Ms GILLARD (4:02 PM) —The speaker before me, the honourable member for North Sydney, used the words `challenges' and `credibility'. I will deal with the question of credibility later, but, on the question of challenges, I suggest that the challenge which is facing members of this House as we leave for the Christmas break and look towards the New Year period is the challenge facing members opposite—to undertake a review of the way in which the government has treated Australians in 1998 and to examine what 1999 will bring.

The record of the Howard government over the last 12 months can be summed up in one word, and one word alone—unfairness. It is not fair that more than 750,000 Australians are unemployed and that, courtesy of this government's attitude to industrial relations, millions more live their lives in fear of unemployment. It is not fair that this government's answer to that sense of job insecurity is a law making it easier for workers to be sacked. It is not fair that older Australians are slugged by the government's up-front and daily fees for nursing home care.

It is not fair that our schools, TAFEs and universities have borne the brunt of this government's budgetary cutbacks, with $130 million hacked from government schools and nearly $1 billion hacked from our universities. It is not fair that youth unemployment is a staggering 26.9 per cent. Indeed, at the end of 1998, we can, unhappily, say that we are seeing the birth of the Howard generation—out of higher education, out of work, and out of hope.

This record of unfairness, of denying security and opportunity to Australians, is one of which the government should be ashamed. Its sense of shame should not stop there. It seems to ill behove members opposite to use the word `credibility' because, in 1998, this government yet again has shown the Australian people that its word is worth nothing, and that it holds the Australian people in too much contempt to feel any need for honesty.

This is the government and the Prime Minister who promised to raise standards in Australian politics, and then engaged in the unheard-of abuse of spending $19.4 million of taxpayers' money promoting a party political tax plan just weeks before the election. This is the government and the Prime Minister who pledged `never, ever' about the GST, and he now apparently wants to make it the crowning achievement of his prime ministership. To the Prime Minister and members opposite—particular the 39 members who hold marginal seats—let me say that by the time the GST is being considered by the Senate after Easter next year, you will no longer be viewing it as a crowning achievement; you will be viewing it as a crown of thorns.

Australians already know that this tax is an unfair one and that the government tax plan is designed to put money into the pockets of those who already have the most money and to put the hand of Peter Costello—the Treasurer—into the pockets of ordinary Australians every time they buy food or clothes. In the new year, it will become increasingly clear that not only is the GST an unfair tax but it is bad for Australia as a nation. The interesting feature of question time today was that, despite repeated questioning from this side, the Treasurer—himself an old Monash boy—refused to deal in any way with the report entitled, The government's tax plan: analysis based on the Monash model, which was published by the Centre for Policy Studies at Monash University and released today.

It is no wonder the Treasurer did not want to deal with this report because he could not answer the findings within it and, no doubt, could not attack its credibility given that it comes from the same institution that gave him a law degree. Let me quote some of the key findings in this report. When dealing with this report, we need to note that much of the modelling was done on the basis that it accepts the government's assumptions about the flow-on effects to business costs and consumer prices from the GST—which I am reminded is a bit heroic given the clear flaws in that modelling. Accepting that there will be a 3.2 per cent reduction in business costs and accepting that there will be a 1.9 per cent increase in consumer prices, the conclusions this report comes to are as follows:

The Treasury and the Government are inclined to portray the 3.2 per cent reduction in business costs as a major advantage to business arising from the proposed tax changes. To us, this advantage seems illusionary.

. . . . . . . . .

At some points in the Treasury Paper it is argued that cost reductions will give Australian producers a competitive advantage in international markets. This also seems illusionary.

They then go on to deal with a further analysis of the government's tax plan, and in the end come to the conclusion that it is bad news for Australia because in the long run it will have no positive effect on employment, GDP will shrink and there will be a negative effect on welfare. Stand back and think to yourself: what a great tax plan this is—no new jobs, a smaller and weaker economy and a negative effect on welfare. A great tax plan—a great move for this government as we move into 1999 and beyond.

As we move into the summer holiday season when many Australians will be taking a holiday with their children and families, it is important to note that this report concludes that a number of industries will specifically lose from the government's tax plans. The one clear loser will be the tourism industry, with hotels, air transport and entertainment particularly knocked around by the government's tax package. One has to wonder what the Howard government has against the tourism industry, given the selection of the minister to represent the tourism industry in this place and this tax plan.

Having looked at the question of tax, we really could not leave a review of the year that has been and the year to come without also looking at the question of health—one of the major debates we have had in this House in the past few weeks. To look at the question of health and what has happened to ordinary Australians over the past 12 months, I obtained from my office one of the many clips that I have from the Melbourne Age about the fate of patients in public hospitals in Victoria under this government's health scheme and, of course, under the Kennett government's health system. One could have got a clipping very much like this one from the pages of the Age on almost any day of 1998, but this clipping is from 10 July. It is headed, `It is hard to be patient when you are 14, in pain and you are told you cannot get an operation to end the hurt for 18 months.' It then goes on to give us the case of Nicole Nye. It says:

Nicole Nye has been in almost constant pain since she was 10. It is a lot for a child to bear. Her mother, Glenda, does not know how to explain to her daughter, now 14, why she must wait for an operation to stop the pain in her right foot, why she still hobbles because the pain makes it impossible to walk normally, why she has not been able to play basketball for four years.

The explanation is then given by Nicole's surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Of course, he could not be named—this is Jeff Kennett's Victoria. The article continues:

Nicole's surgeon says she would be fortunate to get an operation within the next 18 months . . . the hospital was struggling to cope with patients in the urgent category, who must be operated on within 30 days to avoid costly penalties. Category two patients are also required to be operated on within a set period, 90 days, but cuts to facilities and the need to clear category one patients first means that he—

Nicole's surgeon—

. . . has only been able to perform one operation for a patient in the same category as Nicole this year.

The surgeon said:

`It just means people are waiting a long time in pain.'

From the same hospital there was a leaked memo from the vascular surgery unit head, Mr Peter Field, who said that patients were waiting so long for surgery that they were losing limbs and suffering aneurisms and heart attacks.

That is a report on the state of public hospitals in Victoria. This is John Howard's Australia, Jeff Kennett's Victoria. As I said, you could get a report like that from the newspaper almost any day of the week. And we are dealing with a government that intends to spend $1.5 billion on health but not one dollar of it will go to fix the circumstances of the thousands and thousands of patients like Nicole who languish in pain on hospital waiting lists.

In 1998 this government has failed Australia on jobs, education, aged care and youth jobs. As we move into 1999 we will see them failing once again the tests of competence and fairness as they move towards the implementation of their GST and a further attack on public hospitals through their health legislation. This is a government that does not deserve Australia's support. It did not get it for the GST in 1998 and it will find that these things will come home to roost in 1999.