Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design) Share this | Hansard source

Just under 12 months ago, the former government left this economy with no debt and a strong $20 billion plus surplus. Within 12 months the surplus is virtually all spent, and the community is being softened up for deficit spending and a return to debt. It took 12 years to build these foundations and only 12 months to undermine them.

The Howard-Costello government fixed the financial infrastructure of our great country. If we had not paid off the $96 billion debt left to the country by the former Labor administration, if we had not done the hard yards, if we had not had a plan and if we had not had some comprehensive, concerted effort to reduce and eliminate that debt then Australian taxpayers would have paid more than $100 billion over those 12 years in interest payments alone on Labor’s debt. Think of the millstone that would have been for our economy over the last 12 years. We would have paid $8½ billion a year in interest. If we had not paid off Labor’s $96 billion debt then Mr Swan would have forecast four deficits last week, not four surpluses, because $8½ billion dollars a year of taxpayers’ money in interest rates would have been going out the door.

The government would not have had the $10 billion that is the subject of this bill; it would not have been available. This is a bill which we support and, like all the other measures of the government, we reserve the right to be able to ask legitimate questions about the effectiveness, the structure and the way these things will impact on individuals around the country. If we had not built the record surpluses and created multibillion-dollar reserves, Australia would be far worse placed to deal with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We would not have been in a position, as we are now, to spend $10 billion as a fiscal stimulus. This option would not be available to us. We started with 20 per cent of GDP as debt 12 years ago. Now it is zero; in fact, it is negative debt because of the massive reserves that we have built up. Compare that with United States and most of the OECD, who have 50 per cent of GDP in government debt today. How well placed are they to deal with this crisis compared with Australia? Why? This job was done through financial management over 12 years. In 12 months those foundations have been undermined severely.

All of this effort to remove the debt took measured judgement. It required accountability, and we were accountable. We did not object to people asking questions, because it helped us get policy right and it helped us make right decisions. It required an ability to listen, which is something very foreign to those on the other side of the chamber. It required resolve and it required considered, informed responses seeking the right advice, not making a decision about an unlimited deposit guarantee of great consequence which has subsequently been one of the biggest bungles we have seen in economic management for a long time. They took that monetary policy decision of great moment and did not even have the Reserve Bank in the room. They did not even ask the Reserve Bank’s explicit advice about the merit of such a proposal or how it should be structured so that there would not be a lot of unintended consequences.

This is an approach of ill-informed responses and ill-informed decisions. Yet what do we see with this government in the face of a financial crisis? We see in many respects, as I look across the chamber, a rabbit in the spotlight. They spent 11 months doing nothing, taking no decisions. We saw all talk and no action. That is what you hear all around the country. What do a lot of people who voted for you on the other side of the chamber say to me? It is deep disappointment: ‘They are all talk and no action.’ Not being used to taking decisions for 11 months, when they finally took a decision and introduced an unlimited deposit guarantee it was rushed, it was bungled, it was not well informed, it was not coherent, it was not logical and consistent, it was not easily followed and understood and it was not a plan where all the elements stick together. This is not a coherent strategy to deal with the deep malaise that could confront us if we do not act properly.

Anyone who dares to probe, anyone who dares to question and anyone who dares to make suggestions is not answered. They are defamed, they are put down, they are ridiculed and they are vilified. It is a form of McCarthyism. If anyone asks questions about infrastructure funding, they are accused of being against nation building. If anyone asks questions about the government’s response to climate change, they are labelled a sceptic. If anyone has any questions about immigration, they are called a racist. If anyone questions any of their economic documentation or reports, they are accused of attacking Treasury officials. This behaviour is a part of a broad, deliberate campaign to silence any legitimate questions. It is a form of McCarthyism by those opposite. They fear being accountable, but the nation will suffer and their government will suffer if they are not accountable. You make good decisions by being held accountable. You do not make good decisions by silencing people and by ensuring that no-one else has a point of view that is considered.

It betrays a state of mind in this government which is defensive and which in many respects is lacking confidence. It is a state of mind lacking an instinct for managing an economy. They do not know what they do not know. We saw today the arrogance of ignorance again on display in this chamber from those opposite. It betrays a government which has no plan. It has no plan; it has got a political strategy but it has not got an economic strategy, and that is the problem. So when we ask legitimate questions about the economic advice on which these critical decisions rest, we are accused of vilifying Treasury officials. For example, my comments yesterday were not directed at the Treasury.

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