Page 1459 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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The PM made great play of bringing Indigenous expertise into his department and taking more personal control of Indigenous affairs. What Mr Abbott did not say was that it was a cut-rate, cheapskate exercise where there is a two-tier payscale now in PM&C. An Indigenous worker brought into the PM’s department from FaHCSIA at an APS6 level is being paid $12,000 less than other PM&C public servants at the same level. The disparity apparently worsens at higher levels.
It is outrageous that the PM talks about closing the gap and elevating responsibility for Indigenous affairs to PM&C when he has not similarly elevated the wages of the new Indigenous workers brought to his elite department. How will the prime minister for Aboriginal affairs consult the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community? It will not be through the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. Last night’s budget listed that all of its funding has just ceased.
The elected National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples was set up to advise the federal government. Co-chairs Kirstie Parker and Les Malezer were both elected. They led it and both are well respected members of the first nations with a long involvement in national affairs. The Commission of Audit said that the congress duplicated other bodies. About the only one I can think of is the ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elected Body, a groundbreaking initiative of the local community and this government.
But ours is not a national body. These are not comparable. The Commission of Audit can only mean that the congress is duplicated by the Prime Minister’s hand-picked members of his Indigenous Advisory Council, chaired by his mate Warren Mundine. It is interesting that Mr Mundine has already warned his council members they may become some of the most hated people in the country. At least he has taken great exception to Senator Brandis’s campaign for bigotry.
But what does this budget mean for a young school leaver in Belconnen—say, a young man looking for a job and driving the family’s old car? For a start, the Liberals have restored the fuel excise increases Mr Howard dropped years ago before a tight election. He is probably old enough to remember the Canberra Liberals’ 2012 campaign about the cost of living. However, he cannot remember the Liberals saying anything in last year’s election about putting fuel taxes up. I hope his old car is not a Holden.
Maybe he wants to do an apprenticeship, maybe he is doing a course based at the Bruce CIT campus. Well, the Liberals have axed the tools of trade apprenticeship assistance scheme worth over $900 million and replaced it with trade support loans worth less than half that. They have cut almost half a million dollars over four years from trade training assistance. Who needs skills when we are having the budget we had to have, in the words of Kate Carnell last night.
Hopefully, our school leaver can find work or study, otherwise his parents will need deep pockets to support him for six months before he can get the dole. If he gets sick he will have the chance to cure cancer with some of the new $7 tax that he will be paying on his visits to the doctor and increased charges for prescriptions and screening services going to the new medical research fund.
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