Another Labor budget fails regional Australia
8th May, 2012
“TONIGHT’S budget, with its feeble and contrived $1.5 billion surplus, fails to inspire or encourage struggling communities and families in regional Australia,” Leader of The Nationals Warren Truss declared tonight.“Bringing spending forward and pushing expenditure into the out years doesn’t give you more money… businesses balancing their books know it and families budgeting household needs are painfully aware of that reality.
“This slippery surplus isn’t worth the budget paper it’s written on. Tonight we’ve seen money shuffled, spending deferred and rubbery revenue forecasts used to mask the true bottom line after four Labor budgets have amassed a cumulative deficit of $167 billion.
“Australians won’t fall for the Treasurer’s three-card trick. This budget does nothing to restore the flatlining confidence of businesses or households, and gives cold comfort to families this winter as they brace for the world’s biggest carbon tax in just 53 days.
“The reality is the massive cuts announced tonight mean regional Australians are paying the price for Labor’s reckless spending and years of waste and mismanagement.
Infrastructure
“This budget has put road funding into reverse. It contains zero new spending on roads or rail in 2012-13.
“Overall expenditure on roads plummets from $6.2 billion in 2011-12 to $2.6 billion in 2012-13, with at least $2.3 billion brought forward or deferred from 2012-13. It’s a sham.
Pacific Highway (NSW): “Labor’s $3.5 billion promise to duplicate the Pacific Highway from Sydney to the Queensland border is a stunt and well short of the over $7 billion needed to do the job.
“Labor’s is applying in a double-standard, demanding a 50/50 funding split with the O’Farrell Coalition Government . When Labor was in power in NSW the federal government up to 100% of the cost of Pacific Highway projects, but now wants to renege on those arrangements since the change of state government.
“There is no new funding for the Pacific Highway in this year’s budget. The new money kicks in from 2014-15, 15-16 and, staggeringly, 16-17, well beyond the term of the current Nation Building program. It means Labor’s promise to complete the Pacific Highway by 2016 is in tatters. It won’t be finished on time.
“This is yet another wake up call for so-called Independent Rob Oakeshott, who has voted with this duplicitous government a staggering 83% of the time.
“His demand that the completion deadline be met rings hollow. On his record, Mr Oakeshott is an echo of Julia Gillard, a prop for her government and on par with her when it comes to credibility.
Bruce Highway (Qld): “Motorists who risk Queensland’s deadliest road – the Cooroy to Curra section of the Bruce Highway – will be disappointed and angry that the Gillard government has, again, failed to hear their pleas.
“The government has acknowledged the priority of this project but there is no money to start the next section of the upgrade over the next four years.
Western Highway (Vic): “The government has committed $559 million over four years to the relocation of defence facilities at Moorebank. However, this funding will come from the redirection of Nation Building funding and the deferral of $158 million of upgrading from the Western Highway in Victoria.
“This is deferral makes no sense. The Moorebank facility is a project the private sector is happy to fund itself, instead the government will foot the bill and, in doing so, put the Western Highway upgrade on the backburner indefinitely.
Murray-Darling Basin
Water infrastructure: “The Gillard government’s deferral of $941 million for water-saving infrastructure to 2015-16 means river communities will be forced to endure even more delays in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan – leaving farmers, irrigators, local businesses and entire communities in limbo.
“This delay makes it clear that the Gillard government has no desire to fix ageing Murray-Darling infrastructure or to deliver water-savings through engineering improvements.
“Regional communities along the Murray-Darling have been through the ringer – financially and emotionally for years. That uncertainty over the viability and survival of their farms, businesses and towns will now linger indefinitely.
Health and Aged Care
Health Workforce Program: “$67.9 million has been torn from the Rural Education Infrastructure Development Pool, Health Workforce Australia Programs and the Health Workforce Flexible Fund. No explanation has been offered on why these programs to help deliver healthcare services to regional communities have been slashed.
Indigenous Health Infrastructure: “Labor is stripping out $75 million from the Indigenous Health Infrastructure Program to fund other unspecified priorities. Indigenous Australians deserve better than to have much-need funding taken away without even so much as an explanation as to what it might be funding.
Aged care: “The aged care package delivers clear warning that the government is not prepared to provide the funds necessary to build a viable aged care sector into the future. All Australians, except full pensioners, can expect to pay thousands of dollars more for their aged care in the years ahead.
Transport
Heavy Vehicle User Charge: “Tonight the government budgeted to increase the heavy vehicle user charge by $166 million next year - $700 million over four years.
“On top of higher fuel costs associated with the carbon tax, families will foot the bill for this increase at the checkout and Australian export earnings will take yet another hit to their global competitiveness.
Passenger Movement Charge: “Australia’s departure tax just skyrocketed by $8 a ticket, taking it to a $55 per passenger slug effect from 1 July 2012, with the added baggage of the charge being indexed annually to CPI thereafter.
“This will further depress Australia’s struggling tourism sector. It means Australia becomes less attractive as a tourist destination and, on top of the impost of the carbon tax, makes us less competitive.
“Given the departure tax is designed as a cost recovery charge for border services, tonight’s hike is an unjustifiable cash grab. The costs associated with border services are already fully recovered by the existing charge. Topping up the tax is a revenue gouge our tourism sector can ill-afford.
Policing costs at airports: “The government will now apply a $40 million a year charge on airports to partly recover airport policing costs. Again, this will be passed on to passengers who are being forced to pay a multitude of new charges, fees and taxes under Labor… all to the detriment of Australian tourism.
Local Government
Financial Assistance Grants: “Brining forward two full quarters of the Local Government Financial Assistance Grants, due to be paid in July and September of 2012, to this financial year is simply a money shuffle.
“This single accounting trick alone represents $1.1 billion of the $1.5 billion surplus. There is absolutely no economic benefit to paying the grants early, outside of a cynical bid to cook the books.”
[ENDS]
