Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the House allowing me to speak in this third reading debate. I spoke on this legislation yesterday in the Main Committee and expressed some concerns about particular aspects of it, including a $14 million allocation for a national advertising campaign relating to the promotion of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. There is a lot to be played out with regard to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. As anyone who follows public policy closely will recognise every day when they read the newspapers, there are a range of opinions on the proposed scheme that we are waiting to have presented to this House. I certainly look forward to having the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme come before this parliament. I do think it will be an important debate for this chamber and the Senate to consider.

In light of that, I think there are grounds on which not to support the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009 and the allocation of $14 million for a national advertising campaign to promote this scheme either at the same time as the parliamentary and public policy debates are occurring or, of more concern, prior to those debates taking place.

There were also some issues raised in the Main Committee with regard to inconsistencies in the narrative on climate change that is contained in the appropriation bills. Without entering into debate again, I would encourage anyone who has a particular interest in this matter to feel free to read the speech. The reason I speak in this third reading debate is to flag the issues addressed in the speech in the Main Committee and to ask the Senate to consider those issues in detail when they look at this legislation.

The other issue of significance, not related to climate change, which is contained within this bill—a significant appropriation bill; I heard today that it is an appropriation of around $3 billion, and a non-budget appropriation, so out of the budget cycle—is the allocation of funding for financial regulators to improve prudential management within Australia. The figure, off the top of my head, is about $25 million. The issues that I raised last night, which I hope the Senate can consider, relate to the untold story of public sector losses and, as an extension of that, taxpayer losses over the last 18 months in the build-up to this significant global environmental ‘crisis’. It is the untold story of the position we are in. In a lot of ways this has been positioned as a private sector crisis and an international private sector crisis. However, there are outstanding questions that I do think we as federal parliamentarians and as the executive should take a lead in addressing through the three tiers of government and through the various semistatutory and non-statutory organisations. On the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald today there is an article about the G8 universities complaining about their exposure to various losses, which are in effect losses of taxpayers’ money. Therefore, we need to go through the process of establishing the accountability trail. How much exactly has been lost in the public sector and who is accountable?

For example, a council in my electorate on the mid-North Coast has $25 million, or a quarter of its investments, exposed to questionable CDOs. It argues the case that it was done completely within investment guidelines given to it by the New South Wales Treasury Corporation. There are other stories, such as one of a similar council in WA with $80 million of exposure. The stories are endless with regard to just how much taxpayers’ money is exposed or has been lost in the current economic conditions. It is not to rake over coals but to place value and weight on taxpayers’ money and to put in place for the future some strict prudential rules within the public sector as well as within the private sector. Either people have been in breach within the public sector and deserve to be held to account or, in many ways of more concern, they have not been in breach and we have some structural issues that we need to deal with in this country in protecting taxpayers’ money.

I flag this for the Senate to consider as this bill heads up to the other place, because within this appropriation bill there are some substantial funding allocations that in the early weeks of the return of the parliament might not have been given the review by the non-executive members of this chamber that this appropriation bill deserves. It is for this reason that I spoke last night in the main chamber and want to have my voice recorded against this bill. I highlight that there are many good aspects of this bill. The organ donor awareness and the prevocational GP places are excellent work by government. However, there are aspects of this which deserve public debate, deserve the scrutiny of the Senate and hopefully more people within this chamber and within the public policy arena and, I would hope, also review by the executive.

Some of the issues within this legislation, even in the quick moving times of two or three months ago when this bill was introduced, may even be up for question now. The one that springs to mind is a $28 million allocation for the Aussie pavilion at World Expo 2010. In light of the times, if we move forward to 2010, there will be a lot of people hurting domestically, international economies will be on the back end of 18 months of spanking and the message being sent to the domestic and international markets might want to be reconsidered as a slightly different one to a $28 million spend for a pavilion for a period of six months. For these reasons I want to have my voice recorded against this bill. By all means others, such as members of the coalition, can consider joining me. Hopefully the Senate will also consider taking on board some of these comments when they are considering this legislation in a short time.

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