Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I have had greater pleasure in rising in this place to speak on previous appropriation bills and I can understand why the previous speaker, the member for Charlton, lacked any enthusiasm for Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and related bills. The new government’s first budget has given us all a very grim reminder of what life will be like under a federal Labor government. And it is a classic Labor government. It has increased taxes, it has increased spending and it has done absolutely nothing to ease the pressure on the one issue that it has identified as being a critical issue in the Australian economy—that is, it has not done anything to ease the pressure on inflation or to support families in their ongoing struggle with grocery and petrol prices. At a time when there are billions of dollars as part of the surplus, it has cut funding to some of the most vulnerable groups and programs in the Australian community.

It has actually budgeted—wait for this—for 134,000 people to be unemployed. I thought being responsible and being in government necessarily involved creating an economic environment where people have the best chance of an independent life—and that would be through having a job—and where those who could not have a job would be supported through relevant programs. But, no, what we have is a Labor Party that wants to consign people to welfare dependence through being unemployed. That is a disgrace and that is absolutely irresponsible, and this nation will take some time to recover from some of the disastrous policies that will be put in place over the next couple of years.

The Treasurer’s high-taxing, high-spending budget is a demonstration of what Labor has lacked since time immemorial: economic credibility—and it still lacks it. Those concerns that people had about Labor’s economic credibility are still there, because we have seen this budget fail. In spite of the wealth and the take that the Australian government has received in taxes, it has failed to deliver a safe and secure environment within which families can continue to go about their daily lives, an environment within which people can have some certainty about jobs and job prospects. Imagine if it had inherited an economy with a much lower budget surplus forecast, an economy that was actually in greater danger, an economy that had not withstood the economic problems of our region over the last decade. Imagine how much worse this Labor budget would be.

For the Prime Minister and the Treasurer this was their first test—a test to see whether they had the necessary leadership and discipline to manage Australia’s $1.1 trillion economy. It is very clear from the budget delivery that Labor’s rigid political ideology has come before good economic policy. It might hide it and mask it in all sorts of language, but it is not what Labor says that matters on the ground; it is what it actually does. Mr Swan has been talking up an inflationary crisis in Australia to hide the fact that the government planned weeks ago to cut expenditure in the budget to fund its election promises, but it is actually increasing spending by $18 billion over five years—so work that one out! He wants to ease inflationary pressures and says that all these government programs need to be cut, but he is actually increasing government spending by $18 billion over five years.

The Treasurer is cutting funding to some of the most vulnerable and needy groups in the Australian community. He is cutting funding to rural and regional programs. He is cutting funding to those isolated communities that have benefited from having a growing economy and being a wealthy nation, where we have had—and we have understood—a responsibility to maintain vital services and infrastructure. He has cut funding to those sorts of programs, but somehow the Labor Party still find money to pay for a butler for the Prime Minister and still pay some income to the family nanny. How out of touch is that for a Labor government, the so-called friend of the worker? They cut funding to vulnerable low-income communities but make sure that the PM has a butler. It does not take too long for some of these hypocrites to put their snouts in the trough. The government had an opportunity to lock in our nation’s future and to continue the work of the previous government in delivering for all Australians—not just for their mates, not just for the groups that they think vote for them but for all Australians—but they failed miserably.

I want to concentrate my comments on a few of the important areas that arise from this budget and that impact on my electorate. The all-important policy areas of agriculture, water and regional development have been damaged and hit hard by Labor. Despite promising to govern for all Australians, Labor has highlighted that this style of government does not extend to rural and regional Australians. In the three key areas—regional development, communications and agriculture—Labor has stripped more than $1 billion from rural and regional Australia. Current Howard government programs that are in place in agriculture—worth $334 million—have been culled, with new initiatives worth only $220 million, nearly all of them relating to climate change. There are no plans to extend exceptional circumstances relief beyond the current expiry date of September 2008, and this is of very little comfort for the 1,452 farmers in north and north-east Victoria currently receiving exceptional circumstances assistance.

We have to ask the questions: do we want Australia to have an endogenous capacity to produce certain agricultural products; do we want Australia to continue to maintain an agricultural industry? If the answer is yes, then we need to continue to provide that helping hand through very difficult climatic conditions and through very difficult economic times for certain produce. But obviously the Rudd Labor government do not believe that we need an endogenous capacity to maintain some sort of agricultural production, which is quite evident from their blatant refusal to even contemplate an extension of the exceptional circumstances relief. I am also concerned at the non-existent plans to sustain endogenous capacity in greater efficiency of on-farm irrigation. We have seen the budget slash funding that was previously announced by the former government to support on-farm irrigation efficiency measures.

The first Labor budget in 13 years attempts to demolish much of the hard work of the last 12 coalition budgets, particularly the measures aimed at those living in rural and regional Australia. We all know it is far more difficult and takes much longer to create something than to destroy it. We have seen the culling of community water grants, which has affected many sporting facilities and many schools. We have seen the culling of the Regional Partnerships program and also the culling of the Investing in Our Schools Program, which provided funds for both government and non-government schools. We have seen looming a cut to funding for the Catchment Management Authority programs. All of these are a trail of wreckage that leads to the door of the Rudd Labor government. All of these will result in worse management of our natural resources, our scarce water resources and our environment and are a slap in the face to all of those individuals, both paid and from volunteer organisations, who have put in so much time to put something back into their community for it to have a sustainable future.

The Investing in Our Schools Program delivers immense benefits right across Australia, and I can speak from personal experience about its impact on my electorate of Indi, where 311 individual school improvement projects were funded to the tune of over $14 million—and this funding is separate to the significant capital grants that were given to government and non-government schools in my electorate by the previous Liberal government. The Investing in Our Schools Program achieved so much. It gave power to school communities to fix the problems that incompetent, negligent state governments had refused funding to fix. Let us remember that primary and secondary education is primarily under the jurisdiction of the states. They have the power to set the agenda and they administer the schools, yet schools in my electorate had toilet facilities that did not satisfy occupational health and safety standards. Teachers could not use them, but the students were supposed to use them.

The Investing in Our Schools Program filled the gap at a wealthy time in our nation’s history, when there was a budget surplus, where we could say, ‘Let’s look after the future generation; let’s actually create a learning environment that is safe, that is conducive to their education.’ But that program has been slashed by the Labor government. I find it extraordinary that this Labor government has decided to scrap a policy that assisted so many poor schools. Based on the Treasurer’s speech, there was no glimmer of hope for my local schools that there would be some viable policy to replace the Investing in Our Schools Program. Disappointingly, Labor has also culled important coalition programs such as the Green Vouchers for Schools Program and the national literacy and numeracy vouchers program.

Community water grants in my part of the world have been very important. Indi received $6.1 million in funding from the Community Water Grants program, benefiting over 160 local organisations throughout north-east Victoria. I was very pleased, because north-east Victoria provides over 38 per cent of the water that goes into the Murray-Darling system. It assisted many volunteer organisations, as well as the local Catchment Management Authority. The previous coalition government’s water program has helped over 8,000 communities right across Australia save the equivalent of 40,000 Olympic-size swimming pools of water each year. But, again, that program has been scrapped.

An area that is a huge cost to all Australians, particularly to those who have to travel further—and that usually involves those in rural and regional Australia—is petrol prices. The opposition leader delivered so eloquently what the Treasurer could not bring himself to promise and that was a cut in the fuel excise. The coalition’s plan for fuel excise relief will give struggling motorists the type of real relief that the Prime Minister, despite all his ‘working families’ rhetoric, cannot bring himself to deliver. Since the Rudd government was elected, petrol has become 15c per litre more expensive than it previously was. On 29 May 2007, when unleaded petrol was $1.29 a litre, Mr Rudd said:

Why won’t the Prime Minister finally stand up for working families on petrol prices?

All the empty rhetoric and spin worthy of a brief from Sir Humphrey. A year later, when petrol is $1.46 in Wangaratta and $1.49 in Wodonga, the current Prime Minister, after having been elected, after leading the Australian people to believe he would do something about petrol prices—he would say anything to get elected, he would do anything to be elected—said:

We have done as much as we physically can to provide additional help to the family budget.

Well, you failed again. After only six months, the Prime Minister has failed to deliver on a very basic promise. The Australian people believed him and thought that, under a Rudd Labor government, petrol prices would be lower. They were hopelessly misled and now not just working families but all Australians are getting restless. The only solution he has come up with is to institute Fuelwatch across the nation. We have seen an independent survey by MotorMouth analyse petrol prices over three months, telling us that petrol in the only state which has had a Fuelwatch program, WA, is more expensive than petrol in Melbourne and Sydney. We even had the resources minister warn cabinet that some families would lose out under a Fuelwatch program, but he was ignored. He was overridden because the spin by the Prime Minister is more important than the reality of the problems on the ground.

In the past there have been times when petrol prices have gone up but it has only been the coalition that has provided relief when petrol prices have risen sharply. As a result of the 6.7c per litre cut in excise in 2000, a further 1.5c per litre cut in 2001 and the abolition of indexation, which was introduced under the former Labor government, petrol is currently 17.7c per litre less than it would otherwise have been—because the coalition stands for lower taxes and delivered lower taxes over the last 12 years. The coalition provided income tax relief in 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. In addition, the income tax cuts in this year’s Labor budget were largely the coalition’s tax proposals. All Labor could do, so that they would not scare people off, was pretend they are a paler imitation of the coalition and said, ‘Me too. We’ll copy most of that tax policy.’

Labor has abandoned so many groups of Australians, not just rural and regional Australians but also senior Australians. If you do not fall within that glib description of ‘working families’ you do not seem to matter to the current Labor government. What about all those Australians who used to belong to the working families category but now are too old to work but expect to live at a reasonable level in a wealthy nation such as ours? They have been ignored by the Labor government and we have seen their protests right around the country.

We have seen Labor’s budget announcement which includes the imposition of an income test which will now include income from superannuation income streams from a taxed source, and income that is salary sacrificed to superannuation in an income assessment for the Commonwealth seniors health card. I do not support these changes to the seniors health card, nor does the coalition. This will hit particularly self-funded retirees, those people who have made sacrifices over their lifetime to make sure they could support themselves to a certain degree in retirement—they have been hit again by this government. But then again, they probably fall into the category of ‘all those rich people we cannot help’. We have had supposedly rich families hit and now all these self-funded retirees have been hit. Why does the Labor Party not go out and tell self-funded retirees, ‘You’re too rich! We don’t want to help you.’ Why do you not have a look at the sacrifices made and the circumstances in which some of these self-funded retirees live. Governments have a responsibility to provide some incentive for those who make decisions to look after themselves, not punish them.

Another sneaky measure in the budget was the disgraceful decision to increase the age of service pension eligibility for veteran service partners from 50 years to 58½ years. I have already been contacted by a number of constituents who are directly impacted by this extraordinary budget decision. One constituent wrote to me saying:

As a Vietnam veteran who served twenty-one years in the regular Army and been employed continuously for twenty-three years since leaving the Army I feel totally let down by this Government measure. Seven months from retirement my plans have to be now reconsidered because of a cheap, discriminatory measure by the new Federal Government.

Another constituent called my office in a highly distressed state yesterday morning. I strongly believe that as a community we are indebted to veterans who fought and defended our country. We cannot support these measures that have been sneakily slipped into the budget which show total disregard for our veterans. It is okay for the Prime Minister to go and have photos with our men and women in uniform to give him some sort of gravitas and authority, but that is not good enough to support our veterans and their families who have served their nation in the past.

We have changes to the Medicare levy, which is an absolute disgrace. It was Graham Richardson, a former Labor health minister, who said, ‘To have a viable Medicare system, you must have at least 40 per cent of people in private health.’ What will happen with the changes to the Medicare levy? Because the Labor Party hates anything to do with people helping themselves and hates anything to do with private health, it will mean that folk will drop out, premiums will go up, older people and families will face longer waiting lists at hospitals and our health system will start to crumble and resemble the disgraceful system in the UK. (Time expired)

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