Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

On the day that the Prime Minister has unveiled a package to stimulate the economy it is particularly appropriate that we recognise why we are able to undertake this response today. The government—almost every senior figure—has been boasting that Australia is better placed than most other nations to respond to the global crisis. And they are right. But we could never have responded in this way if we had not had a coalition government for the last 11½ years. There would have been no Future Fund. There would have been no surplus to be spent. There would be no international reputation for credit reliability. There would have been no capacity for Australia to take any kind of leadership response to what is happening in the world.

Remember under the Keating government Australia’s credit rating was downgraded time and time again. Under the Keating government there was a $96 billion debt. You could not have stimulated this economy in the way that has happened today if you were carrying $96 billion of debt. Indeed, if Labor had been in office for the last 10 years and they had kept on spending the way they were, that debt would have been half a trillion dollars by now and the country would be weighed down by that enormous burden. There would have been no capacity for this country to respond. If there had been a Labor government over the past decade we would have had no surplus. There would have been no Future Fund and therefore no capacity to respond.

The very notion of responsible economic principles is one that is really new to the Labor Party. Even Labor Party backbenchers are well and truly aware of how wasteful Labor is in government. In fact I just point to the words this morning of the member for Lindsay who was asked when he arrived in parliament this morning: what could be done to help Australians deal with the current financial crisis? He replied with the following words: ‘It would be a unique situation to accuse somebody in the Labor Party of not knowing how to spend money.’ They are experts at it. They spend money they do not have. They leave debt to future generations. They come now into office and pretend to be economic managers because they have had at their disposal the good management, the skills, the reserves built up by years of coalition government. If Labor had been in office this would simply not have been possible.

Just ask some of the states, the Labor governments that are actually in office. Queensland, the resource state, the state that has had enormous earning potential over recent times, is currently heading towards a $65 billion debt. What is happening in New South Wales? The state is virtually insolvent after years of Labor incompetence. And there was the $96 billion of federal debt when Labor left office in 1996. Labor has been guilty of economic vandalism of the highest order. It was Labor’s incompetence over the years that led our country to face the crisis that we faced when we came to office. We had to restore an economy and restore confidence, and we were able to do something then to help Australia through tough times. We did not do that during easy economic circumstances.

This is not the first time that there has been a problem in the world’s financial system. It is not the first time there have been crises that had to be dealt with. Remember the extreme economic stress that the globe went through after September 11. Remember the Asian economic crisis. Remember the tech wreck, the SARS outbreak. There were all incidents that had an enormous impact internationally and which the coalition government dealt with. We dealt with them without a recession and at the same time we were able to balance budgets and build up reserves.

Labor are telling us that one of the things we have to do to resolve this issue is to spend more on infrastructure. Since Labor have come to office, in spite of trumpeting the suggestion that we should be spending more on infrastructure, they are actually going to spend less than the previous, coalition government committed. They have delayed the broadband rollout by at least a year. Who knows whether it will ever happen? Road construction projects have been slowed or axed. Many projects which could have been underway now, including the F3 to Branxton in the Hunter Valley, have been delayed by Labor. They have slowed infrastructure expenditure. Their comments are about needing to do more on infrastructure to build our nation’s resources—the initiative was to fight inflation and now it is to fight recession—but the reality is they have failed to deliver and their record is appalling. (Time expired)

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