Mr ANDREN (12:30 PM) —I want to begin this contribution to the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2005-2006 and related bills by referring to the so-called ‘democratic processes’ seen in the House today. If they are a portent of what we can expect post July, when the government controls both houses, then pity help us. If there is to be no debate in the House on top of no amendments, and the same in the Senate, then we have a one-party state. The skills crisis in this country has been one of the most talked about issues over the past 18 months, but now we have seen the government shut down debate on its so-called solution, denying many members the opportunity to contribute. I was one of those. My staff have worked long and hard researching this issue. Not only was my contribution to this important debate stymied by a gag but, when I attempted to speak to an amendment moved by the minister to correct a major drafting blunder in the explanatory memorandum, I was again denied a chance to speak even though I had received the call from the Deputy Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that the process involved the minister coming first.

Fortuitously, because this debate was happening at the time, I can record some of my observations on those bills here. Under the Skilling Australia’s Workforce Bill 2005 and the Skilling Australia’s Workforce (Repeal and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2005, the government will dismantle the very successful and independent Australian National Training Authority, which has developed a consistent vocational education and training system across the country. ANTA worked because it included all players—industry, government, unions and trainers—and distributed funding where it was needed. The government itself acknowledged that ANTA’s success had been established by publicly announcing that it was ‘a truly national vocational education and training system with industry leadership’.

The bills on which debate was truncated in the House today give the Commonwealth direct control over where VET funding goes and attach a raft of conditions, such as forcing its workplace agenda on TAFE and channelling public money to private training providers. It is an ideological straitjacket for the states and territories if they do not want to lose what amounts to a third of their total funding needs for VET and TAFE. So much for cooperative federalism! ANTA is not responsible for the skills shortage in this country. That results from government and industry reluctance to invest in real apprenticeships—not short-term training with dubious qualifications, at worst exploited as a means of low-income employees. The honest and realistic sectors of industry now admit they have been selfish and short-sighted when it comes to real investment in real skills for our young. The government is refusing to recognise the impact globalisation and international competition are having on our training programs and skilling.

There have been huge shifts from government to private ownership in the running of utilities. Electricity, transport, roads and defence manufacturing are just some of the areas, particularly so in my electorate, where apprenticeships traditionally provided thousands of young people with opportunities over the years. Indeed, the former apprenticeship school at Wallerawang power station was one of the largest in the country. As with Telecom, now Telstra, so much of the work of formerly public utilities is now contracted out, with a sensational associated drop in the level of commitment to training young people. Global competition has seen the bottom line become all important and cost cuts have included apprenticeship training. Industry, by and large, has preferred to subcontract specific units of work to smaller business, which results in more subcontractors who simply cannot afford to take on apprentices.

I see nothing in the government’s proposals for skilling the work force that addresses this reality in any real and sensible way, apart perhaps from the bonus being offered to existing apprentices to stay on. We need more real apprenticeships and real training wages, not labour imported just in time, and we need to allocate scarce training resources by the fairest possible means. ANTA provided that; the government’s approach in the gagged bills does not. The structure to combat the skills shortage by way of an independent ANTA process is now being dismantled to suit short-term political objectives rather than the long-term skilling needs of the country.

I have spoken elsewhere in another debate about the inequity of the tax cuts delivered in this budget. However, I want to add a few words following the release of the St Vincent de Paul social issues paper on the reality of income inequality in Australia. Amid new reports of a $37 million retirement package for a bank manager—for that is what he is—and an $11 million package for Telstra’s new CEO and amid other signs of the rapidly escalating gap between the haves and have-nots of this country, our Prime Minister continues, along with other government ministers, to spin the myth that we are still the egalitarian country, the fair country of the fair go.

The Vinnies report is a thorough examination of the real maths, not the selective quoting of data that is used when we are told that low-income households have enjoyed the strongest growth in private incomes over the period 1997-98 to 2004-05. The St Vincent de Paul report states:

In concentrating solely on income inequality, St Vinnies lays aside other significant factors of inequality, such as health services, housing, education, child and aged care services, transport and communications, and social exclusion.

The St Vincent de Paul report suggests that Australian high-income households enjoy lifestyles at unbelievable levels above the norm, while low-income households are deprived of opportunities to break free from their disadvantage. Using data from the Bureau of Statistics, the report highlights how eight million Australians, or 42 per cent of the population, have equivalised disposable incomes of less than $21,000 per annum. Of these eight million Australians, 4½ million are in households with an aggregate income of less than $400 a week. Again the report shows that the ratio of top incomes to low incomes has consistently worsened over the past nine years. The report also says:

There was not one question from the opposition the day this report was released. There was no story on the national Channel 9 news and no report on ABC television. A large slice of the media should be ashamed. They swallow the government misinformation and do not even report this most basic and objective counterargument which is so important to understanding what is occurring in Australia—that is, the fostering of privilege over need.

Let me relate just one story from a constituent that highlights the impact on sole parent payments of changes announced in the budget. Cheryl from Lithgow says that looking after school-age kids requires a lot of time for a single parent, quite apart from the days children are sick or on school vacation. In Lithgow and other parts of the central west there is simply not enough paid part-time work to go around, quite apart from transport difficulties should a position become available, perhaps in Bathurst 50 kilometres down the road. The unavailability and expense of child care is also a major hurdle.

Cheryl says many single parents already do a lot of unpaid work in various capacities, especially relating to school, with tuckshop work, reading assistance programs and other community activities. It should be remembered by Treasurers wanting to get single mothers back to work that volunteers, who are often single mothers, save the Australian taxpayers about $40 billion a year—more than our GST receipts. How, one might ask, will those voluntary hours be filled?

Indeed, the member for Ryan made this very point in the adjournment debate a few weeks ago in underlining the unsung contribution volunteers make to our economy—a greater contribution, I might say, than the misguided attempts to force volunteers among the ranks of single mothers onto the job market and the social costs that may incur. Cheryl says that if the new legislation does not recognise all forms of voluntary work and assumes every single mum can get a friend or a relative to look after an unwell child, or a latchkey kid for that matter, then the emotional burden placed on sole parents will be huge.

Why can’t this policy account at least for volunteer work as being equivalent to the activities test in the same way as it is applied to senior job seekers who do not qualify for the pension or access to retirement accounts? Why can’t a continued parenting payment rather than so-called enhanced, but in fact lower paying, Newstart be retained for those demonstrating the commitment to voluntary effort that Cheryl demonstrates? Quite apart from that, why this punishment for those whose sole role is parenting? Is that regarded as some sort of voluntary activity? We hear so much about family dysfunction and about the need for family values, yet here we see a government undertaking a bit of political wedging, of social engineering, based largely on the prejudice of those in the community who regard single mothers as welfare bludgers.

Apart from that, we are driving those who manage to find work into financial difficulties. According to opposition figures, which I presume are reasonably accurate, a single parent with two children working 15 hours a week will be approximately $70 a week worse off, while a single parent with two children working 20 hours a week will be $90 a week worse off and with four children, $120 a week worse off. I realise the Jobs, Education and Training child-care provisions are designed to assist low-income families meet any gap in child-care fees, and they are obviously welcome, but I want to comment on other child-care changes. While 84,300 additional outside school hours places are welcome, where are the during school hours places and where are the jobs between 10 o clock and two o’clock for mums who need to pick up and deliver their kids? It is a nonsense that the part-time work that many mothers may get—and that is at best, in my electorate—will somehow magically lead to full-time work, as one minister has suggested. The child-care infrastructure is just not available to cater for extra places, even if parents could afford it. As in aged care, the guarantee of funding is no guarantee the physical accommodation can or will be provided.

I want to also say that there is major concern within the community over the continued failure of state and federal governments to adequately fund public dental services, as the previous speaker mentioned. The Rural Dental Action Group formed in the central west wants to work in a constructive way with government to ensure one of our health black holes—dental care for lower income earners—is addressed to overcome a crisis that has developed since the end of the federally funded scheme in 1996. I appreciate one of the major concerns is the training of dentists and the cost of getting professors of dentistry at universities at only a fraction of the price they could obtain in private practice. It is a huge problem and it goes to the nub of the difficulty in supplying enough dentists to the system. I understand that. But, despite its denials over the years since 1996, the government does have constitutional authority—I would say responsibility—under section 51(xxiiiA) of the Constitution to provide adequate dental care. This power was specifically given to the Commonwealth in a 1946 referendum. The Medicare concession for urgent cases, granted last year, is a start but represents a drop in the ocean compared with the need.

The federal government’s drought package will certainly ease some of the pain of what has been described as the worst drought in a century. Hopefully the rain of recent days is a portent of the many inches yet required to go anywhere near restoring hope for some better seasons and replenishing critical town water supplies, particularly along the Lachlan River in my electorate. The definition of exceptional circumstances needs urgent attention to ensure a fair application of assistance. While farm organisations have been calling for a cash grant process, a fairer and more affordable scheme all around—and one more acceptable to the taxpayer, I suggest—would be an interest-free ‘pay back in good times’ arrangement like HECS, as some independent commentators have suggested.

While our overseas competitors like Japan, the United States and Europe continue to support their farmers in good times—Europeans could only have nightmares about the drought that we are experiencing—support for efficient farm families is totally justified. Efficiency and sustainability—ecological as well as economic sustainability—are the keys. If farmers do not pass that test, they should not be entrusted with our fragile and drought prone land. It is as simple as that.

I am in the process of again surveying my electorate on their views on the full sale of Telstra and their views on the adequacy or not of the network. I will not prejudge the outcome, but I suspect there has been a hardening of opposition to the full sale. Things are nowhere near up to scratch, whatever that means. Even those close to the telecommunications coalface suggest that we are way off any sort of measurement of anything that may mean up to scratch. Shortcomings in mobile services and installations, lousy internet connection with expensive options as the only solution and nowhere near an adequate exchange network to provide ADSL—the stories keep coming into my office from all over the state. New Telstra CEO Trujillo’s suggestion of local government-Telstra partnerships is code for getting rid of the difficult solutions. People want continued regulation across the board, and I suspect that 90 per cent or thereabouts of my electorate will again say they want continued public oversight and government control.

The Treasurer’s forecast that the federal government will be close to debt free by next June contradicts his stated position that Telstra should be sold and the proceeds used to retire government debt. Country people have consistently refused to countenance the sale of an infrastructure and service they regard as vital to their long-term communication requirements and those of their children—quite apart from the several billion dollars in dividends their telco can deliver to the public purse from a public asset. Nothing they have heard from the government and its allies at the top end of town—the infrastructure pirates—will convince most country folk otherwise. So let it be known to all government members—I know the member for Hinkler, who is at the table, is very committed to our telecommunications needs and aware of their shortcomings—that they dare sell Telstra only in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

As for the Future Fund established by budget initiatives, the feedback I get is that, while provision for future infrastructure needs is wise, the risking of billions of dollars of public money, especially the proceeds of a Telstra sale, is unacceptable. A likely correction in the US economy could well wipe several billion dollars off that fund in one fell swoop. I am one of those who see no economic danger in sensible public borrowings for essential infrastructure.

Finally, I wish to acknowledge the recent Reconciliation Australia Conference here in Canberra and its focus on the way forward in achieving a just outcome for our Indigenous people. I quote the words of Pat Dodson at one forum session I attended:

A few days before hearing Pat Dodson, I had the pleasure of launching Treaty, a serious study of the treaty processes in Canada, the US and New Zealand and whether such a process is a way forward in this country. It is written by highly respected authors Larissa Behrendt; Sean Brennan, previously of the Parliamentary Library here; Lisa Strelein; and George Williams. I commend it to all who are or should be interested in this issue. At the launch I said:

I also said: