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The Government's Mid-Term Progress Report

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Media Statement - 15th June 2009

This mid-term progress report comes as Australia, along with the rest of the world, faces the most difficult global economic conditions since the Great Depression. 29 of the 30 OECD countries are in recession or have experienced negative growth since the onset of the global crisis. This includes 8 of Australia's top 10 trading partners.

The Government has taken strong and decisive action to cushion Australia from the worst impacts of the global recession, by stepping in where the private sector is in retreat, and supporting jobs and small business today by investing in the nation building infrastructure we need for tomorrow. The Government is also using its economic stimulus strategy to build the infrastructure and skills that Australia needs both for the recovery and for our long term economic productivity and growth. The Government has also put in place a fiscal consolidation strategy, to return the budget to surplus once the global economy recovers.





Australia stronger than other OECD economies
(Through-the-year GDP growth - March 2009)

Recently, the Government welcomed the modest positive economic growth that was recorded in the first three months of 2009. This result means that Australia has not entered a technical recession and speaks much to the strengths of the Australian economy. It is also evidence of the Government's stimulus at work. Treasury analysis confirmed that without the Government's cash stimulus payments, Australia would have entered a recession. The global recession still has a long way to go though; growth will continue to be slow; unemployment will rise and we cannot rule out the possibility of negative economic growth in the future.

Set out in this document are 50 significant achievements of the Government in its first half term aimed at building:

  • A stronger Australia.
  • A fairer Australia.
  • An Australia prepared for the challenges of the future.

And is doing so by implementing changes in the way Australia is governed.


A STRONGER AUSTRALIA

In its first eighteen months in office, the Government has taken strong, early and decisive action to build a stronger Australia in the face of the worst global economic conditions in three quarters of a century - resulting in Australia enjoying the highest growth in the first quarter of 2009 of all the advanced economies reported to date.

To build a Stronger Australia, the Government has:

1. Protected the stability of Australia's financial markets by guaranteeing, for the first time in Australia's history, an estimated 13 million deposit holders in Australian banks, building societies and credit unions.

2. Delivered a $77 billion Nation Building for Recovery plan to stimulate the economy by supporting jobs today by investing in nation building infrastructure for tomorrow, including:

Phase One: Short term stimulus from late 2008 through:

  • cash payments to pensioners, carers, veterans and families to support the 1.5 million Australians working in retail; and the trebling of the first home owners bonus to support the housing industry.

Phase Two: Medium term infrastructure from mid 2009 including:

    • the biggest school modernization program in Australia's history;
    • building 20,000 units and repairing 50,000 units of social housing; and
    • local government infrastructure investments through the biggest national partnership with local government ever.

Phase Three: Long term infrastructure starting in later 2009 including:

    • rail, roads and port infrastructure, including the first Commonwealth investments ever in urban rail;
    • large-scale building programs in hospitals, universities and TAFEs; as well as
    • creating a National Broadband Corporation, which will invest up to $43 billion in a high-speed National Broadband Network that will deliver superfast broadband to 90 per cent of homes, schools and workplaces.

3. Created a new Jobs and Training Compact to further cushion the impact of the recession on unemployment - backed by the creation of 711,000 training places and a $650 million local jobs fund. This includes a Compact with Young Australians (through a binding policy of earning or learning), a Compact with Retrenched Workers and a Compact with Local Communities to assist areas of highest unemployment.

4. Established a temporary investment allowance of 30 per cent until June 2009and then 10 per cent and 50 per cent for general and small business respectively until December 2009, to support business investment decisions during the recession.

5. Invested in a new National Car Plan out to 2020 to enable the motor vehicle industry and the 210,000 Australians employed in it to transition to a sustainable green car future.

6. Developed a fiscal sustainability strategy over the medium term by supporting economic growth, infrastructure and jobs now, while the private sector is in retreat, and then returning the Budget to surplus once the global economy recovers and repaying government borrowings through the surplus.



Government Net Debt Position for Selected Countries
(Source: 2009-10 Budget Papers)

7. Convened the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to implement a new national program of micro-economic reform to produce a single regulatory environment for the Australian economy to reduce the compliance burden for business.

8. Created a new global role for Australia through the G20 Summit process in coordinating the international policy response to the global economic crisis.

9. Acted to protect our nation through a Defence White Paper that provides a secure 20 year plan for the defence aspects of Australia's national security and begins building Australia's defence force of the future - Force 2030 - including the largest long-term investment in advanced naval capabilities since World War II.

10. Withdrawn Australian combat forces from Iraq and implemented a new strategy for our forces in Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism, including intensified training of Afghan security forces with the objective of transitioning security responsibility to local forces as rapidly as possible.




A FAIRER AUSTRALIA


At the same time the Government is building a Fairer Australia. The Government is committed to the principle of equality of opportunity, a proper safety net as well as a compassionate response to entrenched social and economic disadvantage - in other words a fair go for all.

To build a Fairer Australia the Government has:

11. Abolished Work Choices and replaced it with a Fair Work Act to provide a fair and balanced industrial relations system for all Australians.

12. Introduced the single largest reform of the age pension in its hundred year history including establishing a new legislated benchmark for the pension of 27.7 per cent of male total average weekly earnings.

13. Introduced for the first time a permanent Carer Supplement of $600 per annum to be paid to each person in receipt of Carer Payment and to recipients of Carer Allowance for each person they care for.

14. Introduced Australia's first national Paid Parental Leave Scheme of eighteen weeks to boost workforce participation in the long run and improve work-life balance.

15. Introduced and extended the First Home Owners' Boost to support first home buyers entering the housing market.

16. Delivered a $1.2 billion plan to halve the rate of homelessness by 2020 and provide accommodation for all rough sleepers who seek it.

17. Started building 20,000 extra units of social housing across Australia and repairing more around 45,000 social housing dwellings - the single biggest expansion of social housing ever undertaken in Australia.

18. Introduced first home savings accounts, which offer low tax breaks to help struggling first home savers reach the first hurdle - saving a deposit big enough to buy a first home.

19. Delivered tax relief to Working Families including:

  • $46.7 billion of tax cuts for working Australians that will provide an extra $60 per week for families on a combined income of $100,000, with the primary earner on an income of $60,000;
  • an investment of $4.4 billion over four years to increase the Child Care Tax Rebate from 30% to 50%; and
  • an investment of $4.4 billion in an Education Tax Refund to assist parents with the costs of educating their children, benefitting 2.7 million children from 1.3 million Australian families

This comes on top of the 4.25% cut in official interest rates, following ten interest rate rises in a row under the previous government, resulting in mortgage savings of $750 per month on an average mortgage of $300,000, which translates into annual savings of $9,000 per year.

20. Made a national Apology to Indigenous Australians, backed by $4.6 billion in investment, with the States and Territories, in a national strategy in Closing the Gap in Indigenous disadvantage in life expectancy, health, housing, education and employment.




CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

We must also prepare our nation for the Challenges of the Future including:

  • delivering an education revolution to build the skills that Australia will need as the economy recovers;
  • ensuring that every Australian can get the healthcare they need when and where they need it;
  • building a lower carbon economy and creating the low pollution jobs of the future;
  • securing water supplies for our cities, towns and farmers, and acting to restore the health of our rivers; and
  • implementing a new way of governing that is more open, accountable and in touch with the community.

Education revolution

The Government has implemented an Education Revolution to drive long term productivity growth through an increased investment in education of around 50 per cent more in real terms over the current five year period compared with the previous 5 years.

The Education Revolution aims to:

  • achieve universal access to preschool for four year olds by 2013;
  • achieve a 90 per cent year twelve retention rate by 2015;
  • halve the number of 20 to 64 year olds without a minimum certificate III level qualification by 2020; and
  • provide a university place to an additional 50,000 students by 2013.



2003-2012 Spending on Education
(Source: 2009-10 Budget Papers)

The Government's Education Revolution includes:

21. Doubling the investment in Australian schools to $62.1 billion from 2009 to 2012 - almost double the $33.5 billion invested in the last four years - to achieve our target of lifting Year 12 or equivalent attainment from 75 to 90 per cent by 2015.

22. The biggest school modernization program in Australia's history providing an investment of $14.7 billion to construct state-of-the-art libraries, multi-purpose halls and/or general upgrades in all our 7500 primary schools, together with state-of-the-art science centres and language centres in 500 of our secondary schools.

23. Investment of an additional $970 million over five years to deliver on the newly agreed national goal of universal preschool by 2013 for children the year before they go to school.

24. Bringing Australia's schools into the digital age through a $2 billion commitment to ensure students in years 9 to 12 have a one-to-one student to computer ratio, which will see an additional 790,000 computers provided by 2011 of which 64,250 have already been installed at 15 May 2009.

25. A commitment of $2.5 billion over the next decade to roll out state-of-the-art trades training centres for the benefit of Australian secondary students, with $435 million already allocated to 138 projects involving 432 secondary schools across Australia.

26. A new four year National Education Agreement which mandates a new commitment to school transparency, where parents for the first time will have access to information about their child's school, including the reporting of individual school performance.

27. An investment of $550 million through the Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership to help attract the best and brightest into teaching, and to help retain quality teachers and leaders in schools for the first time.

28. A new National Curriculum Authority to develop a National Curriculum in the key areas of English, Maths, Science and History and languages to assist national labor-force mobility, as well as a new $62.4 million commitment to boost Asian language education in Australian schools.

29. A $2 billion investment to deliver 711,000 TAFE and vocational education and training places and more than $700 million in TAFE and VET infrastructure to help attain our goal of halving the proportion of 20-64 year olds without qualifications at Certificate III level by 2020 from around 43 to 22 per cent of the workforce.

30. The biggest long-term investment in higher education and research in Australian history:

  • $2.2 billion for higher education to enable an additional 50,000 new students to attend university by 2013, with 20% of undergraduate enrolments from low SES backgrounds by 2020, all designed to achieve 40% of all 25 to 34 year olds having a bachelor's degree equivalent by 2025;
  • $5 billion for tertiary education and research infrastructure, including 42 projects funded from the Education Investment Fund across 31 universities and 11 TAFE and vocational education providers;
  • a national $1.1 billion Super Science Initiative to expand research in key areas: astronomy and space science, marine and climate science, and future industries including nanotechnology and biotechnology;
  • a commitment of $512 million over four years to support research excellence in our universities to help meet the full cost of research; and
  • a $626 million investment to nearly halve HECS for commencing maths and science students and, in addition, halve HECS repayments for maths and science graduates who pursue a career in the field, including teaching, to boost enrolments in these critical enabling disciplines and to rebuild the maths and science base in Australian education.

Health & hospital reform

The Government has finalised a new national health and hospital agreement with the States to drive improvements in the quality, accessibility and sustainability of health services.

The Government's health and hospitals investment priorities have included:

31. A 50% increase as part of $64 billion in funding for health and public hospitals over the next five years - compared with a $1 billion funding cut (through lowering indexation under the previous Australian Health Care Agreement).

32. For the first time, direct Australian government investment in hospital emergency departments of $750 million, with an agreed performance benchmark of 80 per cent of emergency department presentations by 2012 to be seen within clinically recommended triage times as recommended by the Australian College of Emergency Medicine.

33. For the first time, $600 million to reduce elective surgery waiting lists - which has already exceeded its target of 25,278 in 2008, and delivered over 40,000 services.

34. For the first time funding to help train approximately 18,000 nurse supervisors, 5,000 allied health and VET supervisors, and 7,000 medical supervisors.

35. Enabling highly skilled nurse practitioners and midwives to access the MBS and PBS for the first time so that patients with routine procedures can be treated more speedily.

36. A reform package to encourage doctors to work in rural and remote communities - with almost 500 communities to become eligible for incentive payments for the first time.

37. An additional 212 GP training places from 2011 onwards - a 35 per cent increase on the cap imposed since 2004.

38. The establishment of 31 GP Super Clinics, of which 17 have had funding agreements finalized with development activities underway so that primary health care services can be enhanced in local communities.

39. A $3.2 billion investment that will deliver on more than 36 major health infrastructure projects across hospitals and medical research, including $1.3 billion in a new National Cancer Initiative as part of the single biggest investment in cancer treatment ever.

40. A $491 million Teen Dental Plan to help eligible families with teenagers get a preventative dental check - which has already seen over 384,000 teenagers receive a check up - to enhance preventative health.


Funding under the National Health Care Agreements over time



Climate change & water

Addressing the impacts of climate change requires action globally, nationally and locally. The Government is taking strong and decisive action now, to build a lower pollution economy, create low pollution jobs and sustainable water supplies Australia for the future.

To prepare for future challenges on climate change and water, the Government has:

41. Ratified the Kyoto Protocol, as the first act of the new Australian government, and is giving effect to its climate change commitments by:

  • introducing legislation to create a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that, from 2011, will for the first time impose a cost on the carbon emitted into the atmosphere;
  • supporting Australian industry to transition to the introduction of a carbon price through the Emissions Intensive Trade-Exposed Industry Assistance Program, the Electricity Sector Adjustment Scheme and the $2.75 billion Climate Change Action Fund; and
  • providing assistance to 2.8 million low-income and over 97% of middle-income households to adjust to the introduction of a carbon price from 2011-12 through a package of direct cash assistance and tax offsets.

42. Reached agreement with the States and Territories to introduce a Mandatory Renewable Energy Target that requires 20 per cent of Australia's electricity to be obtained from renewable energy sources by 2020.

43. Initiated a $4.5 billion Clean Energy Initiative to speed the growth of clean energy generation - especially low-emission coal and solar technologies - to reduce carbon emissions and stimulate economic activity in a sector that will support thousands of new low-pollution jobs. This includes $2.4 billion for low emissions coal technologies, $1.6 billion for solar technologies and $465 million for other renewable energy technologies. The Solar Flagships program will see an additional 1,000MW of solar generation capacity in Australia - the largest solar energy project currently operating anywhere in the world.

44. Committed over $4 billion to energy efficiency measures, including the Energy Efficient Homes Package which will install ceiling insulation in up to 2.9 million homes and help more than 300,000 additional households install a solar hot water system, reducing carbon pollution by around 50 million tonnes by 2020.

45. Implemented a $12.9 billion national water strategy that:

  • established a Murray-Darling Basin Authority as an independent, expert body to manage the water resources of the Murray Darling and to establish for the first time a basin-wide cap;
  • for the first time initiated purchasing of water entitlements by the Government to return water to the environment, including the purchase of 297 gigalitres of water entitlements to date;
  • committed $5.8 billion to improve irrigation infrastructure and water use efficiency in rural Australia;
  • for the first time made a direct Commonwealth investment in urban water security projects across Australia including the $1 billion National Urban Water and Desalination Plan, which provides $228 million for the Adelaide Desalination Plant, establishes Centres of Excellence in water recycling and desalination in Brisbane and Perth, and provides $200 million for stormwater harvesting and reuse projects; and
  • provided rebates of up to $500 for households to install rainwater tanks or greywater systems under the $250 million National Rainwater and Greywater Initiative.

A new way of governing

Finally, the Government has sought to directly engage with the Australian community wherever they live because we believe that Australia needs a new way of governing that is open, accountable and in touch with the evolving needs of the Australian community.

To support a new way of governing, the Government has:

46. Directly engaged local communities and expertise beyond government on current and future challenges facing the nation, including by:

  • hosting a national 2020 summit focused on Australia's future, which generated more than 500 school and local summits around the country and which will from June be sustained on a continuing basis through regular on-line discussions involving the PM and key ministers across all of the challenging areas in the 2020 summit to sustain the dialogue with the community on ideas for the future;
  • taking Cabinet to the people by holding regular community Cabinet meetings across the country, including in a remote indigenous community; and
  • hosting jobs and training summits in areas at risk of high unemployment bringing together local governments, businesses, charitable organisations and community leaders.

47. Forged new co-operative arrangements between all levels of governments, with the aim of ending the blame game:

  • using COAG as a workhorse of national reform (having convened it seven times in 18 months) to reach national agreements with the States and Territories on health and ageing, productivity reforms (education, skills, training and early childhood), housing, closing the gap for Indigenous Australians, business regulation and competition, infrastructure, climate change and water and agreeing a new overarching framework for Commonwealth/State financial relations based on outcomes; and
  • establishing an Australian Council of Local Government to give a voice to local government on matters of national significance.

48. Created a register of lobbyists to ensure that, when ministers are approached by lobbyists, they know whose interests are being promoted.

49. Introduced legislation to make it easier to obtain documents under Freedom of Information laws by removing the scope for ministers or others to issue conclusive certificates under the FOI and Archives Acts.

50. Introduced legislation to reduce the disclosure threshold for political donations to $1000 and to remove tax deductibility for political donations, as part of a broad program of electoral reform to enhance the integrity of our electoral system.


There is no doubt that Australia faces significant challenges as we grapple with the global economic recession, but we are well placed to respond to these challenges, to work together and to look to Australia's future with confidence.

This report provides an overview of the Government's progress in implementing its election commitments, implementing its reform agenda and cushioning Australia from the worst impact of the global recession.

Much remains to be done. I look forward to continuing to work with all levels of government, all sectors of the economy and local communities to build an Australia which is stronger, fairer, and better prepared for the future.


NOTE: The full report is available as a PDF under 'downloads' on this page.