Mrs STONE(12.40 p.m.) —Contrary to what has been stated by the previous speaker, the member for Hotham (Mr Crean), this is a budget for regional Australians. I should know; I represent the regional seat of Murray. I can assure the honourable member for Hotham that my regional constituents are very pleased with the way this government has not simply spoken platitudes but has directly addressed the problems. Rural people like my constituents have been working very hard with incredibly low returns and seeing their product on international markets penalised because of the industrial relations environment in this country. We are forever competing head on with countries which can produce their meat products onto markets at a fraction of the cost that we can, even though when the bullock carcass leaves the farmer it is many dollars below what their counterparts produce elsewhere in the world. So this budget is for regional Australians.

The people in my electorate and my colleagues who also represent regional Australia, such as the honourable member for Bendigo (Mr Reid), are overwhelmingly supportive of this budget. I want to add that we are not a divisive coalition. We believe in all Australians proceeding forward together. So it is no wonder that, when they had a good hard look at the budget, all of Australia has been congratulatory and relieved. This is the budget they have been hoping for over the last decade. This is the budget which will build Australia up to take its place among the world's strongest nations, beholden to no-one, with its debt pared back, with domestic savings providing the funds needed to build our industry and keep it in the hands of hardworking Australians for generations to come—my children and the children of all of the others that we represent.

This budget does not make extravagant claims about reducing unemployment. The previous speaker, the member for Hotham, seemed to have a problem with that, but we are not going to mention figures because it is more complicated and more complex than that. It is much more important for us to look at a multifaceted strategy than to simply pluck a figure out of the air and then produce mickey mouse training programs so that we can show by a sleight of hand that the numbers of unemployed have miraculously been reduced. What we are going to do is create real work, not for the sake of that real work in itself but so we have an environment where business can thrive and create the jobs which give dignity and fulfilment in the lives of individuals. We will create the wealth of the nation by working hard together.

This budget focuses on the creation of this new economic environment, where families can be more secure, where education is more accessible, where research and development will be more productive and where business can thrive. Free of unfair dismissal laws that make employing a newcomer high risk and in a flexible work environment, owners and employees will be able to work together in a workplace that is cooperative, respectful and anchored in mutual interest. No more should we look with envy at countries like Japan, where the bosses and the workers regard themselves as on the same side. We can create that environment in this country.

The $150 million per annum reduction in capital gains tax for small business is a long awaited relief and should help organisations and businesses to invest so they can compete.

In a recent survey of dry-land farmers in my electorate, over 80 per cent were using tractors and equipment over 20 years old. Too much of our other primary industry has to upgrade equipment and invest in training and product development. But they needed some hope, some sense of a future where they could compete as a result of their hard work and not be hamstrung by red tape and IR problems. This budget helps them.

The Supermarket to Asia strategy announced only an hour or so ago by our own Prime Minister (Mr Howard) is a key plank in the budget which will help regional Australia. Our Prime Minister recognises that the potential of food and fibre production in this country means that next to no-one else in the world is able to feed the growing populations who have growing income and who are becoming more health conscious. We are close to the Asian markets. We can serve them. We are a nation that can produce clean green food. We have skilled farmer operators and skilled manufacturers. But we have to have the infrastructure, the research and development and, most of all, hope. This budget is all about hope.

While the previous Prime Minister, Paul Keating, liked to remind us of the nearness of the burgeoning Asian markets, over the last 10 years, despite all of those statements to that effect, we actually saw the growth of Australia's market share in those food markets fall well behind our competitors, particularly our neighbours, New Zealand. We know that, even as we speak, we are battling to keep market share for our beef.

We will keep the export market development grants to assist businesses making their first ventures into exporting. And we recognise that tourism is a valuable and growing business in the economy and it should also be eligible for such assistance.

This budget recognises the essential cooperative industry and university post-graduate research that must go on. The restoration of CSIRO funding comes not a moment too soon. How can we talk about wanting to be a clever nation when in the last decade or so the CSIRO has been battling to survive. Our nation's research capacity was slipping away under the last government.

Agribusiness cannot become more competitive without adequate infrastructure and in particular it is dependent upon roads. The previous government—of which the member for Hotham (Mr Crean) was an important member—saw no need for black spot road safety funding to help fix up parts of the road system which were a major danger to life.

This budget recognises that rural roads in particular have to be adequate to sustain both regional development and to keep members of our community safe as they travel. The $149 million for road safety black spot funding will make an enormous difference, and half of this is to be allocated to rural roads. I remind the House that Labor took this funding away. So how can the member for Hotham suggest that we are not totally focused on regional development?

This year in Victoria alone we have seen death from road accidents exceed last year's figures. In an electorate like Murray, where hundreds of huge milk tankers ply narrow country roads twice a day, criss-crossing major arteries, we must have good quality road surfaces and safe intersections.

Only several days ago we saw three killed and seven injured in a single horrific road smash on the Goulburn Valley Highway. The duplication of this national highway is urgently required, and we look forward to federal funds from this budget to start this work.

We had a lot of promises under the previous government but, unfortunately, very little action. This budget recognises the infrastructure needs of the entire nation, but also cuts to the core of the problems which have kept our current account deficient at levels which sapped the savings of the nation—and certainly ate away at its heart. This budget is fair and just, while it takes the hard decisions.

It is also a compassionate budget. In the true liberal tradition it provides a safety net for those who cannot survive unaided, because the education system has failed them, because they are too old and without savings, or too sick without savings, or disabled.

After years of confused regulation and rigid bureaucracy, our care of the aged in hostels and nursing homes was in no way keeping pace with an ageing population, a population with the lives of the most frail extending well beyond the lifespans of previous generations. This budget provides for a six per cent increase in funding for the home and community care program. This will help rural people in particular live out their days in their small local communities—one of their priorities as they end their days.

Flexibility will be introduced in the system so the distinction between an aged person's hostel and nursing home blurs—what a sensible idea, long looked for. Now the needs of the elderly person will be critically assessed and the funding will follow the individual. There will be over $130 million per year additional funds to help in the refurbishment and development of nursing home facilities. In my electorate of Murray where many small hostels need to upgrade their facilities there is a special fund that they may tap into for the facilities needed to provide nursing home accommodation.

This budget also recognises that most people prefer to live out their days at home. The strain placed upon carers who dedicate so much of their lives to providing for others' needs is to be taken on board and is recognised in this budget. These are the carers of the frail elderly, the chronically sick as well as those who care for the disabled. These carers are a very important part of our community and we could not do without them.

In Murray there are men and women in their seventies who dedicate their lives to the care of their adult disabled sons and daughters. They live in fear of the future when they may not be able to continue that full-time care that they so willingly give. This government is compassionate and understanding. It has provided an extra $36.7 million above 1995-96 expenditure over the next four years for a national carers action plan which will in particular extend and improve respite care in emergencies; increase the number of days a carer can temporarily cease caring in a year without affecting their qualification for the carer payment so it will be more flexible; and double the time that carers can spend in employment, voluntary work and educational training from 10 to 20 hours per week. In other words, we recognise that the carer needs also to be able to maintain their links in the community and to have some time away to re-educate for a time when they may want to re-enter the work force themselves.

Only those who have worked with the disabled truly understand how significant these changes are. In Murray, there has been up to a two-year wait to get school holiday respite care so that the family of a disabled person can take a break with their other sons and daughters. That might not seem so much, but to a family it is essential. Marriage breakdown is an all too frequent outcome when one of the parents, usually the mother, has to devote so much of her time and emotional energy to a severely disabled child. Yet there is a two-year wait for respite care for the family of a severely disabled child.

It has been the case in the past that a single night's emergency respite care for a profoundly intellectually disabled child has been reflected immediately in a reduced carer's payment to the parent. We are going to be more humane, compassionate and flexible.

A week ago, I briefed the Numurkah Association for the Intellectually Disabled on the new carers initiatives in the budget. This group of parents and other concerned community members have built up excellent education, training and residential services for the disabled over a period of 30 years. They know just how hard it is to provide the opportunities and support for the disabled in their care—in particular, to find them employment.

They were very welcoming of this budget, especially the fact that it provides 1,000 new employment places for people with a disability, as well as better access to advocacy services. Open, sheltered and supported employment organisations will be eligible to apply for growth funding.

Our government, a caring government, recognises that disabled people have a range of employment needs and interests and should not be straight-jacketed into some department's preferred employment or supervisory model. We are not about political correctness; we are about maximum opportunities for people who have a range of capacities and interests. This budget, through its employment place creation, will see that flexibility and diversity of employment is there for the disabled.

Despite that very good news, the Australian Democrats have deliberately tried to alarm the public by claiming in a media release that some 34,000 people should expect to see their disability support pensions cancelled. This is a cruel tactic aimed at causing maximum distress to the most vulnerable in our community. Yes, those who were transferred from an invalid to a disability support pension in 1991, five years ago, will be reviewed—for the first time—to see if their condition has changed. Those over 55 should not be reviewed.

If it is found that the individual is able to return to work—in other words, their health is better—they will not be left high and dry, as the Democrats have suggested. They will not be left without any means of support. They will be transferred, if they do not have any work, to an unemployment benefit; or, if they need training or other relevant support, such as the age pension, that is what will occur. To talk about 34,000 people out on the streets tomorrow is cruel and not right.

A Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, once promised that under his policies no Australian child would live in poverty. He even had a target year—1990. Our budget does not deal in slogans. Instead, we recognise the causes of child poverty. We are committed to ensuring that families have access to affordable child care; have assistance to buy private health insurance; and, most importantly, will benefit from the family tax initiative.

We recognise that child poverty is a multi-faceted problem and needs to be tackled from many dimensions. We are tackling the potential or real inequality at its heart. We recognise that up to 20 per cent of children leave school functionally illiterate. Their futures are blighted as they are left behind in an information driven society. There are now and will be in the future fewer jobs for the unskilled and the non-literate. It is a cruelty to have a school system that has 20 per cent of children leaving functionally illiterate.

It is this government's promise that every child leaving primary school will be able to read, write, spell and communicate at an appropriate level. To achieve this, funding for literacy and numeracy programs in schools will increase by 50 per cent to $45 million over the next three years.

We also recognise that many students fail to reach their potential because they simply are not aware of all the career options. This budget will tackle vocational education. It will counter disadvantage through an $80 million package for vocational education in schools, $40 million for workplace training opportunities for students, $38 million for work placement coordinators, and $23 million to implement vocational education in schools.

Instead of the mickey mouse training packages offered under the previous government that did little for the long-term unemployed, this budget has provided for school based apprenticeships and traineeships to allow students to combine paid work with their secondary school certificate. Already, in our electorate, the Northern Industry Education Board has tested this model and established food technology courses which combine the final years of secondary school with industry mentoring, work experience and TAFE training. We see this type of vocation focused education and training as the hope for the future in our region where we have a shortage of skilled workers for the food manufacturing and engineering sectors.

Of course, many students will want to go on to university. This budget recognises the significance of that sector and, through the introduction of HECS exemption scholarships, it will help. A more streamlined Austudy program, and the potential for Australian and international students to purchase some 25 per cent of places—all of those things bring the university closer and make it more accessible to all people.

By helping to establish these linkages between schools, universities and the workplace, we will be giving more hope and a better future to our children. We will be helping to create a clever country based on the sustainable growth of business and industry.

This is a budget that Australia has welcomed. People know it is tough but we have to start paying our way as a nation. The debt burden we were building year after year was a legacy that our children would have inherit ed. This is a budget that looks to a better future and I support it wholeheartedly.