the Gold Coast is affordable housing. There is impressive education facilities. Up in Coomera, there are 13,000 residents, and we are seeking this number to grow to 20,000 in the next five years and to an incredible 60,000 in the next 20 years. So this is world-class infrastructure is delivering for these communities.
We have funded the second stage of the light rail—a negotiation I did personally with Deputy Premier Jackie Trad. In fact, $95 million of Commonwealth money has gone into the second stage of the light rail. That second stage is entirely within my electorate; hence, my great interest in fighting for that electric community rail. It connects the Gold Coast community hospital to the Helensvale heavy rail link and, of course, Westfield. The $95 million from the federal government sealed it. It is what got the project going, and I certainly thank Jackie Trad for her very honest negotiation, as well as the mayor, Tom Tate. The route that goes from the heavy rail link through to the Gold Coast Hospital is the most expeditious route. There are always other areas of the coast where people want it to go, and of course I will be fighting very strongly for a spur of the light rail to go through to Harbour Town.
Since the light rail began in 2014, there has been an increase in overall public patronage of more than 25 per cent. Punctuality and reliability is 99.95 per cent. It is no surprise that there have been millions and millions of passenger trips. Having stage 2 to connect to Helensvale creates a passenger hub, with the incentive to use public transport. The Gold Coast is perfect for public transport—some 80 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide and flat. There is no point in building infrastructure that does not fit in with where the public wants it to go. So I have every confidence that stage 2 will fit in perfectly and that patronage will soar.
Transport infrastructure is vital to ensuring our region maintains its lifestyle. It is why the federal government partnered with the Queensland government and Westfield to ensure that exit 54 was upgraded. This will allow the Coomera town centre development to proceed, it will give easy access to Dreamworld and it will cut down the time parents have to spend on the school run to at least six schools that hang off Foxwell Road. I have been watching progress carefully and I am looking forward to seeing the project completed soon.
On a similar scale we have seen $1.9 million in Black Spot Program funding. It is great to see simple community projects, like the roundabout at Turpin Road and Robert Street, being finalised. There is a quarter of a million dollars for the Gold Coast city council for safer seat programs and, of course, we are the movie-making centre of the nation. We have put in almost $30 million in a location offset to see Thor: Ragnarok filmed up on the Gold Coast. It was great to get down there and connect with Chris Hemsworth and Cate Blanchett and see what that film is doing. That is a $200 million direct injection into the community. When a film company is spending $100,000 every week in your local Bunnings this is a good outcome for the community! So we are a huge supporter of producing locally-made films, in this case in partnership with Village Roadshow Studios, and it is an impressive return on our nation's investment.
Last year, we saw Pirates of the Caribbean, and it was great to take Malcolm down to show him around the sets. Dead Men Tell No Tales was filmed on the Gold Coast, and so were San Andreas and Unbreakable. It is my hope that Disney will remember their great and positive experiences from these blockbusters in Australia and will make it a regular occurrence.
It was also a great moment a few months ago to stand with the Treasurer and commit a further $30 million-plus to see Aquaman, a film with a $300 million spend, filmed on the Gold Coast and ensuring employment for the over 1,000 people involved and, of course, looking forward to that direct local spend. If I were Bunnings, I would be stocking up!
We have also seen a whole range of local infrastructure: new memorials at local schools funded through the Centenary of Anzac grants, and of course $300,000 directly into the local community through the Stronger Communities Program. There was $5,000 for the Labrador Community Garden, to get solar panels to make the garden sustainable as well as self-sufficient for water. The Pacific Pines Football Club got $5,000 for portable aluminium soccer goals that make a huge difference, especially when mums have to drag these damn things from where the main facility is out onto the ovals.
The Labrador C&K Kindergarten got $18,181 for an extension and office construction to blend in with the building's heritage there on the Broadwater. There was $5,000 for the Runaway Bay Soccer Club to upgrade their kitchen, including a new oven, fridges, a fryer and a coffee machine. This is a soccer club run by an immigrant family who have busted their guts to get this thing profitable and up and running. It is just superb.
Helensvale Hornets Junior Rugby League Football Club got $5,617 for a digital scoreboard and the Runaway Bay Junior Rugby League Football Club got $6,000 to upgrade their canteen. Again, fabulously run by immigrant and local families who are getting involved.
We got $18,180 for Headway Gold Coast to purchase a specially-designed SportsArt elliptical machine to allow those with a disability, such as brain injury, to be able to work the needs of their body and to develop their muscles and heart capacity. There was $6,648 for the Seachange Homeowners Association for a community garden for older Australians. There was over $9,600 for Montrose Therapy and Respite Services to create an outdoor living space for their respite centre in Labrador. There was $8,000 for a new clubhouse to help out the Ormeau Cricket Club and, of course, a range of other projects, including the Green Army.
I am looking forward to the establishment of the Coomera town centre. We will need a Centrelink established there. Currently, the only Centrelink is right opposite my office in Labrador and the next one is at Beenleigh. The fastest-growing area is in the middle and I think a new Centrelink establishment is needed there.
I will also work hard to ensure that smooth immigration and other services are provided to assist the Commonwealth Games—in particular safety around the Commonwealth Games. I am also making the case very strongly to have our own immigration port service on the Gold Coast to service the luxury superyacht industry. They are coming more and more via Tahiti then through Fiji and into Australia. The spend from superyachts is extraordinary, so getting a clearance facility through immigration and Customs on the Gold Coast is important. Potentially, this could be combined with any planned offshore cruise ship terminal once the council has finished all its community consultations and done the master planning work that it has announced with the state government, all of which makes tremendous sense.
The future for the Gold Coast is great. It is an amazing city. It is a growing city. With the Commonwealth Games hitting next year, it is a fabulous place to live, work and raise a family. I am very proud to represent it. It is great to be here for my fourth term, and I am looking forward to continuing to work with my colleagues from both sides to deliver great outcomes for the nation.
It is an absolute pleasure, it is humbling and it is an absolute privilege to be returned as the member for Lalor for my second term in this place. My electorate is on the front lines of the opportunities and challenges that our great country faces at this critical point in history. As an electorate, our median age is 32. Forty-nine per cent of the residents are paying off their mortgage. Thirty-six per cent of the people who live in the electorate of Lalor were born overseas. It is a young, diverse, aspirational community that needs its government to remove the barriers that stop people from realising their potential. I am proudly from a community made up of people that cannot afford to have their government believe that a person's opportunities should be determined by the lottery of their birth.
My community has the best of everything. It is a city. It has coast and country. It was once known as the country suburb. It began life as a small town, and in my lifetime it has grown to a thriving city of over 200,000 people. You could meet a stranger in the street, and there is a strong chance that either you are related or you are very close to someone they know. Now I go to the shopping centre, to a sporting ground to watch a football game, or to the rec centre or Eagle Stadium on a Saturday morning to watch the netball, and I often stand and am stunned by how much we have grown and by the diversity that has been drawn together in our very special part of the world.
I am glad to have been returned to this place as part of a Labor team and to welcome so many new Labor colleagues. I look to the member for Bruce, who has joined us in this term. I know that, when I talk to the other members on our side of the chamber about my electorate, they are all ears. They are open to listening. They are open to hearing about the people who live in my electorate, what their concerns are and what their needs are.
Like many residents of my electorate, I am outraged at the direction this government is heading in. The leadership of Malcolm Turnbull has been a disaster. Our Prime Minister is seriously letting down the people in my community. When the Prime Minister first came to power, many Australians, including some in my electorate, assumed that it meant a change in direction, an optimistic reboot of this failed conservative government at a time that demanded a decisive leader. The reality has been an incredible disappointment, and the emboldened right wing of the Liberal Party have put pressure on this Prime Minister and his increasingly diminished group of moderates, who seem unable to abandon their principles quickly enough.
They went to an election on a three-word slogan, 'jobs and growth', two of the most important things in my electorate. That is what they went to an election with. We went to an election with 100 positive policies, carefully crafted around the needs of people across this nation. And what have we seen since they have come into government? Anyone paying attention to politics in this country can tell that something has changed. Debates used to be about the best way to support Australians; now we are spending time arguing about issues settled years ago: climate change and whether or not we should support a multicultural Australia.
We need leadership right now, and this government is offering my community none. We have gone from the initial term of this government, with Joe Hockey starting off talking about lifters and leaners. Then we had the current Treasurer talking about the taxed and the taxed-nots. And who can forget Tony Abbott's mythical 'Team Australia— either you're on it or you're out of it'? In the world inhabited by members of the coalition, there exists a group of Australians—a mythical group of straw men they create for political gain and blame for all their failed policies.
Today, we are in a world where company profits are soaring and the government want to give large companies a $50 billion tax cut. Conversely, we have wages growth at record lows and this government are cutting take-home pay packets. This is going to hurt people in my electorate. It is like a war being waged on low-income earners, a war being waged on families trying to pay their mortgages. This government still have, clearly, the same set of priorities that they had under the former Prime Minister, and they are continuing down this negative line for this country, and the impacts on my electorate are felt sorely. We have seen it this week with the return of the 2014 budget omnibus bill. The government have reintroduced the remainder of their cruel cuts from the 2014 budget: cuts to family tax benefits, cuts to paid parental leave, the scrapping of the energy supplement. This is a $1 billion cut to pensioners, people with disability, carers and Newstart recipients. They have introduced a five-week wait for Newstart for young people. The many, many young people in my community looking for work really cannot afford that. There are further cuts affecting young people, with a transfer from Newstart to youth allowance that means a cut of around $48 a week—that is, $2,500 a year—which that means they will struggle to pay their rent. The implications throughout our local economy are plain for the world to see.
The government have done all this from a position where they claim to be good economic managers. They talked a lot about a budget emergency when they first came to office. In December 2013 their figures in the MYEFO had the deficit at $17.7 billion. The deficit in May 2016 was $37 billion. These good economic managers are talking about a budget emergency and doing nothing to deliver a positive outcome in that area.
I want to spend some time talking about what I believe the electorate of Lalor needs. It is a growth corridor. We have already seen it grow to a city of over 200,000, with no line of sight on when that will slow. This week the state government announced more housing will be coming to our area. We are accustomed to this work. We have a council that works tirelessly to ensure that we have the infrastructure that we need for this growing community: that we have community centres, that we have sporting fields, that we have the roads, the buses and the things that we need to make life productive for the people in my community.
It was a shock to hear that this government had cut this community, this city, out of the National Stronger Regions Fund in this round. This is a community that needs infrastructure desperately and cannot simply rely on local government and state government to deliver. This community is doing the heavy lifting in community development, the heavy lifting in creating harmonious communities, the heavy lifting in the housing sector. We need all the support we can get. Congestion is a major issue. We are spending hours a day in our cars. The people of Wyndham are what the shadow minister for infrastructure calls the 'drive-in, drive-out' community. They are travelling miles to go to work and they are often stuck in traffic for up to two hours one way. This is not good enough. The previous Labor government saw this issue and responded with the Regional Rail Link, the biggest rail infrastructure spend ever. It has made a difference, but this is a growth corridor; local and state government alone cannot keep up with the demands that are happening here. When the Tarneit and Wyndham Vale stations on the Regional Rail Link opened there were celebrations. Now the Tarneit station has the second highest number of passengers in Victoria, and it has only been open a short time. We need those new stations and we need them now.
When I was first elected, our Werribee South farmers came to see me about their irrigation issues. We have irrigation channels that are outdated, that are cracked, that are losing up to 40 per cent of the fresh flow water that is coming down that line. I went to work with those farmers to call attention to their needs and to ensure that they were getting the kind of support that they needed, and the state government immediately heard that call and made an $11 million announcement to upgrade that irrigation. We now need this federal government, the Deputy Prime Minister, to make a commitment of another $11 million to ensure our farmers get the infrastructure that they need into the future, so that they can continue to grow fresh vegetables and so that their business models are not undermined by failing infrastructure.
One of the other issues for my electorate—an acute issue in the electorate—is the casualisation of the workforce, the use of third-party labour hire companies in our local workforce. The impact that is having on families is devastating. People are sitting up till midnight to see if they are going to get a text message to say they have a shift in the morning. These are families who are trying to pay mortgages, trying to get kids to school. The uncertainty that has been created in this space needs careful, considered but urgent work, and this government needs to roll up its sleeves and get to work in this area. To think that this week we have had the penalty rate announcement from Fair Work Australia and that the Prime Minister has backed it in! This is a Prime Minister who thinks that a cut to people's penalty rates is an okay thing to deliver in my community. There are people who are now getting their calculators out, who are sitting around kitchen tables looking at their family budgets and wondering how they are going to meet that next mortgage payment.
I know this firsthand. As a brand new mum many, many years ago now—and I will say that again: many, many years ago now—my contribution while I took leave from teaching to have my three children was to work on Sundays at K-Mart, packing the shelves. That was my contribution to the family budget across that four-year period. I look back now and think: how would I feel if I woke up today to find that I could be getting a pay cut on that? The uncertainty that this government is creating for families in my electorate is very, very unfair.
We need support for our small businesses. We have thriving small businesses. We have a lot of people moving into the area. There are a lot of people for whom Wyndham is the first stop as they come in from overseas and they are starting small businesses. They need support around how they can grow those businesses, to reduce that 50 per cent fail rate. Not just do they need financial support; they need support in collaborating with one another to grow their businesses to medium-sized businesses and create employment for people living in our community.
I would bring to the House's attention a group in my electorate called BizBuddyHub. Their theme is 'live local, work local, shop local'. They are a collection of people running microbusinesses who together are planning this kind of collaboration. They have had meetings with me and meetings with state members. Ed Husic has been down to visit them. They are an exciting group. They have some really good ideas. Innovation is not all about IT; innovation can be about how those businesses work together to support one another to grow their businesses. This group of people are committed to that and are doing some fabulous work. They could certainly do with support from local, state and federal governments.
The other important work that is happening in my electorate is in organisations where government and business do not interact: the community organisations. Our fabulous community legal centre, WEstjustice, have a long history in the western suburbs of Melbourne and they do incredible work on the ground. This is yet another space where this government has cut funding that allows them to do important work—work in supporting people who are having tenancy issues, supporting people with toll fine issues, supporting people with domestic violence issues, and supporting people who are homeless. The work that they do in terms of advocacy and submission writing supports governments at all levels. They are there doing the hard work, the grind work and the research pulling together those submissions. They need support not just for case management but also to ensure that when we are looking at changes to legislation, whether it be at state or federal level, we have fine minds at the grassroots who can tell us about the impacts of our legislation and what might need to change to alleviate some of the heavy issues that face members in the community. We have fantastic people in the community sector working around homelessness and critical relief. There are terrific grassroots organisations that again have had their legs cut out from underneath them with the uncertainty that is being delivered by this government.
Housing affordability is a very important issue in my electorate. We are the affordable growth corridor. It is what attracts people to come to live in Wyndham. It is why we are so busy doing the community building that we are doing. We went to the last election with a negative gearing plan that was going to protect existing investors and make it easier for young people to get into the housing market. Nowhere is that more important than in the city of Wyndham and in the electorate of Lalor. Nowhere would that policy we took to the election have more impact. It would stimulate the housing industry locally because of course the negative gearing would still stay with new housing under our policy. It was an important policy and I would urge this government to look carefully at that as they prepare for this budget. Look carefully at negative gearing and at what changes there might deliver for an electorate like mine.
One of the first things I did when I was elected almost three years ago was to hold a homelessness forum. It was a problem back then but now it is a crisis. ABC's Lateline shone a light on some of those sleeping rough in my electorate. There are too many of these people under this government. Senator Doug Cameron, the shadow minister for housing and homelessness, visited the electorate since the election to hear directly from people who had fallen into this space and to listen to their caseworkers from across the sector. The sector in my community works really well to support people and to do their case management across various organisations. They came together. What struck me was how difficult it was listening to these people about how quickly you could fall into poverty and how difficult it is to climb out once you are there.
Every time we talk in this place about a cut to the vulnerable or a change to the social welfare net in this country I am taken back to those meetings with those people. I understand clearly how difficult some of the changes brought in by this government are making things for people in my electorate. I go back in my mind to those people who had become homeless. I go back in my mind particularly to a woman I met at Little River Primary School, where the out of school hours care was going to be cut in my first term. I go back to the conversation I had with her. She was a single mother who had re-engaged with education. Her children were at primary school and she had returned to university to get herself a degree to make sure that she was going to provide for her family and to live that Australian dream. Her kids were in out of school hours care. She had been hit from all directions and she had had her feet cut out from under her. She was going to have to pay for out of school hours care. She had lost an allowance that was allowing her to engage at university and upskill herself to provide for her family. Often in this place when we are debating those attacks on the vulnerable these are the people I go to. There are images in my mind of that young mum and her kids at Little River Primary School saying to me: 'I don't understand, Joanne. I don't understand why they would want to target me.'
These are incredibly important issues. I have not spent any time today talking about education, which is a rarity, as everyone in the chamber will acknowledge. Deputy Speaker, in the last 47 seconds I will say: if you want to know what I think about education you can read most speeches that I have made in this place since I came here. With 47 seconds left to go, I will say: the schools in my electorate do incredibly powerful work. They need the support, not just the funding. They need everything directed towards outcomes for our kids to make sure that, in this growing community, our children are given the best opportunity they can have.
I met with young people from my community who are studying at the University of Melbourne or RMIT. I know what they need, because they tell me what they need. They need teachers that care and they need leadership in schools that is focused on continual improvement of those outcomes. It is a pleasure to be the member for Lalor. I look forward to the rest of the term.
This address-in-reply gives me the opportunity to reflect on real issues for real Australians. Let me first talk about our Defence Force and our troops in all three services. Our behalf of my constituents, I thank you. I am in awe of your contribution, your bravery and your courage. We expect so much from you, and you deliver in spades. I am burdened by our responsibility to you all, but particularly to those who have given their lives for our country, to those who have been injured and to those who still suffer today the pain and torment that comes with your careers. Our obligation to you is our ongoing care and support, whatever it takes.
In my maiden speech, I spoke about the rules of engagement. I said at the time:
If this nation fails to cloak our soldiers with the full protection of the law when they go into battle, we fail them all. The rules of engagement must be crystal clear and our support strong. If we put Australian troops into the heat of battle and expect them to take enormous risks on our behalf, we cannot expect them to be split-second lawyers as well.
Rules of engagement govern the actions of troops in battle. They must be clear and easily understood. Can I say that I am delighted to see the clarification of those rules brought down by the Turnbull government in recent times.
I am honoured to have Gallipoli Barracks, the home of the 7th Brigade, in my electorate and I am in constant communication with them. My father was a World War II fighter pilot in the Middle East then a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft III. My great-grandfather was a former Minister for Defence and my son is a serving soldier. I have lived and understood the needs and worries of Defence families and I take the opportunity to thank them for their contribution, because a soldier's role is a role that falls, inevitably, on the shoulders of their loved ones as well. Our obligation is also to reach out to those families and to support them. They often bear the brunt of post-deployment issues, and we must stand with them in very difficult and traumatic times.
Our dependence upon our Defence Force is absolute in these challenging times. Our debt to them is immeasurable. Partisan politics do not, and can not, play a role in our response to their valour, their courage and their needs, and to those of their families. In this, we are one.
Across Australia, we are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges and, I might say, the benefits, of ageing. With baby boomers in their 60s and 70s, we are seeing a greater need for health and social interventions: needs that invariably place greater demands on our budgets, but an obligation that is our responsibility to those who preceded us. Importantly, we should acknowledge the enormous resource that older Australians provide. The 'on the scrap heap at 60' approach to ageing is, in today's world, simply wrongheaded. Older Australians can, and do, make an enormous contribution to our nation as they grow older. Born of years of experience, knowledge does not evaporate at 65, 70 or 75 years of age. Senior Australians remain an under-utilised resource and have a great role to play in our future. The balancing of youthful self-confidence and enthusiasm with sound practical experience is a key part of Australia's future. As longevity increases with better health and medical innovation, we must acknowledge that older Australians can continue to make an ongoing contribution to our future. Not all wisdom resides with the young, despite their protestations. I am honoured and humbled to stand in this parliament as a standard-bearer and constant supporter of older Australians. Their contribution is a continuing one, and their wisdom an essential part of modern Australia.
Given my past experience with cities and communications, I am pleased to see that we are making progress in dealing with mobile black spots in our cities. It is extraordinary that in this day and age there can be suburbs of a capital city without fixed phones and/or mobile communications, yet that has been the case in many parts of the Ryan electorate. After community consultation and representations, I am pleased that the coalition government has announced four new mobile phone towers to help combat black spots in the suburbs of Mount Crosby, Karana Downs, Upper Brookfield and Kholo. Announced as part of the $220 million Mobile Black Spot Program, communication tower infrastructure, like the proposed towers in Mount Crosby and Karana Downs, will provide major benefits to the communities previously plagued by poor mobile phone reception.
I want to place on record what an honour it is to be the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services. This is an area where we do come close to a bipartisan approach to policy development and implementation. Since being appointed to this role shortly before the last election, I have sought out stakeholders and state government ministers to ensure our common goals can be achieved. I have made a point of reaching out to those who have concerns and to hear firsthand their feedback. I am fortunate to be part of a government with a Prime Minister and a Minister for Social Services who are both absolutely committed to providing effective support for those with disability, and with an absolute commitment to fully funding the NDIS. This is an area where I and the government do not seek to score political points. The outcomes are too important for that. I have sought to deal with my colleagues in this parliament and in the states on a bipartisan basis. The issues with disabilities confront all legislators, and our objective must be to achieve, where possible, the hopes and dreams of those with disability through cooperation and goodwill. The disabled are entitled to see the best of politics, and we, as members of this place, are obligated to provide just that.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme, NDIS, presents a challenge for us all. Though it was formed with the best of intentions, we must manage capacity, expectations and funding. All three have to be addressed. We have faced difficulties recently and we have been open and transparent in our response. The minister committed additional resources so that these matters were resolved as soon as possible. The implementation and full rollout of the NDIS is underway. There will be ongoing challenges, not least in funding such a momentous scheme, but I am confident that we are on track and will deliver on behalf of those most in need. While the NDIS only applies to the 460,000 people with permanent and significant disability, we must continue to work with our state and territory colleagues to ensure that the other 4.2 million Australians living with disability also receive appropriate support and services.
Some six years ago I gave my maiden speech in the address-in-reply to the 2010 parliament. What a different place it was then! The minority Gillard government had just come to power and, with no majority in this place, it depended on the votes of two independents. Today in this parliament the Turnbull government holds a slim but clear majority. It has seven more seats than the Australian Labor Party, 42 per cent of the primary vote, compared to Labor's 35 per cent, and the government secured a majority of the two-party preferred vote. It is appropriate to note, without any sense of hubris, that on every test the coalition won the election and the Australian Labor Party lost. That is not to say that the majority is not slim. That is not to say that the Senate representation does not reflect the concerns of many Australian voters. As a government, we must respect those voters who did not support us, just as we respect those Australians who did support us. The hard facts are that the Australian people have voted. They have elected a coalition government with a mandate but they have also given us a Senate that requires crossbench support for most legislation. Those are the facts. Common sense dictates that negotiation with the crossbench is, and will remain, part of our political environment. As a government, we must work with the Senate that the voters have given us and, through that interaction, do the best we can for our nation. It is as simple and as difficult as that.
Importantly, however, the people of Australia have given us a mandate to deliver on the policies that we took to the election. The Leader of the Opposition does not publicly hold that view. He claims the right to be a wrecker in this place. We have seen the vile antics of the CFMEU in a video filmed by a victim. Let us not forget that this is the very union that owns the Leader of the Opposition. The interests of Australians are being washed down the drain simply because Mr Shorten is beholden to militant union bosses. His objective is to prevent good government, but prevent it he will not. His objective is to frustrate and prevent government from governing.
The tragedy is that the Leader of the Opposition is driven by a blind obsession with winning regardless of the cost to our nation and to his own integrity. His deliberate untruths about Medicare in the election campaign set a new benchmark in dishonesty. As we observe the Leader of the Opposition in this place, it becomes clear that he will say anything, regardless of the facts, in his politics of relentless negativity. His comments are often the direct opposite of what he has said in the past. One only needs to consider his flip-flop acrobatics when he says one thing yet does another. He refuses to let truth or any sense of integrity get in the way of his political objectives. Quite frankly, that saddens me. It saddens me because I thought he was better than that. It is all very well to rewrite history.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The previous members have been heard in silence. I ask you to give the same opportunity to the assistant minister.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is all very well to rewrite history, ignoring his own past actions, including his actions in the betrayal of some of Australia's lowest paid workers. Let me say this: the Australian people will see through his fictitious and fabricated politics, and he will be judged by what he has done.
The coalition is restoring integrity in this parliament. The coalition is getting our country back on track after the disappointment of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. The coalition is delivering on our commitment to jobs and growth. I am honoured to represent the people of Ryan in this place, honoured to serve as Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services, and proud to be an Australian.
I would not say it is a pleasure, but I appreciate the opportunity to be able to rise to speak on this particular motion, because it is an opportunity for me to speak about one of the greatest issues that I think face the modern world today, and that is inequality. We have seen very clearly in recent events across the world the kind of social unrest and division that inequality breeds. The election of Donald Trump to the American presidency is a prime illustration. In recent years, many Americans have watched in dismay as their jobs became more unstable, their wages stagnated, and the cost of living rapidly escalated with no apparent end in sight. At the same time, it did not escape their attention that the richest Americans were, all the while, getting richer, backed in by policies that entrenched privilege and advantage. Many Americans are legitimately outraged by this rank unfairness, and they are looking for someone to blame.
It is this vein of red-hot anger that Donald Trump successfully tapped into with his divisive policy platform, which effectively encouraged voters to distrust their fellow Americans. But the reality is that, unless Mr Trump does something meaningful to address the problem of inequality in America, the problem will simply continue to grow, because an economic system that does not deliver for the largest parts of a nation's population is a failed economic system indeed. If Trump is serious about tackling inequality, he is going to have to rewrite the rules yet again in a way that serves all of society, not just people like himself.
While we do not seem to have that extreme level of inequality in Australia that has caused such resentment and upheaval in the US, the reality is that inequality in Australia is now at a record 75-year high. That means that 2.5 million Australians live below the poverty line today, and hundreds of thousands of Australians are unemployed. The three richest Australians have more than the poorest one million Australians combined. A person in the top 20 per cent has 70 times as much wealth as a person in the bottom 20 per cent and, as ACOSS points out, we are trending in the wrong direction. The economic growth figures that were released yesterday are a case in point. While Australia recorded surprisingly strong quarterly growth of 1.1 per cent, it is important to recognise that this was not evenly distributed across our economy. The majority of the gains actually came from increased commodity prices and bumper company profits. Indeed, despite the headline rate, household disposable income only rose by a meagre 0.2 per cent.
This is mirrored by the ABS data that also came out this week, which showed that companies recorded a colossal 20.1 per cent surge in profits over the December quarter. Mining earnings were up 50 per cent; construction recorded a 35 per cent boost; and, staggeringly, the quarterly total was the largest on record at $77.8 billion, with gross profits up by 26.2 per cent on the same quarter a year earlier. But, regrettably, this prosperity is completely eluding working Australians. In fact, in the same time frame total employee salaries and wages fell by 0.5 per cent. That is right: massive growth is going on in the big corporate sector, but wages and salaries have fallen. While companies are clearly doing well, the experience of Australian families who are facing record low wages growth and record high household debt is very, very different.
While inequality in Australia has not reached the levels of the United States, these figures point to a very concerning trend that we cannot ignore. There are many lessons for Australia in the American experience, and many steps we need to take to avoid replicating it here. Firstly, we need to recognise and respect that people are rightfully angry at a system that entrenches this inequality. Secondly, we need to actually do something to address it. We need policies to drive inclusive growth for the benefit of all Australians. Sadly, those opposite seem intent on following the American model of cutting fundamental public services and spending taxpayers' money to reward the top one per cent at the expense of the vast, vast majority of citizens. As we have seen in the case of the US, this is a recipe for fear, hatred and division.
Australia prides itself on being an egalitarian nation; the notion of the fair go is indeed central to our national identity. However, in many parts of the country the reality is very different. There is an undeniable and a growing gap between those who have and those who have not. I see it in my own region, where there are pockets of disadvantage—Australians who do not see progress in their own lives. They hear this Prime Minister talk about what an exciting time it is for Australia, about jobs and growth, and they look at their own situation and ask: for who?
Excessive inequality is a problem for any society. It means that people have unequal ability to take part in the social and economic opportunities, and it undermines the cohesiveness of that society. Evidence shows that countries with low inequality tend to have faster and more lasting economic growth, and that countries with high inequality can experience high levels of violence, suicide, obesity, mental illness and imprisonment, and shorter life expectancy. Often this inequality is concentrated in societal groups which are already structurally marginalised. According to ACOSS, the people most likely to be found in the lowest income group include older people, sole parents and single people, people without paid work, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and women.
A major driver for me is this ongoing struggle for equality. I have spent much of my life fighting discrimination and inequality, wherever it emerges. That is very much how I view and analyse issues that come before this parliament. Everything we do in the 45th parliament should be viewed, in my opinion, through the lens of equality. The Australian Labor Party, my party, understands the importance of this issue. Our policy direction will always be guided by driving greater equality, making sure everyone has the opportunity to get ahead. We need strong, sustainable and inclusive growth, and good social policy is a necessary precondition for it. Unfortunately, we rarely see the same egalitarian emphasis from the Turnbull Liberal government. Their designs for improving equality are torn straight from the trickle-down economics playbook—cuts to vital services and tax breaks for the big end of town. That is the wrong approach; we know it is.
We know it does not work, and neither does standing by while up to 700,000 of the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers lose up to $77 a week. This is a massive blow for hundreds of thousands of low-paid workers who rely on Sunday penalty rates just to get by. The fact that the Turnbull government is refusing to stand up for these workers but is willing to fight for a tax cut for big business, multinationals and the banks shows how twisted its priorities really are. You do not grow the economy and lift people up through tax cuts for big business and you do not do it by chopping the wages of ordinary Australians; you do it by investing in our people. Our people are our greatest strength and asset in this nation. You do it by ensuring that working Australians get fair wages and the confidence to spend money to keep the economy moving. You do it by ensuring that all Australians have access to quality health and education, regardless of their income.
I would like to use this opportunity today to offer my perspective on a number of areas of inequality which need some serious focus and attention from this government. Firstly, let us look at education. To confront inequality, we have to confront the disparity in our schools. Access to an affordable, quality education must be available to all Australians throughout their lives. Needs-based school funding must be re-established, as Labor planned to do, and access to higher education must continue to be based on the capacity to learn, not the ability to pay. We know that the Liberal Party broke their promise to back the needs-based funding model for our schools. They welched on their commitment to Gonski and continue to slash education funding today and turn their back on a generation of Australian children.
By cutting an additional $30 billion of funding from our schools, Malcolm Turnbull is entrenching disadvantage in our communities. Not only that, but he is shackling our economy for decades to come. Investment in education is also investment in the capacity of our people and the future prosperity of our nation, and it is a far superior driver of economic growth than the $50 billion worth of company tax cuts proposed by the Prime Minister. In fact, in a recent survey of 31 economists, the Economic Society of Australia and the Monash Business School found that almost two-thirds agreed with the statement that:
Australia will receive a bigger economic growth dividend in the long-run by spending on education than offering an equivalent amount of money on a tax cut to business.
Schools in my electorate of Newcastle are set to lose more than $33 million in funding over the next two years alone, due to these Liberal cuts. Without investment in our schools, Malcolm Turnbull's talk about innovation and the future economy is just that: talk and nothing else. It is time for this government to get on board and commit to funding years 5 and 6 of Gonski.
This government's disgraceful handling of the higher education sector is equally disappointing. Malcolm Turnbull's decision to cut the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, HEPPP—that is, to cut $152.2 million from a program designed to increase the number of students from low socio-economic groups—is unacceptable and unfair. In my electorate this directly impacts of the work of the Wollotuka Institute, which prides itself on best practice for Indigenous students and participation in higher education. I have more than 1,000 Indigenous students enrolled at the University of Newcastle. That comes off the back of 30 years of deep commitment from that university to ensure that every student and all of the programs at the university meet both our expectations in terms of excellence and also our expectations in terms of equity and equal access. The HEPPP program, which this government has cut, was a critical factor in helping institutions like the Wollotuka Institute reach out into schools in my community to talk to Indigenous students whilst in that secondary schooling program and encourage them to take that extra step and move into higher education. I think the fact that 1,000 students now study across all sorts of disciplines at the University of Newcastle is testament to the effectiveness of that program. It is the most cruel and short-sighted of cuts to higher education that this government proposes. The 40 per cent cut to the program will absolutely damage Wollotuka and the amazing work that they have done over the last three decades. I sincerely hope that this government thinks about revisiting that decision and understands the importance of that.
The previous Labor government opened access to university and 190,000 more students are at university today as a result of Labor's reforms from when we were in government. We understand that education is the most important tool to ensure future prosperity and a more equal society. But Mr Turnbull is persisting with deregulation plans that would lead to $100,000 degrees and create a two-tier society of those who can afford higher education and those who cannot. TAFE has not fared any better under this government, and that is another area of great concern to many people in my community. I applaud Labor's commitment at the last election to ensure that we would have a guaranteed level of funding for TAFE.
There are many reasons to invest in education, but it is the backbone of human capital and productivity for our nation, and it generates so much more for our communities as a whole. We must also recognise that many of these cuts to education across the board have a disproportionate impact on different parts of our society. I have also mentioned the disproportionate impact the cuts to the HEPPP program will have on the Indigenous community. The debt impacts the higher education costs are having on women are of course of deep concern to this parliament. I should not need to remind the chamber that women are a good 50-plus per cent of this nation. Anything we do to unfairly encumber women's access to higher education is something that should worry every one of us here. Gender inequity still persists in Australia, and this government seems to either not notice or not care.
Economically, women in Australia are at a significant disadvantage: we earn less, we retire with less and we are less represented at the top. One needs no more stark reminder of this than to look at the frontbench of the government each and every question time. The lack of women's representation in the government's cabinet is deeply disturbing. I can only reiterate what I have said in this House many times: until the government comes to grips with the reality of the need to set good, high and ambitious targets for itself it is not going to achieve the gender representation that it should have—indeed, that this nation expects it to have—on the government frontbenches.
The government's cuts to Medicare are also an issue of deep concern to the people in my community. Universal access to health, and in particular to Medicare, is one of the egalitarian backbones of the Australian social contract. It ensures that no matter what your background is, or how much money you earn or where your parents lived that you will be able to access good quality medicines and treatment. The Australian people love Medicare. We know this because, despite every effort by those opposite to undo universal health care in this nation since its first inception as Medibank back in the Whitlam era and then again as Medicare back in the Hawke government era, they have done all they can to undermine universal health care in this nation. They have been spectacularly unsuccessful in their endeavours, I might say, which is good news for the Australian people. But they are on notice: we are onto you, the Australian people are onto you and we will do everything we can to protect universal health care. Labor created Medicare; we will always fight to protect it. Members opposite would do well to learn from the last election, as the Prime Minister professed to have learned some lessons from the last election. We are yet to see those, of course, because absolutely every one of those cuts into health are still on the table. Let's not forget that.
Let's hope that the government truly does learn some lessons from that last election and that it sees the worth of investing in people, in education, in health and in real jobs in our communities. Let's hope that we get to see some of those things in this next budget. They have a lot of work to do, but they are coming from a low base— (Time expired)
Debate adjourned.
Last week I had my first mobile office for the year, which was held down at Manuka Terrace, and I met a couple who I had met before and their family. This couple have a three-year-old son called Sebastien who is living with Angelman syndrome.
Angelman is a rare genetic disorder that affects the nervous system and causes severe physical and intellectual disability. Sebastien's dad, Paul, saw my speech on the NDIS from this chamber a couple of weeks ago, where I called on the government to provide certainty of funding to families with disabled children or to carers with disabled partners or family members. At that stage I urged the government to provide that certainty of funding and to provide that certainty to those families.
When Paul came up with little Sebastien and the rest of the family he urged me to keep up the campaign and he urged Labor to keep up the campaign—not just for Sebastien but for other sufferers of Angelman syndrome and for all people with a disability.
Sebastien is fortunate enough to get funding through the NDIS, because we have actually done the first trials here in the ACT. He is also fortunate to have a dedicated mum and dad and an amazing team at the Manuka Occasional Child Care Association here in Canberra. It is an iconic institution in Manuka. It has been around for 50 or 60 years—I think I have been to one of their significant anniversary celebrations. It is an intergenerational childcare centre where generations of Canberrans have gone and had a wonderful time as young children. The beauty about MOCCA is that it has been with Sebastien since he was very young and it has helped the family and Sebastien through an endless routine of weekly treatments.
Paul acknowledged that there had been some teething problems with the NDIS but that Sebastien's story on the NDIS was a good news story. This is the reason we need to fund the NDIS and not take money away from disadvantaged Australians; those who are dealing with and grappling with disability. We must provide certainty of funding. As the lawmakers of this country, we have a duty to provide care and support to those who need it—to alleviate and not to exacerbate their uncertainty and their stress. Labor takes this responsibility seriously and Labor will not allow this government to play a game of political bingo with the lives of so many disadvantaged Australians. We created the NDIS and we will protect the NDIS.
Turning to another matter: I want to talk about the Deputy Prime Minister's absolutely outrageous pork-barrel exercise that is the APVMA move from Canberra to Armidale. I have said many times that Sir Robert Menzies would be turning in his grave. The Deputy Prime Minister is not only calling for the APVMA to move from Canberra to Armidale but also he has done the call out to all of his National Party mates—with all due respect, Deputy Speaker Coulton, you are probably one of them—to come up with ideas to move other government agencies out of Canberra and into the regions.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I do remind you of the fact that about 40 per cent of government agencies are already out in the regions, and I do remind you of the fact that Sir Robert Menzies centralised government here in Canberra. He realised that once the nation's capital had been created in the twenties we needed government agencies to be centralised here. Here is the federal seat of democracy and we need government agencies around that federal seat of democracy to support our democracy and to provide the servants of democracy—that is, the Public Service.
So here we have the Deputy Prime Minister out there blatantly pork-barrelling and blatantly calling for government agencies to be decentralised. He has put a government order out for government agencies to be decentralised, despite the fact that a $272,000 cost-benefit analysis showed that there was all cost and no benefit with this decision. And then there is the handful of staff from the APVMA who have decided to relocate to Armidale. It has been haemorrhaging staff because no-one wants to move to Armidale. With that handful of staff who have decided to relocate to Armidale, where do they go? What is their office? Their office is the local McDonald's! It is an absolutely outrage and a pork barrel—(Time expired)
I rise today to talk about issues facing small businesses. Small businesses are incredibly important to Australia. There are 2.1 million small businesses across the country, and about 15,000 of those are located in my electorate of Berowra. Small businesses make an enormous contribution to our economy, contributing almost $380 billion every year. Small business owners employ more than 4.7 million people—around 45 per cent of the national workforce.
Our government has very strong support for small business, and we are actively pursuing our goal of economic growth. We are standing up for small business because we are the party that understands small business. We understand that it is small business and not the government that creates jobs and provides opportunities and security for Australian families. Our party understands what the small businesspeople of Australia need. They need a reduced tax burden, less red tape and lower energy prices. Each of these elements allows small business owners to grow and provide more jobs.
In 2001, during the Howard years, Australia had one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world. Now it is uncompetitively high, one of the sixth highest in the OECD. The coalition government's enterprise tax plan will reduce the company tax rate for Australian small businesses to 27½ per cent, and to 25 per cent by 2026. It will give tens of thousands of small businesses the tax cut they have been wanting. A reduction in the company tax rate will give small businesses the opportunity to invest more in their businesses, to employ more people and to grow. While the coalition has a plan to cut company tax for small businesses, Labor wants to stand in the way and keep in place a globally uncompetitive company tax rate.
Moving on to cutting red tape, Deloitte put the cost of compliance with regulation across federal, state and local governments at $67 billion in 2014. To reduce the burdens of red tape and regulation on small business the government has introduced the National Business Simplification Initiative. This agreement between federal, state and territory governments simplifies the business environment in Australia by creating a one-stop shop with all the government information, assistance, forms and services small business owners need to plan, start and grow their businesses. Reducing the time that businesses spend complying with regulations and interacting with government means they can focus instead on growing their business, creating more jobs and developing new products and market opportunities. Improving conditions for business is a key priority for the government in building a stronger economy and ensuring growth in productivity and jobs.
Another important issue for small businesses is energy security and reliability. I often hear from small businesses in my electorate who are feeling the financial pressure of increasing power bills. We need a considered and balanced national energy policy that ensures energy security and reliability, but not at the expense of business budgets or household budgets. Tony and Joanne Fajloun, who own the Pennant Hills dry cleaners, told me that their power bill has grown four times over the last 10 years. The increase in their power bill makes a massive cut to their bottom line. They are second-generation dry cleaners and they just want to keep the lights on and continue to employ people and run their business. They want to see electricity increases brought under control, not Labor's unsustainable energy policies of implementing a carbon tax and championing overly aggressive renewable energy targets. Just 18 months ago the Labor Party supported the 23½ per cent renewable energy target; now we see the Leader of the Opposition pushing for a 50 per cent renewable energy target. This will not only lead to higher energy prices and cost jobs—it will destabilise the system, as we have seen in South Australia. We must provide a reliable source of affordable baseload power that makes use of our natural resources.
The government is taking action on all of these issues. The Labor Party, by contrast, does not understand small business; if they did they would not oppose the measures the government has proposed to enable small business to grow and provide more jobs. We know that business confidence is crucial to employing people and seeing the expansion of our businesses, but how can small business owners possibly place their trust in the Labor Party when their leader continually flip-flops on all manner of issues? Let us look at the Labor Party and 457 visas as just one example. The Labor Party has constantly said that they are opposed to 457 visas. As we know, 457 visas are designed to get people into the economy who have skills that Australians cannot provide, but that is not how Labor used them. The number of 457 visa holders peaked when the Leader of the Opposition was the employment minister, with Labor even establishing the fast food industry labour agreement that allowed fast food stores like McDonald's to bring in foreign workers under 457 visas. Our government has restored 457 visas to their proper purpose. We are committed to giving priority to Australian workers, particularly young Australians, and we are taking real action to put Australian workers first. The opposition leader claims he puts Australian workers first, but instead—and unsurprisingly—he keeps rolling over to the ACTU.
On Friday 21 February the Katoomba RSL Club was destroyed by fire. It took three minutes for the fire to turn the entire building into an inferno. The 30 patrons who were in the club at the time were rounded up by the 14 staff members, who had good evacuation plans and, more importantly, training. I want to pay tribute to CEO Nick Darius for having ensured that training was in place. Vital war memorabilia was lost, but club officials and fire officers managed to salvage 125 medals. Five remain lost in the rubble. I have experienced the sifting through of ashes looking for valued items, and I know what a horrible thing it is to do. Thank you to David White, president of Katoomba RSL sub-branch; to Brian Turner, president of the RSL and sub-branch vice president; and to members for their efforts. I have been in contact with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and have asked for his help in supporting Katoomba RSL through this disaster, and we will work together on this matter. I am pleased to be able to say that everyone is determined that the planned Anzac Day services in Katoomba will go ahead in April.
The role of RSL sub-branches and other organisations supporting veterans is vital in my electorate. Two thousand veterans and their families and 1,300 Australian Defence Force personnel live in Macquarie. While we are just outside Sydney, transport links are poor and we rely on having access to local services and support. So I was very pleased to invite the shadow veterans' affairs minister to spend a day with the hardworking and dedicated veterans groups on both sides of my electorate. In the Blue Mountains, we met with representatives of Springwood RSL, Blackheath-Mt Victoria RSL, Blaxland-Glenbrook RSL, the Lawson Combined Services Club, the Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans' Association, the National Servicemen's Association and Blue Mountains Legacy. In the Hawkesbury, we were kindly hosted by Richmond RSL with a lovely afternoon tea, and joined by Hawkesbury National Servicemen's Association, Walers Day Club and Hawkesbury Legacy.
Across the electorate, there are concerns about the support we provide to veterans and their families around mental health. The transition from Defence to civilian life, especially employment, was another hot topic. It was disappointing to learn last night that the industry advisory committees, a centrepiece of the Prime Minister's own Veterans Employment Program, do not actually exist, more than three months after their announcement. The committees are to be made up of business people, who will consider how to mentor ADF personnel and translate their skills for the private sector. I hope they are formed soon and begin their work, because every day's delay is another delay for our soldiers, air personnel or sailors, whose transition into civilian life is that much harder. The visit by the shadow minister was a great way for me to ensure the issues of veterans and their families in Macquarie are on the national agenda.
I am privileged to have in the electorate of Macquarie both RAAF Base Richmond, home to Hercules and Spartans, and RAAF Base Glenbrook, home to Headquarters Air Command, who, in their words, 'raise, train and sustain' the Royal Australian Air Force. It was a pleasure to be able to take both the shadow defence minister and the shadow defence personnel and veterans' affairs minister on a tour of these facilities. I want to thank, from Richmond, Air Commodore Richard Lennon and Wing Commander Paul Reddacliff and Air Commodore Bill Kourelakos, and Wing Commander Fleur James at Glenbrook for their time, as well as the many Defence personnel who shared their stories. A highlight for me at Richmond was to sit in the pilot seat of the Hercules and to hear the affection with which the pilots speak of the Hercules, although there is no doubt the Spartans are a beautiful compact aircraft. The base is a vital part of our local economy in the Hawkesbury, and I hope to see it remain there for the many years to come.
A veteran's group that is doing a lot of work in the Hawkesbury is Soldier On Australia, and I was delighted to be able to support their annual Sydney Chilli Challenge last weekend held at the Hawkesbury Hotel in Windsor. Soldier On aims to reduce the horrific suicide rate of veterans who have returned from war and overseas assignments. The event itself involves a number of competitions, including a chilli pie and chilli chicken wing cook-off and child-friendly ice-cream-eating challenges, where the worst side effect was brain freeze. But the main event was the raw chilli-eating competition, where the brave participants moved from the fairly mild chillies to the world's hottest Carolina reaper chilli. It was painful watching it, let alone doing it, but they were doing it for a good cause. I congratulate all those involved in the event, including the 20 small businesses, and thank them for supporting such a worthy cause.
I rise today to speak about the national road toll and the recent disturbing increase in the number of fatalities, particularly in the calendar year 2016. The effectiveness and safety of our transport system impacts on every citizen. We rely on our roads for almost every part of what is routine daily living. Whether it be in the areas of education, health, defence, and so many other areas, our road system plays a crucial role in ensuring that our society continues to function. In many ways, our roads and the effect and impact they have on our living are somewhat under-appreciated—that is, until they have a personal and negative effect. For instance, we notice the road transport system when we are late for work or an appointment because we are stuck in traffic congestion, the trade of our business is restricted because the roads are unable to provide adequate capacity for growth or when we are involved in some sort of traffic incident.
But by far and away the most confronting and devastating involvement we can have with our road transport system is when we are in some way touched by the tragedy of a serious or fatal traffic crash. Involvement in these terrible crashes does not discriminate. You or your family can be maimed or killed regardless of age, gender, sexuality or race. These crashes bring with them terrible physical and emotional pain but the greatest tragedy is that every one of them is avoidable.
But the news is not all bad. We need only look back to 1970 to see the progress we have made. In that year 3,798 people were killed on our roads whilst there were 4.7 million vehicles registered. If that ratio was applied to today's 18 million registered vehicles we would see an annual road toll of 14,300 people being killed every year. As a citizen I am grateful that previous generations of road builders, vehicle manufacturers and legislators have taken road safety seriously, achieving some great progress. The reason these shocking figures are not a reality today is that as a society we have applied ourselves to engineering safer roads—design standards and technological advancements have put safer cars on safer roads; and our legislators have implemented laws to address drink driving, the wearing of seat belts, speeding and fatigue.
Medical treatment for those who sustain a serious injury from a traffic crash has also improved immensely. In more recent times we have embarked on the National Road Safety Strategy, which aims to reduce fatalities and serious injuries by at least 30 per cent between 2011 and 2020. Until recently, by working in partnership with the states and territories adopting the Safe System approach, we were on track to achieve our NRSS targets. But in 2016, 1,300 people lost their lives on our roads. This is a 7.9 per cent increase on the 2015 road toll and represents the loss of an additional 95 lives on the previous year.
The federal government is committed to combating the road toll by supporting practical measures including investing to build safer roads, improving vehicle safety standards, funding for the independent car safety ratings program, and our Keys2Drive learner driver initiative. In Wide Bay, we are fixing the Cooroy to Curra stretch of the Bruce Highway, one of the deadliest and most notorious sections of the national highway. I have investigated some of the most horrific accidents there and I am deeply aware of how important this upgrade is and how many fatalities it will prevent. With projections for traffic through Gympie of 36,000 vehicles per day in 2023, we will soon need section D to avoid returning to the horror of crashes that were inflicted on Gympie before the four lanes were installed under a decade ago.
In my previous career as a police officer too often I dealt with the devastation of fatal accidents. Too many times I have seen life slip away before me at a fatal crash. Too many times I have been the person who has had to deliver the worst news possible to families. Now I desperately want to be a member of a government that contributes to saving lives on our roads. But the message everyone needs to remember is that road safety is everyone's responsibility. (Time expired)
Recent storms have exposed yet again the risk to our community from gaps in communications networks. On 17 February, Wyong and Gosford State Emergency Service crews responded to hundreds of storm damage call-outs, including fallen trees, and damage to homes and cars. More than 30,000 homes lost power. Our community relies on emergency services in a crisis. I thank the SES for their rapid response and the police and ambulance officers who kept people safe. I also thank the energy workers for restoring power as quickly as possible. Fortunately the damage was not to the scale of the super storms of 2015 and 2016, but once again we are reminded of the urgent need to boost our communications network.
Emergency radio broadcasts provide vital information during extreme weather events and natural disasters—weather and power updates, safety advice, information on local road closures and evacuation warnings. Unfortunately, ABC Radio Central Coast reception is severely limited. Only the Gosford CBD receives a clear signal. Many surrounding suburbs do not. I have met with members of the SES, the RFS and local residents about this. They are frustrated. They know that boosting this service would help protect people and property. Our region is large, and it is growing. We are not the outer suburbs of Sydney. How many more extreme weather events will we endure before the government acts? The Central Coast must be recognised as a stand-alone region and get the emergency broadcast service we need in a crisis.
I am particularly concerned about residents who live west of the M1 motorway having little or no mobile reception and being in a flood- and fire-prone area. Their safety relies on effective communication in an emergency. In June 2015, the government announced funding for four new mobile phone base stations at Dooralong, Lemon Tree, Wyong Creek and Yarramalong. At the time, residents were promised, 'These first bases will be rolled out in the second half of 2015.' It has not happened. Telstra currently estimates the tower at Wyong Creek will be operational in 2018, with the others up and running sometime later this year. Residents of Cedar Brush Creek, Dooralong, Jilliby, Kulnura, Little Jilliby, Wyong Creek and Yarramalong deserve accurate, up-to-date information, and I am disappointed they have not received it from this government.
Unfortunately, the rollout of new communications infrastructure on the Central Coast is equally disappointing. My office has been inundated with complaints from people switching to the NBN. There are serious ongoing issues with the rollout. Residents in Wyreema Road, Warnervale, have been badly let down. They cannot get ADSL broadband and still have no NBN, despite their suburb being switched on a long time ago.
I raised this with the Minister for Communications and months later received this letter from his chief of staff. He says, 'These residents should expect to be connected in February 2015, with a current estimate of completion for February 2017.' Well, time is up. They are not connected. How much longer do they have to wait? The government has confirmed these properties, as well as other homes in Brush Road in Wamberal and Oak Road in Matcham, for example, will be serviced by micronodes. They say this is necessary for premises that may be unable to receive high-speed broadband by the local fibre-to-the-node network. This is a startling admission from a government that backed fibre to the node as a viable alternative to Labor's fibre-to-the-home technology. If fibre to the node does not work in Warnervale, Matcham and Wamberal, the suburbs of the Central Coast, where does it work? The government has misled our community on fibre to the node and continues to bungle the rollout of its patchwork of technologies.
I support the NBN and the opportunities it presents for the Central Coast. We must make this work. The Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network is holding an inquiry, and I have asked Central Coast residents to share their experiences. You will not be surprised. I have heard from Derek, who says: 'Raining, no internet. Sunshine, internet!' I have heard from Jill, who says her NBN is simply 'unreliable'. And I have heard from Dennis, who, like all of us, says, 'Just fix it.' The chair of that committee is a Central Coast MP, so I am hopeful the region's experience will be well represented. (Time expired)
Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton, I hope the people in your electorate around Dunedoo are recovering from the nasty fires that they have experienced in the last couple of weeks. We are all thinking about them.
But today I rise to take the opportunity to highlight one of the greatest battles our small business sector faces in order to survive, and that is over power supply and the price of the power. In order to run any business effectively, you must have confidence in your suppliers. Electricity is no different. Recent events have highlighted the need for a secure source and supply of electricity, regardless of the event. It is not good enough to have a power system that cannot react to circumstances and cannot service the customer.
The other aspect of power supply that is devastating local small businesses is price. Many small businesses are taking a beating from the excessive power price and the uncertainty of what the next bill will bring. Some are even working on getting off the grid with diesel generators. Dobinsons Spring & Suspension in Central Queensland are going back to generators, or at least looking at that proposal, because the price is fluctuating on the high side and they need a reliable, efficient price to carry on their business. It is more economical to supply one's own power instead of not knowing when it can or cannot come from the state. Where is the economy of scale in this 'all over the place' policy? The Queensland government continue to rip off the consumer, using them as a cash cow instead of using our high-quality coal power stations to subsidise business in Queensland. The current settings are anti-business and anti-jobs.
The existing power supply is a mess. It is unreliable, expensive and lacks future planning. Baseload electricity seems to be off the agenda. Coal-fired power stations have provided the bulk of our baseload power for decades. Existing coal-fired stations have a use-by-date, and that date is coming around very quickly. In most cases in Queensland, the power stations have only an extra 10 to 12 years of life before they are really obsolete. Capacity factors show that coal/gas is a good option. Wind is only effective for 45 per cent of the time on average, solar for 25 per cent and coal and gas for about 90 per cent. So there is a lot of wastage there on all sides.
We have a renewable target. Say it is 30 per cent by 2030, and Labor has a policy of 50 per cent by 2030. So what do we do for the other 50 per cent or 70 per cent, whatever the outcome is? Where does that come from? This is a question we must ask ourselves: where does the extra power come from if our current power stations are going to be rendered useless in another 10 to 12 years? The answer is we need ultra-supercritical coal-fired power stations—new ones. These take about five to seven years to construct. We need to act now so we are not left in the dark a la South Australia. We cannot afford to allow intermittent power sources, like wind and solar, to take over from coal-fired baseload power stations. Gladstone would make a perfect location for a new-generation power station.
Peter Gibbs runs the Biggenden abattoir in my electorate, possibly the largest employer in the North Burnett. He struggles. He has cut his power bill in half, but the price has gone up 70 per cent. Alan Dingle grows sugar cane in the north Bundaberg region in my electorate. His power bill has gone up 130 per cent since 2008. Most CQ farmers who are irrigating their crops cannot do so, in most cases, because of the high electricity prices. This must come to an end. We must give these farmers some certainty when it comes to producing crops in the future. It would appear that the state government is raiding the pockets of these irrigators and small businesses all over the state in order to pad its bottom line and employ more public servants in Brisbane. It is imperative that we, at all levels of government, do more to support our small industry people and the household electricity prices—they must be on a global, competitive basis.
Question agreed to.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 13:04