Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills. I would like to take this opportunity to speak about some important issues central to the economic prosperity and wellbeing of the people of Australia and of my electorate of Swan. I will begin by sharing my overview of the budget.

The budget handed down by the Treasurer almost two weeks ago reminds me of a tepid cappuccino: all froth and very little substance—and, may I add, even the chocolate is spread pretty thinly on top. The government portrays itself as a good economic manager, but this facade is wearing thin. The reality is that this budget fails the future test because it does not deliver the necessary reform and investment in infrastructure, education and aged care that is required to build Australia’s future productivity and prosperity. It is a budget of a government that has run out of ideas and is content to sleepwalk into the future, squandering the proceeds of a once in a generation mining boom.

My colleague the shadow Treasurer explained the impact of the mining boom on the budget when he said that the current mining boom has injected $55 billion into our economy over the last year and more than $300 billion over the last five years. This massive injection of cash is masking the fact that Australia’s productivity growth is so low. This government has failed to responsibly invest the extraordinary bounty brought about by the mining boom. Every aspect of this budget is about buying votes instead of expanding the economy’s long-term economic capacity by investing in infrastructure. As a Western Australian I am critically aware of the important role that export infrastructure plays in driving economic growth. The export sector of our economy requires expenditure on infrastructure to remove bottlenecks and to ensure that our export industries can compete effectively in world markets.

Mr Deputy Speaker Haase, as you would know, Western Australia is the engine of Australia’s current economic prosperity. Government coffers are overflowing with billions of dollars in revenue, thanks largely to the mining boom in Western Australia, from your own electorate of Kalgoorlie. But during this time of economic prosperity the government has returned only a pittance of these resource dividends back to Western Australia to meet its infrastructure needs. Prudent economic management dictates that this budget should have seen funds invested in infrastructure to pave the way for a higher rate of economic growth in the future. Why has this government ignored infrastructure investment? In my address in reply last year I posed the same question and reminded the House of the fact that the business sector, the OECD and the Reserve Bank have all identified infrastructure investment as a priority. One year on and unfortunately nothing has changed.

I have drawn the House’s attention many times to the fact that the Great Eastern Highway, which runs through my electorate, is a vital link in the national highway network. It is the major arterial road which links Perth to the eastern states and carries much of Perth’s industrial traffic, along with airline passengers entering or departing the state or who work in fly-in fly-out positions in our mines. The widening of the section of highway between Kooyong Road and the Great Eastern Highway bypass is critical for meeting the demands of a growing city, and the inadequate condition of the road places pedestrians and drivers at risk. It is a key piece of road infrastructure that deserves the attention of the federal government.

Although this part of the highway is clearly part of the national network, the federal government claims that this is a matter for the Western Australian state government to resolve alone. Such buck-passing clearly shows that the federal government does not understand the importance of infrastructure in building Australia’s future prosperity. This is particularly galling given that thousands of these road users are accessing the airport because they work in fly-in fly-out positions in the mining industry, again in the electorate of Kalgoorlie—the very industry that is generating the rivers of tax revenue that flow east but, unfortunately, it seems not in similar proportions back west. Contrast the government’s failure to invest in vital national infrastructure with their drunken-sailor spending on political advertising—$200 million of taxpayers’ money spent in a desperate attempt to get re-elected. This is a national disgrace and one for which the Australian people will not forgive the coalition.

The Prime Minister’s hypocrisy on this issue is breathtaking. Consider the history. On 6 September 1995, the Canberra Times published a report by Ross Peake, which stated:

Mr Howard complained that the Government was spending money on advertising campaigns for superannuation and the job creation programs in the Working Nation statement. Mr Howard says: ‘In a desperate attempt to find an election life raft, the Prime Minister—

Paul Keating—

is beginning an unprecedented propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money.

In a report in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6 September 1995, Mick Millet reported that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, attacked the Keating government for spending millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on advertising and approved a move to give the Auditor-General the power to veto such ads if Mr Howard became Prime Minister. And on and on it goes.

The current Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister during question time last Wednesday whether the Prime Minister regarded the government’s taxpayer funded $200 million advertising campaign as ‘sound, and economically prudent’. The Prime Minister said that he did not regard the government’s Work Choices and superannuation campaigns as being politically motivated. Such statements beggar belief and are testimony to the fact that this government is mean, tricky and out of touch. Remember that the phrase ‘mean, tricky and out of touch’ was not made by the Labor Party; it was made by, I think, the National President of the Liberal Party or someone in a very senior position in the Liberal Party. So ‘mean, tricky and out of touch’ was from the mouths of the government themselves.

The bottom line is that, rather than investing in the upgrade of the Great Eastern Highway, the government has chosen to invest $200 million of taxpayers’ money in political advertising in an attempt to save their own jobs. This road project would cost, in total, $160 million if funded entirely by one body alone. What we are not asking for is $160 million. What I want to see out of the federal government is $80 million—half the money, a fraction of the amount they are using in advertising—so that we can then get the state government to commit to half the money themselves. It is pathetic that the government is spending $200 million of our money on advertising but it cannot give us a measly $80 million to start doing this vital work in my electorate. Why has the government failed to invest in this important piece of national infrastructure? It is because residents living in the marginal federal electorate of Swan do not even make a blip on the Treasurer’s economic radar. Many of the local residents I speak to are outraged at the government’s lack of urgency in dealing with this matter. Their repeated calls for funding have gone unheeded time and time again. I call on the government to stop the buck-passing and ensure that the Great Eastern Highway upgrade project receives the funding it requires.

Western Australia is leading the nation in terms of economic growth and job creation. Therefore, it would be fair and reasonable to assume that the government would ensure that Western Australia is endowed with the very latest in telecommunications technology. Sadly, this is not the case. The fact of the matter is that Australia is a dinosaur in telecommunications, and this federal budget has done nothing to drag us out of the broadband Stone Age. In this world of globalisation and economic interdependence, it is demoralising that Australia continues to lag behind countries such as Korea, Japan, Canada and the US as a consequence of the government’s neglect of telecommunications policy.

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