David Hawker (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As my colleague points out, a slush fund. When we listened to some of the pronouncements made in relation to this infrastructure fund, it was pretty obvious that a lot of it could be used to paper over the mess that some of the state governments are making. When I say ‘paper over’, I mean that there is no indication that there will be proper accountability. Having been involved in trying to get some accountability into the way the states spend money, I assure honourable members on the other side that, despite all the rhetoric, the states are very good at covering up what they are really doing. I do not believe that this government will find it any different.

Looking further at the approach of this government: it has been suggested that there are already more than 100 task forces, reviews and white papers which have been announced. In other words, it is going to be government by review. No real decisions are going to be taken in so many areas; already they have all been deferred. In some cases, these deferrals are for more than three years, so the government does not want to make a decision in the whole term of this parliament. I think that is a huge disappointment for the Australian people: to think that they elected a government and that this is its approach. While these reviews may be very interesting, the only thing they will do in the short term is create a lot of highly paid jobs for some of the mates of the government, as we have seen in so many of the states. It is very much an indication of what we see in the states’ approach to governing.

Having limited time, I will quickly run through some of the more specific things in the budget. As I mentioned, it is disappointing. There is a lot of indecision and there is a lot of work on this thing called ‘spin’, which is going to be the hallmark of this government. It has been well-reported recently—not earlier but recently—that so much is being tailored for the 24-hour news cycle, and the budget reflects that in so many ways. We have seen some increases in taxes, but you could not exactly call them taxes which are in the main area. We have seen the ready-to-drink alcohol tax—and I will come back to that, because if ever there was something dreamt up a week before budget date to fill a gap then that must be it. There has been a 10 per cent increase in stamps announced. We have seen an increase in the condensate tax on gas fields. You could call none of this deflationary, despite all the rhetoric about inflation. Today the Prime Minister wound the rhetoric up a few more notches and talked about the ‘inflation monster’. Yet, when we look at the budget, we see that there are increased taxes in some areas that will really have a major impact on inflation.

Another announcement was the changes to private health cover. There is no doubt that not only will the changes that have been mooted put up the price of private health cover but they will put more pressure on public hospitals. I think people are going to lose on that both ways. Other prices will also go up—things such as the so-called luxury car tax.

As I have mentioned, the spending is going to go up, so all the talk about inflation really does not match the detail of the budget. I look at a couple of other areas. The government made a lot of noise about climate change, but what have they done? They have cut the solar panel industry to pieces. People who make solar panels are virtually facing the prospect of going out of business. That is a local industry that has been cut to pieces. The government’s proposed emissions trading is nowhere in the budget or the forward estimates. Yet if, for example, there were a $25 a tonne carbon tax then that would add $10 billion to the tax on Australians.

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