Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that:

(a) over the next four years, total annual Commonwealth funding to Queensland is increasing by around $5.8 billion (including GST);

(b) despite the tight budget conditions, the Commonwealth is increasing annual funding for Queensland hospitals by 40 per cent, and schools by 47 per cent, over the next four years; and

(c) this represents a combined increase in funding to Queensland schools and hospitals of over 40 per cent by 2017-18, on 2013-14 funding levels;

(2) commends the Government for investing $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure of the 21st century for Queensland, including:

(a) $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway; and

(b) almost:

  (i) $1.3 billion towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing; and

  (ii) $1 billion towards the upgrade of the Gateway Motorway North; and

(3) notes that the Queensland Government estimated the impact of the carbon tax to be $148 million in its 2013-14 state budget and its repeal will help support jobs and investment.

I am delighted to move this motion and I am pleased to see my Queensland colleagues, the member for Herbert, Mr Jones, who is in the chamber, and I note the member for Forde and the member for Capricornia are both listed to speak. The facts are that this coalition government is dealing with the legacy of debt, deficit and fiscal disaster left to us by the former Labor-Greens alliance, who thought it was fine to borrow vast amounts of money with absolutely no plans for paying it back. But, worse than that, they locked their borrowing plan in the years, hanging a millstone around the neck of future governments and generations of Australian children.

In Queensland, the Newman government is also saddled with massive debt from nearly 20 years of Labor fiscal ineptitude, and now they face the prospect of a Palmer United Party inspired Senate witch hunt backed by Labor and the Greens that will cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars, continuing and demonstrating the fiscal irresponsibility of those three parties.

Yet, against this background and contrary to the misinformation spread by the Labor opposition, the coalition is still able to provide $5.8 billion in funding to Queensland for various key projects. The coalition is the highest education funding government in history as well as spending record amounts on infrastructure and giving my home state of Queensland funding for key projects.

One of those, of course, is the massive $6.7 billion that is being committed to fix the Bruce Highway, to floodproof it so that in the cyclone season towns, cities and producers are not cut off for days and weeks at a time. This is the government that sees problems an acts to fix them. The much-needed second range crossing in Toowoomba will receive $1.3 billion. This is much-needed driver to improve access to drive productivity increases in the agricultural sector in the rich farmlands west of Brisbane. The Gateway Motorway is also being funded, with $1 billion for this neglected area of traffic congestion.

Neglect and debt—a familiar tale in every state and territory which has had Labor leadership. And not just funding for infrastructure—over the next four years federal funding in health for Queenslanders will rise by 40 per cent on 2013-14 levels. That is right: not a cut but an increase of 40 per cent. So much for the false Chicken Little complaints that we hear from the opposition and Queensland Labor. This coalition government is actually increasing spending. The truth that our government does more for health than they ever did is indeed a bitter pill for Labor to swallow.

Education in Queensland will also get an extra 47 per cent over the next four years, yet somehow we hear constantly how the coalition has cut funding to education. It is not just direct funding that has made a difference to Queensland. The axing of the carbon tax has saved Queensland taxpayers another $148 million. This ill-conceived and badly executed economy-wide tax on families and businesses is well gone. It is better to have an empty house than a bad tenant, as they say, and not one family in this country should be sad to see this bad tax repealed.

The Abbott coalition government is the best friend Queenslanders had in at least seven years. Just imagine what we could have done if we had followed a competent government like the Howard government to see how much more we could have achieved. The fact is that the Abbott coalition government is delivering for the people of Australia and is delivering for my own home state of Queensland. I am delighted that my colleagues will be elaborating on those details. I commend this motion to the house.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In almost two decades of political activism and involvement, I do not think I have seen a more misleading motion than this one, and I stand up to oppose it. It takes a certain level of dishonesty and deceitfulness and doublespeak to move a motion claiming increased funding for schools, hospitals and infrastructure while simultaneously crowing about savings to the very same areas. For the member for Ryan, the forehead-slap moment will come when she realises you cannot claim extra spending and savings in the same areas simultaneously.

It was very cruel of the Treasurer not to point out to the member for Ryan that this government's own budget papers make the brutal cuts to schools and hospitals very, very clear. In discussing cuts to schools and hospitals, page 7 of the budget overview states:

These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024-25.

These are not figures that the opposition has made up; they are there in black and white in the government's very own budget overview. The member for Ryan should read it. That fact alone torpedoes the claims upon which this dishonest and dishonourable and deceitful motion is built. The fact is that schools and hospitals around Australia will get $80 billion less in funding from this government than they would have got had Labor been re-elected. So it takes a great deal of duplicity for the member for Ryan to get up here and congratulate the government on the budget's funding of schools and hospitals.

Schools in my own area will be some of the worst affected. There are 27,500 kids who will cop funding cuts to the tune of $230 million over the next 10 years. The $30 billion cut to schools across Australia over the next decade is the same as cutting every seventh teacher. Parents, students and teachers in my community cannot afford this government's harsh cuts to education and schools. They certainly cannot afford the cuts to public hospitals either.

I had the pleasure recently of inspecting the Logan Hospital's brand-new emergency department and paediatric wing. The $175 million Logan Hospital redevelopment project was proudly funded by the last Labor government because Labor understands the importance of having a modern and well-funded public hospital system. This stands in stark contrast to the government, who will pull $50 billion—it is in their own budget papers—out of hospitals across Australia over the next decade.

The Metro South Health network which serves the people of my electorate will miss out on $26 million just over the next four years, with far more cuts to come in the years after that. At the same time, the government is charging people more to access basic health services and imaging services, with people in my electorate set to pay nearly $8½ million every year on the GP tax alone. Just a few weeks ago, we heard startling evidence from the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association that sick people will need to pay hundreds and even thousands to diagnose their conditions. Bills of this magnitude will be such a blow to people who are suffering from life-threatening diseases. With so many people being targeted by the budget, it is sickening to observe the backslapping and self-congratulation of government members in this motion.

Their record on infrastructure is not much better, with most of their achievements nothing more than the re-announcement of Labor commitments. And no discussion of infrastructure is complete without mentioning the NBN, which has been stripped and pared back till it is a fragment of Labor's original fibre-fuelled nation-building vision for the program.

The Prime Minister and Premier Newman are as one when it comes to hacking, slashing and cutting the services my community needs and our country needs. The only good news is that Queenslanders will get the opportunity to voice and vent their fury within the next six months. I urge the good people of my electorate to send Premier Newman and Prime Minister Abbott a message by supporting our fantastic local candidates, my friends Linus Power in Logan, Leeanne Enoch in Algester, Mick de Brenni in Springwood, Shannon Fentiman in Waterford, Duncan Pegg in Stretton and Cameron Dick in Woodridge.

This government, the LNP and the member for Ryan cannot be serious when they boast about their achievements in schools, hospitals and infrastructure. They should stop treating Queenslanders as mugs. We know that serious nation-building infrastructure like the NBN is worse off as a result of this government; we know that our schools are worse off as a result of this budget; we know that our hospitals will be worse off as a result of this budget; and no amount of dishonest, deceitful, dishonourable motions will camouflage those facts, as laid out so starkly in the pages of their own budget.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I like the member for Rankin; I think he is hilarious! For him to stand there and say what he said was disingenuous in the extreme. He was part of the staff of the then Treasurer a couple of years ago when the Treasurer's budget speech started with 'these four years of budget surpluses I announce tonight'. He was the bloke who wrote the speech! So for him to come in here and say that we are sitting here saying that there is money going to health and education is a little bit simplistic. I note he does replace the previous member for Rankin, Craig Emerson, and I do thank the member for Rankin for not singing, 'There will be no education and health wipe-out there on my TV'! That is one saving grace of having him here. No doubt we will see the member for Lilley try and explain his position. Maybe the member Lilley can explain those words about the four years of budget surpluses he was delivering that night.

On 7 September last year, Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister elect, stood up in front of the Australian people and said: 'Australia is now open for business.' Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney and the then incoming Treasurer, said, 'Infrastructure must facilitate commerce.' In Townsville, in my area, in 2011, in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi, we saw a fantastic street project, a project which was about flood mitigation, pulled out of Townsville, for the funding to be shifted down to the south-east corner of Queensland by the then Labor transport minister, who was Townsville based as well. It is only now that we are getting that thing finished.

When it comes to all these things being their previous announcements, Labor have to understand that it is just like former Prime Minister Paul Keating spoke of the l-a-w law tax cuts; they were not e-n-a-c-t-e-d enacted. They were not enacted. Labor are very good at making promises, very good at making announcements, but it is about the f-u-n-d-i-n-g funding of them and the c-o-m-p-l-e-t-i-o-n completion and the d-e-l-i-v-e-r-y delivery of them. I say the words as well as spelling them for you.

When it comes to transport, when it comes to getting our goods to market, we must get these things organised. For those of you who do not live in North Queensland, what you must understand is that, every time there is a tropical depression off the coast of Queensland, in a lot of cases there is an immediate 25 per cent loading placed on all transport. That is because they know that, sooner or later, their trucks are going to be parked on the side of the road.

I was very happy after the 2012 election when Campbell Newman, the state Premier, got together with the federal opposition people to try and get a plan together to fix the Bruce. We have had the member for Grayndler come in here and tell us all about it, but it was all on 50-50 splits. What we have done in the time that we have been in government is do an 80-20 split, which is the way it should have been done, and $10 billion for road funding in Queensland on the Bruce Highway is a great start.

In my electorate we are now seeing Vantassel Street coming to completion. I have just opened the University Road upgrade, under the Black Spot Program, which is at the intersection of University Drive at Lavarack Barracks. We have announced the completion of Ring Road Stage 4. The Ring Road was, of course, brought in under the Howard government by the then member for Herbert, Peter Lindsay. We are fixing Dalrymple Road, which is a $20 million project. The state government actually fixed Blakey's Crossing. It used to be the Bruce Highway and it was an incredible link into North Queensland. It had never been fixed under any government, but the Campbell Newman state government, after taking my plan to fix it, finally delivered it. The Ring Road has gone to tender, and we have got more to come.

The big one in my region is the replacement of the Haughton River Bridge. The Haughton River Bridge is a shocking piece of work. It is very, very narrow. It has no guard rails. It would not pass anywhere. What we have to do now is put the planning in place to get it started and to get the farm buyback to straighten up the road so that we can get a bridge that actually stands up. I drove the Bruce Highway a couple of years ago—and I have spent a lot of time on the Bruce Highway—but I drove it with a critical eye. North Queensland has very little road verge and the worst bridges of anywhere in Queensland. It is something that we have to fix and it is something this government is fixing. I thank the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Deputy Prime Minister for actually getting these things together and putting rubber on the road when it comes to fixing these things. I thank the House.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate the member for Ryan on her own goal. Moving this motion today points, yet again, to the cuts of $80 billion in health and education that are being imposed on state governments by this conservative federal government, which will smash the social safety net when it comes to affordable and accessible health and education in this country over the next decade. There is a day of reckoning coming with this $80 billion cut sitting there in the budget papers, in the Budget Overview on page 7: $80 billion—$50 billion in health and $30 million in schools. I congratulate the member for Ryan for coming in here and pointing to this essential fact. I know that she is ambitious. I know that she wants to reach greater heights, but she needs to demonstrate far greater depth than she did today in the presentation. So do all the other conservative members, because Queenslanders, in particular, now face a double whammy of not only these future cuts of $80 billion but also the abolition of the final two years of Gonski and those increases as well. As the member for Rankin said before, that is the equivalent of one in seven teachers across Queensland schools. That is before you get to the cuts in health, which are going to be savage in significant hospitals in or near my electorate: Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Prince Charles Hospital and, in particular, Redcliffe Hospital. Fifty billion dollars is a lot of money out of health in the future. It is a lot of nurses, doctors and wardies who go down the tube. It is a threat to the quality of care.

What is this all about? I think we saw, over the weekend, what it is about, with the speech from the Prime Minister about the future of the Federation. What it is really about is moving to that long-held objective of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is as old as any of the governments that we have seen since the 1970s, and that is to wind back the social safety net, to wind back health and education, to jack up the GST or indirect tax base and to provide more power and money to corporates. It is a shift in the tax mix. What they are going to do now, as these cuts flow through the system Australia wide—a threat to quality health and a threat to quality education—is they will mount the charge for an increase in the GST simultaneously as they open up huge holes in the tax base for corporate Australia, and they will say, 'If we want to provide quality health and education, we're going to have to jack up the GST, jack it up on punters; working people pay more and corporates pay less.' That is what goes to the heart of the speech given by the Prime Minister at Tenterfield over the weekend, and it will go to all of the positioning that we will see.

I say this: tax reform is about a lot more than jacking up a GST and lessening the burden on corporate Australia—a lot more. It will take a lot more than the threat to health and education to bring the Australian people to support such a change. But make no mistake; that is what is behind the trifecta of trickery that we have seen from the government since the budget early this year. First of all, it is behind their false claims of an economic emergency. It is about false claims about spending and the increase in the rate of spending, and it is about false claims about debt being unsustainable. All of that is to create an environment in which it may be acceptable for the Australian people to accept $80 billion worth of cuts, ripping the heart out of health and education and the social safety net, the GP co-payment and all of those unfair burdens which are currently being put on working Australians, particularly in my home state of Queensland, where, once again, there is a double whammy, because every one of these federal cuts is accompanied by a state cut and they are felt much more keenly in my home state. Of course, when you look at education, the government are going to cut something like $6.2 billion from Queensland schools and over $190 million from the schools in my electorate of Lilley. As I said before, that amounts to something like one in seven teachers. Then of course you get to health. I spoke in the House about that last week. There are savage cuts impacting on the quality of care in hospitals like Prince Charles and the Royal Brisbane. But all that it is about is a fundamental dismantling of the social safety net in this country by the conservatives in this country, who have always, always been very weak at taxing the strong and very strong at taxing the weak. (Time expired)

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the member for Forde, I want to remind the member for Griffith that it is disorderly to be yelling out when you are not in your chair.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting to follow the contribution from the member for Lilley; and it is instructive to note there is no admission, again, of the fact that for six years he presided over accumulated deficits of some $130-odd billion dollars. He makes no recognition of the fact that as a government we are now left to pick up the mess left by that previous government and bring the House back into order. I thank the member for Ryan for bringing this motion to the House and highlighting the investment of the coalition government in my home state of Queensland.

The member for Ryan touched on the fact that the Commonwealth is increasing funding to Queensland by some $5.8 billion over the next four years. Despite the tough budget conditions inherited from the previous Labor government we are increasing funding to hospitals by some 40 per cent and funding to schools by some 47 per cent. I note that schools in Forde, as a result of this funding increase, will receive over the next four years some $4.8 million of additional funding under the government's Great Results Guarantee—funding which schools in my electorate would not have received under the previous Labor government. I would suggest to the member for Rankin, the member for Griffith and the member for Moreton, who are here in the House, and even to the member for Lilley: there would be schools in their electorates which will also receive additional funding which they would not have received if Labor had been re-elected to government. But we do not hear them speak about those matters.

Also, as a result of the repeal of the carbon tax, the Queensland government has some $150 million of additional funds in its budget to allocate for the provision of services to the great state of Queensland. I also commend the government for investing some $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure which is desperately needed in Queensland: $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway and almost $1.3 billion towards the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing. I know the Minister for Industry, Mr Macfarlane, has been fighting very hard for that for many years. One billion dollars goes towards the Gateway Motorway North Upgrade. In the electorate of Forde we have received a contribution of $3 million towards the revitalisation of the Beenleigh CBD, which is a joint project with Logan City Council; the Queensland state government is throwing in some funding as well. The whole objective of this project is to turn Beenleigh into a thriving regional hub. This project has been in the making for more than 20 years and it is heartening to see that finally, under this government, we have received the funding necessary for the project to progress. I would also like to thank the Beenleigh Yatala Chamber of Commerce and many other businesses and local community groups for their support for this project. It is part of my bigger vision for the Beenleigh area that the Beenleigh CBD and surrounding region can provide jobs and employment opportunities for those living in the area.

It is promising to see the coalition government's continuing commitment to infrastructure across Forde. Some of the biggest issues we face stem from a failure of infrastructure to keep up with the pace of growth. I recently had the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure in the electorate to discuss issues to do with the M1 from Loganholme to Daisy Hill; we are talking to the state government about further matters in that regard. We will continue to work with the local community to build our infrastructure requirements, but I note we have spent nearly $1 million from proceeds of crime legislation on upgrading our CCTV network around the electorate of Forde as well. There are more projects we are working on in that space.

This is a government that is prepared to invest in our local communities for the benefit of all concerned, and in Queensland particularly. I thank the government for its investment in the future of our great state.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion put forward today by the member for Ryan, before she scurried out of this place, completely ignores the true intentions of the Liberal-National government's harsh budget cuts. The Abbott government's $80 billion cuts to schools and hospitals is a clear broken promise from a government that promised no cuts to health and no cuts to education. They said they would be a government of no surprises, but the premiers are still reeling from the Treasurer's budget night ambush. The impact of the government's $50 billion cut to health will increase emergency department waiting times in Queensland; it will increase elective surgery waiting times and reduce the number of hospital beds across the country. These cuts will mean fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer midwives; they will mean fewer psychologists, radiographers and oncologists. The coalition's $50 billion cut to Australian hospitals is equivalent to sacking one in three doctors or one in five nurses, or shutting down one in 13 hospital beds. As the AMA—that great left-wing institution!—has highlighted, public hospitals are already stretched to meet demand and these drastic cuts will cripple the health system, especially as we age as a society.

In my home state of Queensland, electorates are feeling the sting from both federal and state LNP governments putting health under the chopping block. The Queensland state budget revealed that the federal coalition government is costing Queenslanders $16 billion in cuts to hospitals and schools in my state—the same state the member for Ryan and the member for Forde call home, although this motion suggests the member for Ryan has now moved to La La Land.

Queensland budget papers clearly state:

Of particular concern, the 2014-15 Commonwealth Budget indicated that the Australian government will amend funding arrangements for public hospitals (from 1 July 2017) and schools (from 1 January 2018) to generate savings across all states of over $80 billion in the period to 2024-25. Queensland's per capita share of this saving would amount to a reduction of around $16 billion in Australian government funding.

That is Campbell Newman's own budget papers. This immense pressure being put on states to foot the bill is just this government's strategy to increase the GST—as we heard on the weekend—in an economy where Australians are already struggling to meet cost-of-living pressures. Governments, good governments, should be part of the solution when it comes to cost of living, not part of the problem.

Queenslanders are now paying a high price for the Liberal-National Party's unfair budget. This poisonous budget means that Queensland families will not get the health care they need, and Queensland students, who we invest in in terms of creating a new tomorrow, will not get the great education they deserve. For example, every single state school in Moreton, every single state school in Forde, and every single state school in Ryan—all of those electorates—will be on average $3.2 million worse off. This is the equivalent of sacking one in seven teachers, or $1,000 less support for every child every year.

When we look back at the records of the Howard government, they can proudly say they built 3,000 flag poles. The Rudd and Gillard governments built 3,000 libraries. The LNP government cut $3 million from every school, a wonderful legacy which I am sure those opposite are proud of. Principals will be forced to spend their time dealing with funding cuts, when all they want to do is get on with improving their skills. Subject choices, teachers' assistants, sport, music programs and extension and remedial support—all those things that make communities hum and schools sing—will be cut.

If massive cuts to hospitals and schools are not enough, this federal budget will also impact on Queensland's state seniors card holders and more than 600,000 Queensland pensioner concession card holders. These concessions are currently worth a total of $335.6 million to Queenslanders. Of that, the Commonwealth provides $54 million in 2014-15, money that the Prime Minister is ripping away. The designated public transport concession for seniors card holders will be abolished all together, and I am sure the member for Grayndler recognises how that shows the current government has no faith in public transport.

Queensland's budget confirms that the Prime Minister lied when he said there will be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions. Before the election, the Prime Minister promised no cuts to education; that is not the case. There is a strong odour or mendacity emanating from those opposite. The Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman knew this, knew the extent of the cuts, but still he has tried to keep it secret, but his budget papers reveal it all.

Documents recently released show that Queensland schools will be billions of dollars worse off as a result of this government's harsh budget cuts. The information from Queensland's education department reveal the axing of 10 centres for children and families in Indigenous communities around Queensland due to federal government cuts, despite the Prime Minister being the minister responsible for that area.

This is another example of a successful community program being ripped away from those who are most vulnerable in Queensland.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleagues, the member for Ryan, the member for Herbert and the member for Forde for their input today. Queensland is nearly five times the size of Japan, seven times the size of Great Britain, and two and a half times the size of Texas. As the second-largest state in landmass, with a population of over four million people, the state is very significant to our nation. I am a proud Queenslander, and most Queenslanders are proud Australians.

However, I must question whether every Queenslander really has the best interests of their state at heart. I refer to a recent decision in the Senate. It is interesting that certain Queensland members of the federal Senate voted to hold an inquiry into the current Queensland state LNP government, a government that is trying to fix up the state's economy and get Queensland back on its feet.

The move by certain senators to hold an inquiry is questionable, because Labor itself neglected Queensland for many years. They simply ran it into the ground. I guess we should not be surprised, because while the former state Labor government, under Premier Anna Bligh, was running down Queensland's economy, her oddball friends in the federal Labor Party were running down Australia as a whole. The 'Rudd Gillard experiment' left all Australians paying a $1 billion per month interest bill on a huge national debt. The common factor here is that, whenever it is in power, wherever it is in power, Labor destroys the financial credibility of our economy, both state and nationally.

The Abbott coalition government, however, is supporting Queensland. Over the next four years the total annual Commonwealth funding to Queensland is increasing by around $5.8 billion. Hospitals and schools will enjoy the benefit of this. You already heard that our government is investing $13.4 billion to build the infrastructure of the 21st century for Queensland. And, because Queensland is such a large and important state, we are spending $6.7 billion towards fixing the Bruce Highway. I can report that in my electorate of Capricornia people can actually see where this money is being spent.

Progress continues on stage 2 of the Yeppen Floodplain improvements on the Bruce Highway at the entrance to Rockhampton. All up, between stage 1 and 2, about $320 million is being spent to ensure the highway into Rockhampton remains open in flood times. This is the major transport corridor that links freight from Brisbane to Cairns. Keeping this highway open will keep goods flowing north and keep Queensland's economy rolling. Without this work, funded by the government, highway transport comes to a complete standstill when heavy rains cause flooding to cut off the city. This costs the local and the Queensland economy millions, if not billions, of dollars.

Our federal coalition government is also spending $120 million to fix the Eaton Range section of the notorious Peak Downs Highway between Mackay and Moranbah. This is an important transport corridor into Queensland's vital coalmining areas. Speaking of fixing things up, over the next few years—

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Grayndler, you have a point of order?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I seek to ask the member if she will accept an intervention.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is under an obligation to say whether she will allow that intervention or not.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I will not.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She is talking about projects. I thought that would be good. It would give her a chance to talk about it.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Grayndler, the member for Capricornia has made her decision. Member for Capricornia, please continue.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaking of fixing things up, over the next few years, five shires in Capricornia—Isaac, Rockhampton, Mackay, Livingstone and Whitsunday—will share in $30 million of federal money to fix council streets and roads under our Roads to Recovery Program.

I am also pleased to see that three key dam concepts—Connors near Moranbah, Urannah near Collinsville and the Fitzroy Corridor near Rockhampton—have made it to the green paper on agricultural competitiveness. If they are successful in attracting funding, such projects will further boost the potential of the great state of Queensland. In contrast, under Labor you never saw any attempt at such bold water infrastructure. Thank you.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Capricornia obviously does not remember the hydroelectric scheme, but I remember it very well, if we talk about what Labor has done! But I rise to speak to this private member's motion on Commonwealth funding for Queensland.

This motion does not reflect the impact that the Abbott government and its rotten budget will have on Queensland and Queenslanders. As my predecessor said before the last election, 'For Queensland, the Newman government's cuts to public services are just the entree; Tony Abbott will be the main course.'

The Abbott government has failed Queensland. The Abbott-Hockey budget cuts $80 billion from health and education. Before the election the now Prime Minister promised there would be no cuts to education. The Liberals and Nationals claimed they were on a 'unity ticket' with Labor, when it came to the reforms known as Gonski. Those reforms arose from the comprehensive review that David Gonski led of Australia's broken school funding arrangements.

We know that the Liberals and Nationals would have said anything to get elected. For example, they said there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to the pension and no cuts to the ABC or the SBS. Each one of those promises has been broken since the election—every single one of them has been broken and, unfortunately, they were obviously far from the gospel truth from the now Prime Minister. Now, Queensland students and their families, including those in my electorate of Griffith, are paying the price.

The southsiders I speak to are well aware that the Liberal-National government is not making good on its pre-election commitments. Despite claiming that unity ticket with Labor when it came to the Gonski reforms, the Prime Minister has refused to fund the essential fifth and sixth years of those reforms. And Treasury has now confirmed that under the Abbott-Hockey first budget Australian schools will be stripped of $30 billion over the next decade. This is the biggest ever cut to our schools. This is equivalent to sacking one in seven teachers, and will leave the average school $3.2 million worse off with every student receiving $1,000 less support per year.

So, despite the rhetoric in the motion put forward by the member for Ryan, the budget papers themselves state:

In this Budget the Government is adopting sensible indexation arrangements for schools from 2018, and hospitals from 2017-18—

and removing funding guarantees for public hospitals:

These measures will achieve cumulative savings of over $80 billion by 2024-25

That is $80 billion in cuts on the government's own budget papers.

Cutting indexation just to CPI—which the budget papers assume to be 2.5 per cent—at the same time as the ABS Education Price Index is 5.1 per cent, means a significant and compounding cut in real terms. This compares to what was intended under the Gonski reforms, where the intended average federal expenditure increase was 9.2 per cent. So, Deputy Speaker, you can see that this is walking away from the reforms in respect of which they supposedly had a unity ticket. Last year the now education minister described the prospect of three per cent indexation for schools as 'frightening', yet this year he is prepared to introduce a system that will go beyond that.

In Queensland the cuts that are being made amount to $6.7 billion. The 58 schools in my electorate on the south side of Brisbane—that is 58 schools in the electorate of Griffith—will lose $236 million. This means that students in Griffith will miss out on literacy and numeracy programs, extension classes, extra teachers subject choices, music, drama and art programs and sport. The Abbott government has also changed the federal school funding rules, taking a no-strings-attached approach. This means letting states and territories off the hook, allowing them to divert money to other projects, to cut school budgets and abandon reforms to improve student results.

I know that those opposite, on the government side, continue to argue that, really, education is about quality and not just about dollars. But that is just a cynical distraction from the government's destructive agenda to cut funding to schools. Every teacher, principal and parent will tell you that resources actually matter at schools and in the classroom. The research backs that up, and so do Liberal premiers. When I visit my local schools and hear about the benefits they are getting from the new libraries and other facilities they got under Kevin Rudd's Building the Education Revolution policy, it is clear that schools thrive with the right resources. No local school I have been to has said to me, 'Gee, I wish we didn't have that new library.' They love the additional resources because they help to deliver quality education for the students.

So the Gonski reforms are not just about money at all. The purpose of the reforms is to improve the way that money is spent. The reforms are aimed at getting resources to those schools and to those students who need them most, while making sure no that school is worse off. We have an achievement gap of up to three years, and we need to fix it.

Debate adjourned.