Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition’s MPI is about the alleged squandered opportunities of the government’s 10 years in office. I intend to talk about the squandered opportunities of the Labor Party’s 10 years in opposition, and let me begin by saying that the Leader of the Opposition did at times in his ministerial career have a reputation as a decent human being and as a competent politician. But he is rapidly losing that and is rapidly squandering any public standing that he has. While he rails endlessly about alleged problems over which he has no responsibility, he singularly fails to fix the problems for which he does have responsibility. This is a man who talks endlessly about probity in government but is singularly incapable of establishing probity in opposition.

We know that very much today because, while he was speaking on this MPI, there were three significant absences. There was the absence of the shadow minister for overseas aid and Pacific island affairs, who has just lost his preselection and shows his contempt for the leader who did not protect him by absenting himself. Then there is the shadow minister for agriculture and fisheries, and the member for Hotham, both of whose preselections are under attack from the faceless branch stackers of the Victorian Labor Party thanks to the spineless, supine behaviour of the Leader of the Opposition. They are shoring up their preselections as best they can rather than supporting the Leader of the Opposition in this MPI.

Let me just make this point: every single question in parliament this year has been about the alleged wrongs of the Australian Wheat Board, AWB Ltd. This is a significant issue—there is no doubt about that—but out there in the cities, towns and country areas of Australia, is this the only thing on people’s minds? No, it is not. It is the only thing on the Leader of the Opposition’s mind, because a scandal a day keeps his own problems away. The longer that he can keep fulminating about AWB, the more he can avoid dealing with the problems that he really should be tackling.

Of course people are interested in corporate and institutional honesty. They want their officials to behave properly, but they know that all of this matter is now before the Cole inquiry and they trust Justice Cole to come up with the answers to this issue much more than they trust a self-interested and fulminating Leader of the Opposition. I simply put it, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the House: does anyone really think that a government which thought so ill of the regime of Saddam Hussein that it committed the troops of the Commonwealth of Australia to invade that country would have tolerated for a second the bribing of that regime, had it known about it?

This MPI alleges squandered opportunities of the government’s 10 years in office. We have made our mistakes, I am sure. We have not got everything right—of course. We are only human. But net government debt in 1996 was almost $100 billion. It is now negative $1.3 billion. Average mortgage rates under the former government were 12.75 per cent; under this government, 7.15 per cent. There were 8.3 million Australians in work in March 1996; there were 10 million Australians in work in December last year. That is 1.7 million new jobs. The unemployment rate in March 1996 was 8.2 per cent. It is 5.1 per cent now. Average inflation: 5.2 per cent under the former Labor government, just 2.4 per cent under this government.

In 1995 the Australian standard of living ranked 13th in the OECD; last year we ranked eighth in the OECD. Real wages growth under the term of members opposite was 0.3 per cent. Under this government it has been 15.5 per cent. Total household wealth was $2,048 billion in March 1996 and $4,553 billion in December last year. It has more than doubled. I could go on and on about the comparative performance of this government and the former Labor government. I think it is pretty obvious that whatever mistakes we have made, whatever sins of omission there may have been, this has been a government which has taken its responsibilities seriously and which has delivered a better life to the overwhelming majority of the people of Australia.

Let us talk about squandered opportunities. I can make all sorts of criticisms about the Australian Labor Party and my criticisms will be discounted because I would say that, wouldn’t I? But someone who cannot be discounted, someone whose criticisms have to be taken seriously, is the member for Batman, Mr Martin Ferguson, who said of his own party in yesterday’s Australian:

The result is that after a decade in Opposition we have plenty of storytellers but not much of a story to tell. This will not be remedied by rubbing out sitting MPs in safe Labor seats in favour of party hacks with factional numbers on public office selection panels or through branch stacks.

They will bring nothing to the caucus except a further choke on the free development of an innovative policy agenda and a further weakening of the elected caucus in favour of the centralisation of power to a few trade union and party officials in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

So where are the declining standards of integrity? Where is the lack of accountability? Where are the squandered opportunities of the last 10 years? According to an opposition frontbencher, the member for Batman, they lie on that side of the parliament. We have seen a lot of huffing and puffing from the Leader of the Opposition against the government. If he were serious, if he were a man of strength, what he should be doing is lifting a finger to protect his own colleagues whose preselections are currently under threat.

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