Mr ANTHONY (Minister for Children and Youth Affairs) (12:58 PM) —It gives me great pleasure to talk on this Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2004-2005 and, in particular, about the federal budget and the huge win for Australian families. I also want to take this opportunity to talk about my electorate of Richmond and the benefits the budget will have there. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, I know you will be particularly interested, as a fine representative of Page, having spent all of you life on the North Coast. There is no doubt that this is a family friendly budget that will have enormous benefit to all Australian families. As the first ever Minister for Children and Youth Affairs I unashamedly have pushed for a greater family focus in this budget, which delivers real assistance where it counts. The budget will help local families to raise their children and manage the balancing act of work and home life. Over 13,000 families in Richmond will receive a $600 one-off payment for each child before July 2004. On top of this, to families receiving family tax benefit A we will be delivering an ongoing increase in the maximum base rates worth $600 for each child for 2004-05 and every year thereafter. In real terms, these changes mean that an eligible North Coast family with two children will be $2,400 a year better off in their hip pocket in 2004-05.

To assist families with the cost of newborns, the federal budget will deliver a universal maternity payment of $3,000, rising to $5,000 in 2004. The real area of interest is child care, where there has been a very large boost in assistance. From 5 July 2004, almost 6,000 families in the Richmond electorate will receive an increase in their child-care benefit payment. Local families with one child in full-time care will receive an extra $3.50 per week and those with two children will receive $7.50 per week. Richmond families will have their share of the 40,000 outside school hours care places and the 4,000 family day care places that we have allocated in the budget.

There are tremendous advantages for Richmond families, but also for the carers, who I think have not been spoken about enough. One of the key components of the budget is the $255 million that will assist those on carer payment or carer allowance. The $1,000 bonus for recipients of carers payment will go to over 800 Richmond residents, and the $600 payment for the carer allowance will assist 2,500 recipients. I have to say that these people do a remarkable job looking after their loved ones. It might be a wife or husband looking after their loved one or a disabled child, or it could even be a child or a parent looking after a disabled grandparent.

The expansion of the eligibility criteria for the carer allowance is worth $470 million over four years. We have increased access to respite care, which is particularly important for older carers. Again, when it comes to aged care, on the North Coast of New South Wales we certainly see a high elderly population. So the increases in the budget for aged care—in particular, the $3,500 payment for each resident—are very welcome. When Julie Bishop comes to the Richmond electorate next week she will be opening Bangalor Retreat, a world-class age-in-placement retirement facility. She will also have the opportunity of visiting a community based hostel at Womin Bay, along with a lot of the respite carers in the Tweed and Alstonville. They will benefit substantially from the budget. They will have their fair share of the 28,000 places that will be allocated over the next three years.

Another aged group are the veterans. We have over 7,000 residents in Richmond who are receiving some sort of support payment from the Department of Veterans' Affairs and they will be big beneficiaries, particularly from the government's commitment to defence and to recognising those people who have served their country. There will be $481 million for veterans over the next four years in this budget. This includes $158 million over four years for: the exemption of veterans disability pension—aided by Centrelink—from the means test that is applied to income support payments; the extension of rent assistance of up to $95 per fortnight for war widows and widowers; the ex gratia payment of $25,000 for surviving prisoners of war who were held in captivity in the Korean War; an increase in the maximum funeral benefit; and, very importantly, more money for supporting war graves and other commemorative activities. The budget is very positive when it comes to the aged population, veterans and, most importantly, families. The tax cuts will mean that 80 per cent of taxpayers will pay no more than 30 per cent tax in their tax bracket.

Health is particularly important to the high population of elderly people, families and young people in Richmond. The new MedicarePlus package is about encouraging more doctors and nurses to come to the North Coast and trying to help with out-of-pocket expenses. That is why the Medicare safety net is so important. It is most regrettable that the Labor Party has opposed this safety net which will benefit thousands of Richmond constituents. When they reach the $300 mark in medical expenses we will pick up 80 per cent beyond that. Those who are not receiving the family tax benefit will also benefit once they have paid over $700.

What I like about the safety net is that it covers not just GP and specialist consultations but also blood tests, X-rays, radiotherapy and pap smears. I will be ensuring that we can get our fair share of those extra 1,500 doctors in MedicarePlus. The real kicker is that bulk-billing rates no doubt will start to move back up on the North Coast with that additional $7.50 payment to doctors for bulk-billing. This is a very positive initiative and I cannot understand why the ALP blocked these measures.

Unemployment is complex and a serious issue. Encouragingly, we have seen a falling unemployment rate on the North Coast. I have been working hard, along with the government, to provide opportunities for both casual and long-term permanent employment. It is great to say that construction is in progress of the new Centrelink call centre. That will be completed by the middle of this year or a bit beyond that. We are looking at an additional 100 jobs on top of the 200 already in place through a call centre placed there a few years ago. Financial assistance through Sustainable Regions is going to Boral in Murwillumbah, again yielding 100 new jobs. Through the Sustainable Regions program we have been able to assist local businesses such as Sunnybrand chicken hatchery, a big project in the electorate of Page. I had the pleasure of visiting their operation in Byron Bay, where they do a lot of the killing of the chickens. Again, employment will be rising at Sunnybrand Byron Bay by 15 per cent to over 300 staff. It is a very good example of where the Commonwealth can directly help private enterprise create more jobs and more opportunity.

We have also seen new apprenticeships at an all-time high. The Green Corps program is yielding fantastic results for young people right across the electorate. The good thing is that the unemployment rate is continuing to fall. The official unemployment rate for the North Coast is at a record low of 7.7 per cent, down from 10.7 per cent in March 1996 and very significantly down from the halcyon days of Hawke and Keating in 1992, when we had unemployment rates around 17 per cent. While the official unemployment figure for youth sits at 14.9 per cent, this also is trending down from 23.4 per cent when we came to office in 1996. I must admit I am sick and tired of seeing Labor Party candidates in particular skewing unemployment figures trying to paint the population of the North Coast and Richmond as second-class citizens. I am sick and tired of Labor being so negative about the Richmond electorate when we have so much that is positive to offer. Words are cheap; they are certainly cheap from the Labor Party. But these are complex problems and through sustained economic growth, through good management, through local programs, we are actually starting to alleviate some of the real hardship and are providing job opportunities for the young and the not so young who lose their jobs later in life.

On the environment, I must say that I am very passionate that we live in such a beautiful area of the country. Environmentally we have access to World Heritage listed national parks, marine parks and nature reserves. There is no other area that has such concentration and diversity of flora and fauna, right up to the north-eastern corner. That is why it is even more important to protect and maintain our pristine coastal environment and manage the conflicting interests that we see in people moving to the area and development.

Earlier this year it was great that we had Dr David Kemp come up to the Far North Coast and announce a $2.5 million investment in the region. Of that, $400,000 went into the Murwillumbah-Tweed region in particular, again identifying the border ranges for their biodiversity—there is a real hotspot there—and providing a strategy of managing those values. Funding also went into the Northern Rivers catchment area, where it is very important to address the acid sulfate problems which we see extensively now in our coastal rivers. I have to say, though, hats off to those in the rural sector, particularly those cane growers who have taken control of their own destiny and are doing a terrific job in managing those acid sulfate soils. This has direct consequences for the broader catchment area. It is good to see stream bank rehabilitation as well, where on the beautiful Tweed River $60,000 was allocated, along with emphasis being placed on other estuaries like the Brunswick River, going down into your area, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, the Richmond River and beyond.

I congratulate all those hardworking community groups who are involved in that area. Particularly I would like to name a few who have been beneficiaries of grants in the past. We have Carool Community Network, Tweed Brunswick Care Coordinating Committee, Brunswick Catchment Forest Landcare Group, Tyagarah Landcare Group, High Ridges and Brushbox Valley Catchment Area, Duck Creek Landcare Group, Rainforest Way Landcare Group and the Subtropical Farm Forestry Association. They have all been beneficiaries of some of this funding and do a great job, along with Envirofund, which works very hard.

I want to make particular mention of the Landcare groups. I think Landcare, and the role that the coalition government has taken in supporting Landcare, has been a great way of bridging the divide between traditional residents of the area and a lot of the new residents. Landcare concentrates on local projects in its communities and organises, through conservation volunteers, groups in areas such as Huonbrook and Wilsons Creek. Hats off to Sue Riley, and John and Kyrsia McLeod for what they are doing in that part of the Byron shire.

We also see this happening with Coastcare, including in areas down on Flat Rock near Ballina and near Lennox Head. Significant work is being done by the Angels Beach Dune Care and Reafforestation Group. I take my hat off to Shirley White and people such as Councillor Alan Rich, who has a real interest there. Whilst on that note, I would like to congratulate Ballina Shire Council, particularly the mayor who got re-elected, Phil Silver, and the other mayors in the area—Jan Barham in the Byron Shire and the re-elected Warren Polglase, who is doing a great job in the Tweed Shire.

One thing I want to spend some time on—something I am very concerned about—is that, whilst the Commonwealth government is putting more and more money into transport issues, the New South Wales Labor government has made the destructive and vandalistic decision to close the Casino to Murwillumbah line. This is an absolute disgrace. There has been vigorous community support by local councils and private citizens—and, I might even say, by some members of the Labor Party, although not by their elected officials—in opposing this vandalistic decision to close down a railway line which has served us well for over a hundred years. At a time when we are expanding railways—it took us 100 years to connect the line from Alice Springs to Darwin—and we are putting the line back in from Brisbane to the Tweed border that was ripped out over 50 years ago, we have this ridiculous decision to shut down the branch line when, quite frankly, we should be encouraging people to get off the road and onto rail. We should get freight off the road and onto rail, particularly in New South Wales, where the freight task will triple over the next 20 years.

I am extremely disappointed that we have not seen any commitment, or even pressure on the state government, from the federal ALP to overturn this arrogant and contemptuous decision, which just further emphasises that the New South Wales state government is a Sydney-centric government. I suppose if we saw a federal Labor government in power then we would also see a centralisation of views to either the outer western suburbs of Sydney or other metropolitan areas, at the expense of rural and regional Australia. There is no doubt that they have failed to preserve the line that we have or to provide a vision of where we could be in the future.

Some lateral decisions could be made here. Putting rail motors on the North Coast line could help solve some of our public transport issues, particularly for people in Byron shire and people travelling to Southern Cross University. The huge traffic congestion that we see in Byron Bay in particular could be overcome tomorrow by running light trains between our villages. This would also accommodate for a track which has deteriorated over the last few years. But what we see is a decision by the state ALP government to shut down the railway line. At the same time, though, they are quite happy to spend $1.5 billion on airconditioning trains on the Sydney rail network, at the expense of regional communities. Replacing country services with buses is unacceptable. Elderly and disabled people cannot get on them and, quite frankly, in the last two weeks we have seen that the patronage levels have been appalling, with only one to two people.

This contrasts very significantly—and I congratulate John Anderson—with the amount of money in the budget that we are putting into transport—into road and, in particular, into rail. We will announce next week that, through the Australian Rail Track Corporation, there are hundreds of millions of dollars that will go into rail, particularly into the main lines. Again, this is about encouraging freight to get off the road and onto rail. I cannot fathom, when we are putting this huge capital expenditure into the main lines, why the state government cannot keep the branch lines open. Passenger services are their responsibility. Be that as it may, the member for Page and I have argued for a feasibility study, which the government will be funding, to see what can be done on that track through light trains. Tenders are being sought from Tweed Shire Council, and I want to congratulate the mayors who have worked on that, including those from Tweed and Lismore. It is not often that I fight side by side with a Green mayor, but I have to say Jan Barham has been right on the money when it comes to supporting our railway line against an ALP state government that is hell bent on treating us like second-class citizens.

The other area is the sugar package. There has been a very large increase in funding through our sugar industry reform package to try to provide a sustainable industry through the cogeneration project, and we wish them well, along with the New South Wales Sugar Milling Cooperative, in getting that off the ground.

There is massive expenditure on roads, $11.4 billion, which will go into transport, particularly Roads to Recovery and the national Black Spots Roads Program. There is a direct commitment of over $3.1 billion to major transport networks. However, a priority is to ensure that Sexton Hill is upgraded—it is called the Banora Point deviation—which is a responsibility of the New South Wales government that they have failed to fulfil, notwithstanding the money that we have put in through our 10-year agreement. The Ballina bypass is another road where more effort needs to be made.

We hope that through our initiative next week we can at least get the ball rolling and push a recalcitrant New South Wales government into fulfilling their part of the bargain and starting to take local roads seriously. They cannot have it both ways; they cannot shut down our railway lines and not fix the roads. Until last week they refused even to support the Tugun bypass; they would not put one cent into it—and of course now they are practising brinkmanship and trying to blackmail the federal government over responsibility for the Pacific Highway, which they should bear. So we hope that they honour their commitment and start building vital infrastructure for the local families and the elderly that use those transport systems.

The budget provides $10.4 billion in Commonwealth funding for education in New South Wales over the next four years. It is a very large increase. There is $2 billion to assist students with special learning needs and $1.5 billion for upgrades to schools, and there is money for migrant school students to learn English and money for languages education. Through this package, the Commonwealth will spend $904 million on New South Wales government schools—90 per cent more than the federal Labor government spent in its last year in office. It is a bit rich when the New South Wales government do not do their bit. The very least they could do is increase school funding in line with the rate of inflation. Last year New South Wales increased their spending by only 0.8 per cent. They must deliver a greater commitment to this area.

But I want to say that the schools on the North Coast are doing a terrific job, whether they are public, non-government, Catholic or independent schools. Again, it is all about providing families with choice; that is particularly important. There are two new schools in my electorate. Bognagar Public School is a wonderful facility—hats off to the new principal, Wendy Graham, who has a challenging job in starting from scratch, and hats off to the young families and students who go there. I was delighted that we were able to contribute $2.7 million to the construction of that school. The other school is Banora Point High School, where the principal, Alan Deece, is doing a fantastic job. We provided $10 million to that school. We have also provided Kingscliff Public School with up to $100,000 as part of the Australian government's Boys Education Lighthouse Schools initiative, which is all about putting greater emphasis on boys' education.

Finally, I want to talk about the wonderful work that volunteers do. Without volunteers, so many of the elderly, so many of the young and so many environmental groups would not have that extra assistance. It is great that we have been able to assist them through small capital equipment grants: over $8,500 went to volunteer groups from the Alstonville Wollongbar plateau; $15,500 went to Tweed Heads and Tweed Coast groups; nine groups in Murwillumbah received substantial funding; and $22,000 went into the Byron Shire and Brunswick Heads area. Hats off to them. (Time expired)