Mr ABBOTT (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs)(12.56 p.m.) —These bills are important components of the budget measures which the government has brought before the House, a budget which has been designed to correct the structural problems in the Australian economy and at the same time to preserve and enhance the fairness of Australian society.

One of the very interesting features of this budget, a feature which should prevent members opposite from simply labelling this as a tory budget, is that we have been very careful to ensure that the burdens have been placed only on people who are able to bear them. That is why the Medicare levy has been increased for high income earners, that is why high income earners have had a surcharge added to their superannuation tax, and that is why child-care fee relief has been reduced for high income earners—because the hallmark of the first Howard budget has been fairness. That is why members opposite have had so much difficulty criticising the measures before us.

For quite some time, families with children have been Australia's new poor. A single income earner on $30,000 a year has roughly $445 a week on which to live. A family comprising a single income earner with a dependent spouse and two dependent children has but $495 a week on which to live after tax, family allowance, home child-care allowance and so on. Under the system of tax and payments which was established by the previous government, such a family had but $50 a week extra with which to feed, clothe and educate those three extra family members. That is why, as I said, families with children are Australia's new poor. That is why the government has introduced this important package of family benefits.

I do not say for a second that this is going to solve the problems of Australia's families. It can't, obviously. But it is an important step in the right direction. It is a $1 billion package of benefits for Australia's families, and two million Australian families will be better off as of 1 January next year. All families with children will benefit at least to the tune of $7.70 a fortnight, and families with more children will benefit much more significantly. For instance, a family with four children, of which one is under five, will benefit to the tune of $50 a fortnight. So these are very significant benefits which are being delivered to Australian families.

There are two elements to this package. The first element gives all families with dependent children an increase of $1,000 per child in their tax free threshold. The second element gives single income families with a child under five an additional $2,500 benefit in their tax free threshold. Fifty per cent of families have children; 27 per cent of families have either one breadwinner, no breadwinner or a single parent. In other words, 50 per cent of all families will benefit from these measures and 50 per cent of those families will benefit from the additional measures for one income families.

Members opposite have said that only 13 per cent of families will benefit. That is incorrect. According to the ABS figures, when examined properly, 27 per cent of all families will benefit. That is 50 per cent of all families with children. So this is not a narrow-cast measure. This is a broad-cast measure to the generality of Australian families.

I want to turn very briefly to some of the criticisms that have been made in the course of this debate by members opposite. They have discussed various issues, many of which have had only the slightest relevance to the bills before the House at the moment but, in the spirit of tolerance and cooperation with which the House now functions, given the general raising of parliamentary standards, we have not taken points of order of relevance on them.

Members opposite have talked about the HECS increases. We have increased HECS, but the important thing about increased HECS charges is that people do not have to begin paying them until they are in a position to do so. No-one without an income is forced to pay HECS. No-one with an income of under $21,000 will be forced to pay HECS. So the only people who will be forced to pay HECS will be the people who rightly should pay HECS; that is, the people who are in a position to pay it.

Members opposite talked about nursing home entry fees and daily rates in nursing homes. The simple truth is that we have extended to nursing homes a system which the previous government introduced for hostels. If it is wrong for nursing homes, it was wrong for hostels, and it is hypocritical of members opposite to wax outraged now about this measure when they acquiesced to the measure of the previous government not so terribly long ago.

On child care, we have removed operational subsidies from community based long day care centres. Why? Not because we wanted to be Uncle Scrooge, but because it was important to establish a level playing field in the child-care industry. We have now put all long day care centres on the same basis. We have not given the community based ones an unfair advantage vis-a-vis the private centres which now look after 70 per cent of children in that form of care.

We also have an important equity measure there. We have reduced the child-care cash rebate for high income earners from 30 per cent to 20 per cent. In his contribution to this debate, the member for Watson (Mr Leo McLeay) quoted the marvellous old Salvation Army aphorism, `We are here to help the needy not the greedy.' That is precisely what the government is attempting to do. It is passing strange for members opposite to attack our child-care measures when what we are trying to do is to better target child care so that it goes less abundantly to those who are most able to afford it out of their private pockets.

I concede that people moving from $70,000 to $80,000 face higher effective marginal tax rates because of these measures. That is unfortunate. But whenever there are targeted measures, this is an unfortunate consequence. If we are going to target measures—and, surely, we must target measures if we are to achieve the social equity that members opposite very rightly and properly believe is important—we are going to have this. It ill becomes members opposite to attack this unfortunate consequence of equity and at the same time to denounce lack of equity in these budget measures.

Fundamentally, members opposite have said that this family tax package takes with one hand while it gives with the other. I do not wish to be too partisan in this, but the unfortunate fact is that the previous government took with both hands. Prior to the 1990 election, it had 18 per cent home loan interest rates. In 1991, unemployment hit 11 per cent. During the life of the previous government, disposable income for the average household was $50 less in 1996 than it was in 1983.

The fact is that members opposite all too often in this debate have sounded as though they begrudge Australian families the benefit that they so richly and so rightly deserve. All too often in the course of this debate it has sounded as though the real problem for members opposite is that we are doing it, not them; that we are giving them this benefit and that they did not think to give them this benefit when they were in government.

There is not much that members opposite will be able to do for Australian families over the next few years because they will remain in opposition and this important family tax initiative is but the first instalment of the many benefits that the Howard government will give Australian families in the years to come.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.