Ms KING (5:35 PM) —In this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2004-2005 and cognate bills, I want to start by focusing on the general economic overview and move onto some of the social policy areas not contained in the budget, and then on to specific local issues for my electorate. In the second of his series of so-called headland speeches in the lead-up to the 1996 election, the then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, said:

current account deficit—

Today, under the stewardship of the Howard-Costello government, the current account deficit has risen to $11.997 billion. This is 15.8 per cent worse than the current account deficit of a year ago. Whose policy failure is it now? In the same headland speech, the then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, stated:

Today, under the stewardship of the current Prime Minister and the Treasurer, foreign debt is $373.778 billion. According to their preferred formula, foreign debt for every man, woman and child in Australia is now $18,668.

When I look at these figures I am reminded of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Emperor's New Clothes, where the emperor is sold a set of clothes by a scoundrel who tells him his new suit is invisible to fools. Because no-one wants to be thought a fool, the clothes are lavishly praised. The emperor travels the streets naked until a child exposes the truth: the emperor is wearing no clothes. I have listened with a sense of disbelief to those opposite praise lavishly the clothes of this Treasurer. Let me say what those on this side of the House know—the emperor has no clothes; the poor economic credentials of this government are exposed. They include record foreign debt, record current account deficit, record trade deficit, record household debt, record credit card debt, record pre-election spending spree, record pre-election spending spree on advertising to get re-elected, record low proportion of first homebuyers in the market and record tax take as the highest-taxing government in our history. The economic credentials of the government are yet another tale it likes to tell about itself.

Having already spoken on the tax and family assistance bills previously, I will keep my comments on both of these brief, but I want to reiterate the following points. In the government's record pre-election spending budget of $52 billion, taxpayers on less than $52,000 a year were the losers. They were the losers in terms of tax cuts, but they are also bearing the brunt of the government's services deficit. This is the group the Prime Minister was pretty quick to tell last year, `You should be grateful for the sandwich and milkshake tax cut'—a tax cut that has long since disappeared with the rising costs of seeing a GP and Telstra line rentals. These are Howard's forgotten people.

In my electorate of Ballarat 81,129 people reported in the 2001 census that they had incomes of less than $52,000. Only 6,769 reported that they had incomes higher than $52,000. That is 81,129 people who the government has determined have not worked hard enough to earn a tax cut. As a member who represents a regional seat, it would be remiss of me not to point out that the tax cuts are skewed against country people. People do not have as many options to earn high salaries in country areas. In fact, the Minister for Health and Ageing is on record as saying that this is a good thing and we ought to accept smaller salaries in regional areas. There are very few positions in my district that have salaries higher than $52,000.

Like other members of the House, I have had numerous complaints about the family tax benefit system. Under the current system one in three families each year has been slugged with debts. The latest family payments data shows that the government's family tax benefit is having a sharp financial impact on families whose income varies during the year, particularly families where a parent is returning to work after time out of the work force caring for a child. The government's refusal to correct the family payment system, which cannot pay families the right amount when they need it, limits parents' ability to balance work and family.

The government's work and family package was drawn up more than a year ago but not released, because it did not suit the government's election timetable. In that time families have been hit with 1.5 million family payment debts at a cost of $1.6 billion. They have been denied outside school hours places and other child-care places and they have had babies without the benefit of any baby care payment. The government has now increased family payments for some families without fixing the flaws in the system which for some will result in money being clawed back. To add insult to injury, the government is asking them to fund a $20 million campaign of television commercials so that it can tell families what a good job it is doing.

The government in the budget focused—I would have to say `failed to focus'—on a number of key social policy areas. I want to turn my attention to some of these. In particular, I want to turn to the area of women's policy. This was the first budget in 20 years where the government did not provide a women's budget statement, and it speaks volumes about the lack of commitment this government has to overall women's policy. I want to commend the adoption by the government of Labor's policy on what is in essence paid maternity leave for women in the paid and unpaid work force. But I want to put on the record how deeply offended I was at the Treasurer's comment that we should all go out and produce `one for the country'. It inspired a particularly blokey atmosphere in this place for the rest of the week, and for the first time in my time here women colleagues from both sides of the House were commenting at just how uncomfortable they felt during that week. It has been a long time in this country since the only context in which women have been the focus of policy attention is their reproductive capacity.

There has been a failure of this government to understand and address the complexity of women's lives. It was illustrated to me the week after the budget when I went to speak to the year 11 and 12 class of politics students at one of my local girls schools. These young women will probably at some time during their lives become mothers, but between them they also have hopes to go to university, to get a job that pays well, to achieve great things in sport, to have their families be proud of them, to travel, to write, to argue, to create, to contribute something to their community, to be well and to have fun.

The women in this place and those that came before us fought long and hard to get the vote, to stand for parliament, to achieve pay equity and to have our voices heard, and it is our voices that have demanded paid maternity leave, better child care, better education and better health services. It is our voices that have demanded that the balance between work and family be the centre of policy making. We know that the lives and aspirations of women and the girls who will follow us are much bigger, broader and more complex than this government can ever imagine. If you think women are going to be satisfied with what is on offer in this budget then you have got it wrong.

I want to mention a couple of areas where the government has failed women. Women are the biggest users of Medicare. In the crucial child-bearing and child-rearing years between 20 and 45, women use twice as many Medicare services as men. In the Ballarat region the shortage of doctors, coupled with the huge reduction of access to bulk-billing—we are at 42.3 per cent, according to the last figures we were able to access—has the potential to compromise the health and future health of women and their families. I do not think it is too much to ask that women have access to affordable and accessible health care.

It has been almost 30 years since the International Year of Women, and it is significant to celebrate the achievements of working women. Equal pay for equal work, affirmative action policies and antidiscrimination policies have all made it possible for women to engage in the work force. However, all the laws in the world cannot make up for lack of access to affordable long day care. The reality for many women that I talk to in my role as a federal member is that their lives are severely impacted upon by the lack of access to affordable child care and by work environments that do not support families. The government has failed to address these issues.

The budget failed abysmally in addressing another key social policy area, that of unemployment for young people aged between 15 and 19. Our estimates are that amongst this cohort of young people in the City of Ballarat the unemployment rate is 23.4 per cent. I am proud that Labor has put this lost generation back on the agenda with our youth guarantee, a youth guarantee that will see all 15- to 18-year-olds getting support to either be studying at school, TAFE or university or be in a job or apprenticeship. The government needs to recognise the value of Labor's proposal and, instead of trying to carp about where the name of the program came from or trying to argue on narrow definitional lines about who constitutes a young person and who constitutes a teenager, and somehow by doing that assume that it has no responsibility for a policy about them, it should work to actually fix the problem.

In terms of social policy and what was not contained within the budget for older people, I want to welcome the aged care funding. We have certainly been experiencing a crisis in aged care in my own electorate, with Hepburn Health Services operating with a $1 million deficit each year because of its aged care facilities and Djerriwarrh Health Services operating with a $250,000 deficit each year. You had to say that the crisis needed to be addressed. Look at what was in the budget for older people and look at what it was saying about older people. Three per cent of older people end up in nursing homes. We have to look after them, and we have to look after them well, but the budget did not talk about the rest of the older population.

What is happening for those people? What is happening for the over-65s who are socially isolated? You could be recognising the enormous contribution you can make through small amounts of money in community care; recognising the broader role that older people play within our community; recognising the mentoring role that they can play within our community; recognising that many older people, particularly those on pensions who do not own their own homes and are in public housing, are in terrible, desperate trouble; and ending some further age discrimination that we have within our current systems. All of those things are things that I hoped to see in the budget but which were not there.

In my remaining few minutes, I want to turn to some of the local issues within my electorate. I want to acknowledge the good things that were in the budget for my electorate. One thing was the extension of the national initiatives program for the ABC. This was initially announced in the lead-up to the previous election, and we managed to get a terrific radio station in Ballarat that the minister came to open. But until the budget there were no guarantees that this funding would continue from next year. Huge amounts of infrastructure have been poured in, there is local employment and there is obviously a loyal local listening audience, so it is terrific to see that that national initiatives program has been continued in the budget. However, I would also have liked to see the government try not to continue it and try to take—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 5.47 p.m. to 5.59 p.m.

Ms KING —I was saying in relation to the ABC funding and the national initiatives program that I would have liked to see them try to take it off us, to be quite honest! I would have had a pretty riotous community on my hands had they done so. I certainly welcome the government's extension of the national initiatives program and, therefore, the ABC radio station in Ballarat.

I also want to talk about the wine equalisation tax. As the chair of the Labor caucus wine industry task force—and I note the presence of the member for Burke who is a great member of that subcommittee—I can say that this is an issue we have been fighting for for quite some time. We have to remember that this is a tax of the government's own making. We welcome the fact that they have removed it from small to medium wineries. I understand that there is a slight problem in that the government have announced the policy without reference to the states and are now having to do a bit of a policy patch-up, trying to negotiate with them. We have not seen any legislation as yet, and I hope very much that the Winemakers Federation has not been taken for another election ride on this issue.

Small wineries in my electorate will certainly benefit greatly from this policy when it comes into effect. They have been struggling with the drought, they have been struggling with the production of their grapes and they have certainly been struggling under the burden of an incredibly unfair tax. I want to acknowledge particularly the work of Jane Lessock from Mount Beckworth Wines. Before I was elected—I think almost the day after becoming a candidate in the previous election campaign—she emailed me about this issue and made me aware of the impact it was having on small wineries in my district. She made me a passionate advocate for this as an area of policy that is vital for my district. So I certainly want to acknowledge Jane Lessock's role in teaching me about the wine equalisation tax and her tireless campaigning locally and with the regional winemakers federation.

I want to talk a little about what was not in the budget. This year we will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade. It is a very significant event in the history of not only Ballarat but also Australia. Most historians and those who know anything about the stockade will acknowledge that it did contribute significantly to the structure and system of democracy in Victoria and the extension of rights to people to stand and to vote for our parliaments. That rebellion is fairly significant. I know that John Malony, author of the book Eureka, does not like me to call it a rebellion but it is a word I sometimes slip into using. Certainly, when we look at the history of Australia, the Eureka Stockade is one of only two civil uprisings ever to occur in our entire history. The first event occurred in Darwin and is not widely reported, and the second is the Eureka Stockade. There was an uprising of prisoners at Vinegar Hill in New South Wales, which I note is also getting quite a bit of recognition this year.

To commemorate this incredible and significant part of Australian history, the state government has committed $1.5 million—but there is nothing in the federal budget at all. In December this year we will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade uprising. Obviously I have been campaigning on an issue that this parliament could do something about, which is flying the flag within the precinct. But I am also campaigning on the need to commit money particularly to the democracy conference occurring in Ballarat and also at VUT, which will be an important event at which to talk about the importance of democracy in Australia and the role that the Eureka Stockade played within it.

Also not within the budget was funding for the ex-prisoner of war memorial, which the ex-prisoner of war memorial committee in Ballarat have secured funding for. We had 10,000 people at the dedication of the memorial; it was an incredibly moving event. This is a national memorial, despite the government refusing to recognise it as such; it contains 35,000 names of ex-prisoners of war from all wars that this country has fought in. But there was no money in the federal budget to help the city of Ballarat and the ex-prisoner of war memorial committee to maintain this magnificent facility. It certainly will be something that I will be campaigning quite hard on.

The next issue is a little road that is down my way called the Deer Park bypass, which is pretty important. The Western Highway is a national highway; it is the main artery running between Adelaide and Melbourne. It carries over 40,000 pieces of freight each year and it is the main artery for goods and services for people from the western district both to Melbourne and to Adelaide. The Deer Park bypass is a 100 per cent Commonwealth project and, again, we heard no announcement in the budget speech that this project will get any recognition at all. I note that the Calder did get some mention, but the Deer Park bypass did not get any mention at all. Hopefully, with the AusLink announcement on Monday, we will see some funding for the Deer Park bypass.

I know that the minister has been performing a couple of stunts in my electorate of late. One was with my Liberal opponent when, on congratulating her on what a great campaign she has been running on this issue, he accidentally called her by my name. So it is good to note that, in fact, Minister Ian Campbell knows that `Catherine' has been campaigning incredibly hard; noone has worked harder to try and get the Deer Park bypass funded. Let us hope that he has heard our pleas.

I also want to talk briefly about drought funding. In my district we have had the lowest rainfall on record for the last eight years. You only have to go to Lake Wendouree, a pretty significant icon in my district—as a rower, I row across it—to see the evidence. At the moment, you can stand in the middle of it. If anyone can tell me why—with the level of water in that lake and in Lake Learmonth and the appalling circumstances being faced by farmers, small businesses and the community out at Learmonth—we cannot get exceptional circumstances funding, I just do not get it. We still have not heard any announcement about exceptional circumstances, despite having the lowest rainfall in my district in eight years. It is continuing. There is no evidence whatsoever that that is changing. They need drought funding.

I started my speech with some quotes, so I want to conclude with a quote:

That comes not from our side of the House or from any of those left-wing journalists that the government likes to rail against but from the then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard, in his first headland speech in the lead-up to the 1996 election. But I guess the question that remains for this upcoming election is: which fear or big scare will the government use? Will it be asylum seekers again or Indigenous people or, as we have seen debated today, same sex couples? Which massive lie will the Prime Minister rely on this time?