5 April | Labor's Budget Reply - An Election Pitch to Voters
The NSW Court of Appeal today dismissed a legal challenge by disgruntled Liberal Party members over the methods used to preselect candidates for the federal election in the country’s most populous state. The decision means the Prime Minister can call the election at any time and we will almost certainly be heading to the polls in mid-May.
There has been much discussion about a possible post-Budget bounce for a government struggling in the polls but equally important is a detailed look at what Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has outlined so far as he tries to lead Labor into power from Opposition for just the fourth time since 1949.
Not surprisingly, Labor will focus on its strong suits – childcare, health & aged care, education, climate change, manufacturing, jobs & skills plus the establishment of a National Anti-Corruption Commission and adopting the Uluru Statement From The Heart.
Labor continued its recent tradition of releasing a separate Women’s Budget Statement alongside the Budget Reply Speech and Labor’s number of women in Parliament continues to be a point of difference compared to the Coalition.
The Government has since honed its attack on where the money will come from as the Coalition continues to hammer home its perceived strengths on economic management and national security. Below are some key themes and policy areas outlined in Anthony Albanese’s Budget Reply.
Working together, we can build a better future.
An economy with stronger wages and more secure work.
Investing in Australian skills, jobs, and manufacturing.
Backing clean energy and building new infrastructure across the country.
Taking pressure off the cost of living by making child care and power bills cheaper. Protecting Medicare. Building more affordable housing.
Fixing the crisis in aged care.
Building an economy that works for people, not the other way around.
Not a bunch of last-minute, one-off handouts for problems that have been a decade in the making.
Not a collection of promises that have a use-by date – conveniently after the election.
Labor has a real plan for growth and prosperity – a plan to get incomes rising and costs under control – with five pillars:
Our Powering Australia plan to drive investment in cheap, renewable energy. We’ll create 604,000 new jobs by 2030, with five out of every six in the regions, and lower power bills for households and businesses alike
Our plans for a Future Made in Australia – making more things here, diversifying the economy and revitalising the regions. Using our National Reconstruction Fund, we will work with business to help turn good ideas into good, secure jobs and new homegrown industries
Our plans to invest in infrastructure, because roads, rail, ports, and high-speed broadband are the building blocks of a stronger, more connected, more efficient economy
Our plans for secure work and more opportunities for training with more university places and 465,000 fee-free TAFE places, and the creation of Jobs and Skills Australia
Our plan for cheaper child care because it’s good for productivity, workforce participation, and economic growth. And it’s good for children
This government thinks infrastructure is about spending millions on car parks that don’t get built. I see infrastructure as a sustainable, long-term investment in vital national projects – creating jobs and boosting productivity. Labor will make sure that those investments really stack up using the Infrastructure Australia model that I established.
It was Bob Hawke’s Labor Government that created Medicare. A policy driven by one simple principle: that every Australian should be able to access and afford the health care they need.
Paul Keating created universal superannuation to ensure every Australian could save for financial security in their retirement.
Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard created the National Disability Insurance Scheme, so every Australian affected by disability would be guaranteed the support and respect they deserve.
It is only Labor that ever does the big reforms. These reforms are the markers of a decent society – and they are the drivers of a stronger economy. Not only because they boost participation and productivity – and lighten the load on employers and businesses…. But because good, reliable, affordable and universal services give people the confidence to pursue their aspirations, to fulfil their potential, to be their best.
Better care means Australians can live better lives. It’s that simple.
HEALTH
Albanese will campaign hard on the fact that Medicare and its primary health networks combined with our public hospital system helped the nation navigate COVID-19.
Labor has accused the Morrison Government of botching the vaccination rollout while there was widespread confusion around rules governing lockdowns and subsequent re-openings, noting that these were managed by state and territory governments.
Federal Labor is hoping they will not be marked down by their state counterparts and believes the real heroes of the pandemic are hardworking doctors, nurses and aged-care workers.
In the major announcement of his Budget Reply Speech, Albanese said the pandemic and Royal Commission into Aged Care had confirmed what many Australians already knew – our aged care system is in crisis.
Albanese said Labor’s plan would put nurses back into nursing homes, giving carers more time to care, lift wages in the sector, deliver better care and improve transparency and accountability.
Labor’s five-point plan would:
Require a registered nurse on site 24/7 in residential care
Give carers more time to care through an increase to 215 minutes of direct care a day
Formally support a pay rise for aged care workers
Require better food for residents
Require more transparency in the system so we know taxpayers’ money is going on care
CHILDCARE
Echoing his first Budget Reply Speech in 2020, Albanese confirmed he would increase the maximum subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families up to $80,000, remove the annual subsidy cap, and smooth the taper rate down more gradually from the new 90 per cent rate.
He said this would mean 96 per cent of all families in the system will be better off as a result of the following plan:
Lift the maximum child care subsidy for one child care
Increase CCS rates for every family with one child in care earning less than $530,000 in household income
Lift CCS rates for the second and more children in care
WOMEN
Labor’s 2022 Women’s Budget Statement focussed on the following:
Skyrocketing costs of living
Record high child care fees
Stagnant wages and a gender pay gap
Insecure work
Skills shortages
Rising rates of sexual assault
Labor welcomed what it described as the long-overdue investment in women’s safety through the Government’s $1.3 billion National Plan announced in the Budget and will match that funding.
Labor has pledged to fully implement the recommendations of the Respect@Work report on sexual harassment in the workplace.
MANUFACTURING
The $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund will provide loans, guarantees and equity to support projects that create secure well-paid jobs, drive regional development, and invest in our national sovereign capability, broadening and diversifying Australia’s economy.
The National Reconstruction Fund will be administered by an independent board with government setting its mandate to drive investment in key sectors focusing on value adding and capability development to leverage Australia’s natural and competitive strengths including:
Value add in resources: Expand our mining science technology, ensure a greater share of the raw materials we extract are processed here, for example, high purity alumina from red mud in bauxite processing or lithium processing for batteries
Value add in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors: Ensure we unlock potential and value add to our raw materials in sectors like food processing, and textiles, clothing and footwear manufacturing
Transport: Develop our capabilities in transport manufacturing and supply chains including for cars, trains and shipbuilding
Medical science: Fulfil our potential, given our world leading research, in providing essential supplies such as medical devices, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), medicines and vaccines
Renewables and low emission technologies: Pursue commercial opportunities including from; components for wind turbines; production of batteries and solar panels; new livestock feed to reducing methane emissions; modernising steel and aluminium; hydrogen electrolysers, and innovative packaging solutions for waste reduction
Defence capability: Maximise our requirements being sourced from Australian suppliers employing Australian workers, whether they be technology, infrastructure or skills, complimenting Labor’s Defence Industry Development Strategy
Enabling capabilities: Support key enabling capabilities across engineering, data science, software development including FinTech, EdTech, AI and robotics
