Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak in support of the amendment moved by the Prime Minister to censure the Leader of the Opposition for:

(1)

his failure to stand up for the interests of Australian motorists and consumers;

(2)

capitulating to the interests of big oil companies;

(3)

failing to put forward fully costed budget proposals; and

(4)

continuing the practice of economic irresponsibility.

In their last budget the Howard-Costello government shovelled a record $40 billion out the door in new spending—$40 billion in just one budget. It is no wonder that inflation hit a 16-year high. They denied in government that inflation was a problem even though there were 20 separate warnings from the Reserve Bank, and they are still in denial. Now they want to punch a $22 billion hole in the surplus that we need to fight inflation. We delivered a budget that was economically responsible but that addressed the long-term task of dealing with the infrastructure bottlenecks and the skills shortages that were in the economy.

The shadow Treasurer, of course, is still in denial that inflation is an issue—they say it is a fairytale—but of course this is the same shadow Treasurer who thinks that a 25 basis points increase in interest rates is overdramatised in terms of the impact it has on working families. They were out of touch in the lead-up to the last election, which is why they lost office, and they remain absolutely out of touch. The fact is that the opposition, when they put forward their budget response, put forward a grab bag of unfunded, uncosted and undeliverable promises. It was all about appealing to their backbench rather than the broader community. The community knows that without economic responsibility you cannot deliver on social programs and on long-term economic needs.

Indeed, the opposition have even gone so far as to criticise the Building Australia Fund. In his National Press Club speech the shadow Treasurer criticised the BAF for having no rules and no investment benchmarks. But it took them 20 months to issue an investment mandate for the Future Fund. They announced the Higher Education Endowment Fund in the 2007-08 budget but six months later at the election there was still no mandate. But they think that you can just make promises, more promises and then make some more promises without saying where the money is coming from.

They have blocked in the Senate the heavy vehicle charges that they called for, that were initiated by the white paper of 2004. That was supported by COAG in April 2007. On 28 June 2007 the then transport minister, the member for Lyne, said:

The National Transport Commission will develop a new heavy vehicle charges determination to be implemented from 1 July 2008. The new determination will aim to recover the heavy vehicles’ allocated infrastructure costs in total and will also aim to remove cross-subsidisation across heavy vehicle classes.

That was initiated by them in government but opposed by them now that they are the opposition. And they speak about advice from the Treasury! This is what Ken Henry, the Secretary of the Treasury, had to say about this issue. On 21 May he said:

The road user charge for heavy vehicles is not the most important structural policy matter likely to confront the nation’s parliaments this year. But it would be one of the easiest ... and it is a pre-condition for other, more important, land transport reforms.

A ‘precondition’ is what the Secretary of the Treasury said about this important reform. Of course, when we announced it this is what industry had to say; we sat down with them. The headline on their 29 February press release by Stuart St Clair of the Australian Trucking Association was ‘Rudd government listens to the trucking industry’. I spoke to the ATA yesterday. This is the Australian Trucking Association, the industry body—

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