Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today’s matter of public importance is very well timed. Today we have seen the most compelling evidence that this is a government that is totally preoccupied with its own survival. This is a government that is willing to do anything and say anything to get re-elected. As the previous speaker proved, it is willing to slander anybody, attack anybody and override anybody to scrape up some electoral advantage for itself. The Treasurer is accusing senior members of the press gallery of being liars. He talks big over a few bottles of red wine, then he has a panic attack and insists that his bragging was off the record. He said he would destroy the Prime Minister, then he lacked the guts to follow through. He denigrated the Prime Minister behind his back, then he denied to his face and to the public that he did it. He safely ridicules former Prime Minister Keating from this House, but he does not have half of Paul Keating’s ticker. If one doubts how division is consuming the government, one only has to see the performance of the Minister for Ageing on TV this morning. He was asked about the Treasurer and he was effusive. He was asked about the Prime Minister. He made a face, said nothing and walked into the House.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is totally obsessed with preserving his reputation. He had the chance to bow out gracefully last year but hubris got the better of him. Hubris is followed by nemesis, as it always is. In his desperation he is lashing out at the states, claiming credit for state initiatives he thinks the voters will like and sticking his nose into areas where he thinks he can find some advantage. Once it was possible to respect the Prime Minister as a born-again economic rationalist, even if we disagreed with his principles, but no longer. Now he has thrown overboard the advice of Mr Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury. He has thrown overboard principles in pursuit of naked political self-interest. Whatever happened to small government, to states’ rights, to federalism? Robert Menzies would be horrified to see the rampant centralism, the big government and the high-taxing, big-spending excesses of this government. Their TV advertising is bigger than that of McDonald’s and Coca-Cola combined. None of the strong Liberal premiers of the past—Bolte, Askin, Court or Playford—would have tolerated a Liberal Prime Minister behaving in this way.

Now we have a government that is so determined to get itself re-elected that it is willing to spend unprecedented amounts of taxpayers’ money on thinly disguised political advertising. This year alone we have got $14.5 million for promoting private health insurance, $15.8 million for promoting so-called simpler superannuation; $12.9 million on something called Skills for the Future and at least $4.1 million for selling the disastrous workplace relations laws. This is a scandalous waste, far outstripping any spending on political advertising by any previous government. Meanwhile, the problems this government has neglected continue to fester.

Many people on this side have spoken about housing stress. In my electorate 53 per cent of all households are in rented accommodation, which is the fourth highest rate of all electorates. More than 30 per cent of these households in my electorate are paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent. Rents in Melbourne have risen by nearly nine per cent in 2006 and they are still rising. People in St Kilda, Elwood, South Melbourne, Caulfield and Balaclava, many of them young families with children, are being squeezed out of the rental market, but they are shut out of the homebuyers’ market by rising property costs and rising interest rates.

The childcare crisis continues to affect many people in my electorate, as it does across the country. At one centre in my electorate childcare fees have risen by 39 per cent over the past year. Of course, fees rise because demand is outstripping supply. The government’s response is, ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ The government legislates to force mothers with young children to go back to work but does nothing to help them to find affordable child care, which is vital for working families.

Other vital issues are being neglected while this government is preoccupied with its own survival and its own leadership. The rest of the world is moving on to deal with issues of climate change, for instance. But this government is paralysed because the climate sceptics led by Senator Minchin are preventing any serious action. The honourable member for Tangney and his flat-earth friends have let the cat out of the bag with their dissenting report. Australia is paying a heavy price for this government’s inertia and policy paralysis.

Government paralysis is also evident in local education, which has seen 10 years of inaction. Only measures by the shadow education minister, the member for Perth, and Kevin Rudd have changed these schools, prospects and put pressure on this government to do the right thing. We have also seen evidence of this government’s preoccupation with its own survival in its shameless manipulation of the electoral system. Recent changes to the Electoral Act will deprive more than 100,000 Australians, mainly first-time voters, of their vote. The Special Minister of State will say that it was their own fault for not enrolling on time. What harm is done by allowing them the traditional five-day period of grace to enrol? The government hopes that by shutting 800 or 900 young people per seat out of the election it can scrape up some petty advantage. Maybe it will, but it will not be enough to save the Special Minister of State, the member for Eden-Monaro. (Time expired)

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