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Bill Shorten's 2015 Budget Reply
Bill Shorten's 2015 Budget Reply
My fellow Australians,
Our people and our nation are interesting, imaginative, caring, productive and
adaptive.
But the 2015 Budget has neither the qualities, nor the priorities of the Australian
people.
Hope - that the Government would, at last, after 613 days get the economy right.
But once again, in every way, this Government let Australia down.
The test for this Budget was to plan for the future: to lift productivity, to create jobs, to
boost investment, to turbo-charge confidence for the years and decades ahead.
To restore hope.
To the extent that the Treasurer pretends this Budget is in any way remedial to the
Australian economy, it is a hoax.
Does it return Australia to trend growth this year, in future years? No.
Does it deal with the challenges of the digital age and the new skills and jobs that we
need? No
Does it:
No.
And this Budget also missed the main game the challenge that defines life in the
2020s.
This is the reason we are living in a low growth economy, the massive step change,
the step down in investment.
Is the Treasurer seriously asking Australians to believe that this is the best he can do
in response to a $96 billion withdrawal,
The truth is the 2015 Budget is silent on the big picture, the next decade, the long
run.
This Budget records the Governments lack of vision and the price our
economy is paying for it.
This Budget drops the ball on reform, change and fiscal sense.
It is a sorry roll-call:
17 new taxes
The deficit doubled - up from $17 billion to $35 billion since the Treasurers
last Budget.
The only polite description for the forecasts in this Budget is that they are an
experiment in hope over experience.
The same broken promises, the same unfair, extreme ideology, wrapped in trickery.
Last years Budget cut $6000 from families working hard to make ends meet.
Those cuts are still in this Budget and Labor will never support them.
Last years Budget cut university funding by 20 per cent and ambushed students with
higher fees and bigger debt.
This unfairness is still in the Budget and I can promise you this Christopher Pyne
Labor will vote against $100,000 degrees, every time you bring them to this
Parliament.
And whether it is for one month or six Labor will never support leaving young
people looking for work to survive on nothing.
We will never sign off on this Prime Ministers plan to push young people into
poverty, and worse.
Madam Speaker,
The meanness of spirit in the last Budget lives on in this one, the same spitefulness
in all things great and small:
$2 billion in cuts to health and aged care, hidden in the fine print.
$70 million cut from dental care for Veterans and $130 million from dental
care to children.
And $1 million cut from a program that puts seatbelts in school buses in our
regions the Coalition has an eye for detail.
And this governments second Budget has one more thing in common with its first - it
creates divisions and faultlines in our community.
Remember the 2014 lifters against the leaners theyre at it again this Government.
Cutting family support to pay for childcare, pitting Mums and Dads of three and four
year olds against Mums and Dads of six and seven year olds.
Forcing nurses, retail workers and police to choose between more at time home with
their baby or a cut to their pay.
In just one year, this Prime Minister has gone from the staunchest defender of Paid
Parental Leave, his signature scheme, to vilifying tens of thousands of women who
rely upon it.
From praising women of calibre to demonising rorters and frauds thats how
quickly and viciously this Prime Minister reverts to type about women in the
workplace.
Madam Speaker
Nowhere on Tuesday night did the Treasurer utter the words bracket creep.
He should have because bracket creep is the biggest driver of revenue in his
Budget.
The Treasurer should have told Australians that for every dollar that the government
keeps in spending cuts, two dollars will be collected through higher taxes.
In a lazy Budget, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are getting inflation to do their dirty
work.
80 cents in every dollar in the rise in revenue comes from bracket creep - the
invisible hand in the pocket of every Australian worker.
Along with rehashing of the manifest unfairness of last years measures, the abuse
of bracket creep, the third cardinal sin of this Budget is the Governments
unconscionable attacks upon the states of Australia and the people who depend
upon the services they provide.
There is no atonement, not even a trademark, insincere mea culpa from this Prime
Minister or a tear from the Treasurer about the cuts to the States.
Like the last Budget, this Budget cuts $80 billion from Australias schools and
hospitals.
But a breach of his promise before this Budget, not to hurt families.
Prime Minister, let me tell you something, on behalf of the families of Australia.
When you cut $30 billion from our schools - you hurt families.
When you cut $50 billion from our hospitals Prime Minister you hurt families.
When you close hospital beds, rob our kids of the resources they need, when you
put nurses and teachers under more pressure, you hurt families.
Right now, we need the states more than ever, we need a new approach.
For a decade, capital investment in mining has been running at 8 per cent - four
times the long-run rate.
And there has been a 17.3 per cent fall in spending on public sector infrastructure in
the last year.
The Commonwealth must use its fiscal horsepower to work with the States and
private investors to:
Confidence for new rail and roads and new ports and bridges, better social housing,
smart energy grids, efficient irrigation projects and of course, the best digital
infrastructure.
New infrastructure projects boost demand in the short term and they lift supply over
the long term, creating jobs and generating national momentum.
But this Budget does nothing to address the funding cut from important public
transport projects like the Melbourne Metro and Brisbanes Cross-River Rail.
This is the first Budget in living memory with not one significant infrastructure project
funded.
In government, Labor funded all 15 projects on the priority list: the Pacific Highway in
New South Wales, Regional Rail Link in Victoria and the Gold Coast Light Rail.
This government has not funded a single priority project, in fact they have abolished
the funding for three and have ripped away half of Infrastructure Australias budget.
Inaction undermines confidence, and hurts State budgets and we all pay a price.
More of us spend more time stuck in the car on our way to work.
We need a circuit breaker for investment and a commitment to put the nations
interest at the heart of nation-building.
Just as the Reserve Bank of Australia is the independent voice at the centre of
monetary policy.
We will put Infrastructure Australia at the centre of capital investment, this will bring
greater rigour, transparency and authority to give investors greater confidence.
commercial viability
I want the experts at Infrastructure Australia to play a more active role in getting
projects properly financed.
And Prime Minister, in Government, I will do what you have proved incapable of.
We will consult with the Opposition of the day on every appointment to the
Infrastructure Australia Board, to put the national interest first.
Prime Minister, Australians are sick of the petty partisanship around appointments
we can do better and we will.
Infrastructure must be at the centre of any plan for Australias future it is too
important to be held hostage to short-term politicking or squabbling.
Good infrastructure makes our cities more liveable, our regions more accessible and
our economy more productive.
Its essential to the jobs and economy of the future, to where we will live and the life
our families will enjoy.
And making our cities more productive, more sustainable and more liveable is a key
responsibility of the government.
Prime Minister, when it comes to Small Business - I will offer you another thing you
never extended to your opponents - co-operation.
There are measures in this Budget Labor will support, in the national interest.
national security
When Labor proposed a tax cut for small business you opposed it.
When Labor implemented an instant asset write off you abolished it.
I invite you to work with me on a fair and fiscally responsible plan to reduce the tax
rate for Australian small business from 30 to 25 per cent.
I understand this will not be easy and may take longer than the life of one
Parliament.
Thats why it must be bipartisan and has to be fair.
Thats why it must be part of a more comprehensive approach to address the key
pressures in our taxation system not only small business, but, as I mentioned
before, bracket creep and tax rates for ordinary working Australians.
All of these things, and more, need to be addressed together in a fair and fiscally
responsible way.
This Parliament, you and me, working together to create more jobs, working together
to build a stronger economy and a better country.
And you are welcome to work with Labor on our clear, fair plans to improve the
Budget bottom line by more than $21 billion dollars in the decade ahead.
Making foreign multinationals pay their fair share of tax: a concrete, costed measure,
raising over $7 billion dollars.
Labor created superannuation for the same reason we champion a fair pension: we
believe dignity and security in retirement is the birthright of all Australians.
And we will take responsibility for making sure that superannuation is sustainable
and fair, a national retirement savings system for the many, not a tax haven for the
few.
Prime Minister, your stubborn defence of these unfair loopholes will only cause
millions of other Australians to pay even more tax and our deficit to rise.
Madam Speaker
Labor will back small business to support jobs today and we have a plan for jobs
tomorrow.
We have a plan to build a new engine for prosperity and turbocharge it with
science, skills, infrastructure and education.
Like so many of my Labor team, Ive spent my adult life standing up for fairness in
the workplace, in the community and in this Parliament.
In twenty years of representing working people, Ive been there in good times and
hard times.
When economic change starts to bite, Australians dont reach for a hand out and
they dont want charity.
Above all, Australians want to know where the new jobs are coming from, what will
their kids will do for a living, what will the jobs of the next generation will be.
Nothing matters more to Labor than securing the jobs of the future.
Jobs that help Australians aim high, raise families and lift their standard of living.
Three out of every four of the fastest growing occupations in Australia will require
skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Not just researchers and programmers but technicians, electricians, plumbers and
machine mechanics.
Yet right now, in our schools, TAFES and universities, there not enough people are
acquiring these skills.
Australia must get smarter or we will get poorer.
I believe Australia can be the science, start-up and technology capital of our region:
attracting the best minds, supporting great institutions and encouraging home our
great expats.
We should aspire, together: universities, industry, the people and the Parliament to
devote 3 per cent of our GDP to research and development by the end of the next
decade.
And more Australian businesses sharing in the benefits of that technology: in our
warehouses, in our factories, in our farms and design firms.
Our future prosperity depends on harnessing Australian ideas and defining a new
global market for world-leading products.
I want ideas born here, to grow up here and create jobs here.
25 years ago, if you were looking for work you purchased a newspaper.
A $2.5 million investment in 1998, helped grow what is now a $5 billion company,
employing over 500 Australians.
Labor will create a new, $500 million, Smart Investment Fund, to back-in great
Australian ideas like this.
Our Smart Investment Fund, will partner with venture capitalists and fund managers
to invest in early stage and high potential companies.
Our model has a definite, proven record of success both here and abroad.
Every global company begins as a local one, every big business starts out small.
And Labor will work with the banks and finance industry to establish a partial
guarantee scheme, StartUp Finance, to help more Australians convert their great
ideas into good businesses.
We will enable entrepreneurs to access the capital they need to start and grow their
enterprises.
So many of our competitors for the jobs of the future already have a scheme of this
kind in place: the UK, the US, France and Germany and Hong Kong is a leader in
our region.
We understand, in the new economy, its these businesses that will drive growth and
create jobs and its our responsibility to support our next generation of designers,
refiners, manufacturers and creators.
Madam Speaker
Resource booms come and as we discover, they go - but our future depends on
investing in our best natural resource: the creativity and skills of the Australian
people.
Digital technologies, computer science and coding the language of computers and
technology - should be taught in every primary and ever secondary school in
Australia.
We will work with states, territories and the national curriculum authority to make this
happen.
Coding is the literacy of the 21st Century.
And under Labor, every young Australian will have the chance to read, write and
work with the global language of the digital age.
All of us who have had our children teach us how to download an app, know how
quickly children adapt to new technology.
But I dont just want Australian kids playing with technology, I want them to have the
chance to understand it, to create it, and work with it.
We cant do this without great teachers not now and not and in the future.
We all remember our great teachers, I was raised by one of the best.
My mother lived the value of education: as a young teacher, a mature age student
and as a university lecturer she showed me the doors education can open for
Australians from every walk of life.
Yet today, two out of every five science and maths teachers for years 7 to 10, dont
have a degree in these subjects.
20,000 teachers in our science, maths and IT classes didnt study these subjects at
university.
We are asking too much of these teachers, and not doing enough to support them
or pay them properly.
Labor will:
we will train 25,000 new teachers who are science and technology graduates
we will write off the HECS debt of 100,000 science technology, engineering
and maths students.
and will encourage more women to study, teach and work in these fields.
We need to offer the most powerful incentive to Australians thinking about studying
science and technology: a good job.
A career in science does not only mean a lifetime in a lab coat, it means opening
doors in every facet and field of our national commercial life.
Madam Speaker
Innovation offers opportunities everywhere: smarter farming and safer food, more
liveable cities and better transport.
New ways of learning from each other, working and communicating with each other
and caring for each other.
It is the key to the jobs of the future, the jobs that a Labor Government will deliver.
Madam Speaker
The Government have nicknamed this the have a go Budget.
If Labor had not stood strong, if the Government had had its wilful way, if Tony
Abbott had controlled the Senate last years malignant Budget would have passed
with all its social vandalism.
And if he gets another chance, by having this one confirmed, he will, by ricochet,
inflict last years unfairnesses this year.
We see the future as one defined by science, technology, education and innovation.
We see a future in Australia with good jobs and thriving businesses, productive
infrastructure and liveable cities.
This is our vision for what we can achieve together, as a people and as a nation.