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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-03 Daily Xml
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Federal Budget

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:37): I rise to further highlight the difficulties that we face here in South Australia given the 13 May federal Tony Abbott Liberal government budget, its billions of dollars of savage cuts to health and education, and to speak about the damaging impact those cuts will have on hardworking South Australians, their families and our communities. As always, the South Australian Labor Party is committed to standing up for people being treated with respect and dignity and ensuring no-one—not one South Australian—is left behind. In the face of the Prime Minister's cruel disregard for South Australians, other than for just a privileged few, stand up for them we must and stand up for them we will.

The federal Tony Abbott Liberal government have slashed and burned essential services in their mean budget. As I said on the Tuesday of our last sitting, they have done so with a deep commitment to cruelty and, alarmingly, with glee as they reached into the pockets of South Australians Tuesday a fortnight ago and relegated them to years of pain and hardship. Unfortunately, it is just the beginning. The stripping of $5.5 billion from South Australian schools and hospitals over the next decade has placed quality education and health care for South Australians from cradle to career at risk. The attacks are set to diminish the wellbeing of many. These attacks, however, are set to have a particularly damaging effect on South Australian women, with many of these changes disproportionately affecting women, who make up a significant number of low-income earners, pensioners, public servants, single parents, carers and those escaping domestic violence.

The federal Liberal government intends to wind back hospital funding agreements and implement a $7 charge for visits to a doctor, and an increase in co-payments for prescriptions, X-rays, other imaging services and pathology services will also attract the charge. Changes to the PBS will mean that prescriptions under this scheme will now cost $5 more per prescription. Women's health, and specifically reproductive health, is affected by these changes, with 60 per cent of visits to GPs being made by women and 64 per cent of those receiving mental health treatments in the last financial year being women.

Currently, Family Tax Benefit Part B is paid to families with children under 18. This will now be cut off when the youngest child turns six, with all family benefits due to remain on hold until 2016-17. In my electorate of Reynell, more than 50 per cent of women earn a personal income of less than $600 per week, 3,277 women work part-time and 1,739 women are single parents, or 75 per cent of the single parents in Reynell. It is often the family tax benefit that allows these low income earning women to just—and I mean just—make ends meet. It is the difference between being able to buy new school uniforms and shoes when needed, being able to take children on a very occasional outing and sometimes even just to make rent and not being able to do any of these things.

The national Office for Women's Leadership and Development Strategy is set to be cut by $1.6 million over the next four years. The pension age will rise to 70 and will disproportionately affect women, who are 55.7 per cent of aged pensioners and retire earlier than men with, on average, around half of their superannuation and have a longer life expectancy. The low income superannuation contribution of $500 for workers earning less than $37,000 per year is to be cut. This contribution benefits 3.6 million Australians, 2.1 million of whom are women. This cut will seriously and negatively impact the retirement savings of almost one in two women.

The National Affordable Housing Agreement is included in the 2014 budget—however, at a reduced rate—and it is probable that this will reduce funding to South Australia by $1 million. The National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness is not in the forward estimates. Forty-four million dollars has been cut, with the federal government only making a commitment to funding for the 2014-15 financial year.

It is understood that it is likely that the federal government will not continue to provide funding for this after 2015-16, which will significantly reduce funding to homelessness services, including women's domestic violence services. Women comprise close to two-thirds of those seeking the support of specialist homeless services, with around 25 per cent of services provided attributable to domestic violence. These changes will affect women and their children who face homelessness through domestic violence, and also single mothers and women over 55 on pensions who have lower incomes and fewer affordable housing options.

Minimum income thresholds to begin paying back higher education fee help loans will be lowered by 10 per cent, affecting young women and those wishing to return to study, who are the majority of higher education students yet are more than twice as likely as men to earn income below the current repayment threshold. Vicious cuts to Newstart do not provide support for older women returning to work or women returning to work after having children. Sixteen thousand five hundred commonwealth Public Service jobs will be cut and 70 federal agencies will be scrapped. This also disproportionately affects women, who now make up 58 per cent of the federal Public Service.

Time expired.

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