Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member on the other side of the House ought to be aware that what the Labor Party inherited in 2007 was the strongest economy. We were considered at the time the ‘wonder economy down under’. We had no debt, we had money in the bank, we had low unemployment and business confidence was at record highs. What we have now, after 15 or 16 months of Labor administration, is debt spiralling out of control, rising unemployment and business confidence at its lowest level since records have been kept. And all that is meant to be because of a global recession. I say to the Labor members: charity begins at home. You should be looking at the domestic economy and talking about how you are going to manage the domestic economy rather than blaming other countries. You are blaming the world recession for things here at home. There are difficult economic circumstances globally. We acknowledge that. But, while you continue to talk about external threats to our economy, you obviously have taken your eye off the ball in relation to the domestic economy.

I well remember when Prime Minister Rudd was first elected and those first few meetings of the House. He was always reaching across the chamber, seeking bipartisan support from the opposition to become engaged in his agenda. It was always bipartisanship. We offered bipartisanship in relation to this stimulus package, but we were given 48 hours to consider a $42 billion spend. There was no bipartisanship. It was, ‘Pass it or else.’ He was going to get it passed; he was going to deal with the Senate and the Greens and the Independents to pass this package. We offered bipartisanship. We said that the tax cuts that were already legislated should have been brought forward. What would that have done? That would have given all taxpayers a tax cut. It would have been a stimulus to help them deal with their mortgage stress. It would have given all taxpayers a stimulus and spread it across the economy. We said, ‘If you reduce income tax, you also grow the economy.’ But there was no bipartisanship when it came to this stimulus package. It was charge the barricades and crash or crash through. There was no more bipartisanship.

If only they had listened to some of the advice that we had received from businesses and small businesses and chambers of commerce in our own electorates, we could have had a package that we believe would have delivered the jobs that are needed. It would have delivered the support for jobs, the creation of jobs and the creation of new infrastructure that is needed when you start spending something like $42 billion.

As I travel around my electorate, and perhaps it is one of those very fortunate electorates—it is not all rural; there are a lot of mining opportunities; the Surat coal basin lies under almost the entire area of Maranoa; there is great activity going on there—small business operators say to me: ‘Why is everyone talking the economy down? What we need is some confidence out there so we can encourage people to have some confidence to go out and spend, have a night out, maybe go for a holiday, buy a new dress, buy some electrical equipment.’ We have to start to talk positively about the economy. There are many farmers in my electorate who say, ‘We know it’s tough, but we’ve been through tough times before.’ I can assure members opposite that those farmers have been through plenty of tough times before: drought, low commodity prices and corrupted world markets that they have to compete against. They know what it is like to be tough. And they are saying to me, ‘Yes, it’s a bit tough, but we’ve been through it before.’ They are not talking negatively about the economy. They say, ‘We’ll get through this.’ They have a positive approach because they are going to get out the other side. Farmers, small business operators and workers say to me: ‘When is somebody going to talk positively about the economy? Yeah, we know it’s going to be difficult; we know it’s tough.’ There is one thing that is very Australian: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. That is a very Australian thing to do.

Whether they are in business, whether they are people on the land, whether they are the workers out there, they all know it can be tough, but they all know how to batten down and get out the other side. But they need people talking positively about the economy, not always talking it down. And all we hear about is this global recession—another crash here, another crash there. It is not happening around them; they want some people to start talking positively about the economy. It is very important to try to ensure that the worst of the global economic circumstances do not manifest themselves because we have talked ourselves into worse economic circumstances and unemployment than otherwise would have been the case had we kept some confidence in the business community. We all know business runs on confidence. We have to start talking more confidently about the fact that we will come out of these tougher times. Farmers have been through it before; they have been through it hundreds of times. Many of them are going through it right now, but they are still positive about the future.

Talking of debt, one of the things that worries a lot of people out there is the magnitude of the capacity of this government, as a result of the passage of these bills, to borrow up to $200 billion of debt without a plan to repay that debt. It worries them because they know that it is they who will have the responsibility to repay it through their taxes. They also know that their children will be paying it. It is a generational shift of that responsibility to repay a debt, and it worries families greatly. But we always know with Labor that they just cannot manage money. We are seeing that right now in the Queensland election. Here we have Premier Anna Bligh calling an election six months early. She says that she is the best placed to manage the economy of Queensland. Notwithstanding that we have been through boom times in Queensland—mining royalties, the GST flow and the stamp duty on sales and transactions—Labor have a $73 billion debt.

In Queensland, Treasurer Fraser announced just prior to the calling of the election that the budget is now in deficit. The state budget is in deficit. After the rivers of gold have flowed into the coffers of the Treasury in Queensland, not only does he have a $73 billion debt but he has also announced that he has a budget deficit. Of course, Queensland’s credit rating has been downgraded to AA. Not even Morris Iemma in New South Wales could do that, but they could do it in Queensland, and the Queensland Labor government is now in caretaker mode. So they are the best placed to manage the economy? Who are they kidding? I assure you, they are not kidding the people out there in the electorates, because people out there, proud Queenslanders, are very angry to think that their state is now in the situation of having a $73 billion debt when the government has not presented to the people of Queensland how that debt is going to be repaid. It is a tragedy for Queensland, but it will be another government—a conservative government, an LNP government—that will repay that debt and get the books back in order, as has always been the case.

I want to move on to the part of the appropriation that talks about the water appropriation, the $500 million. That was part of the package agreed to by the Independents—in fact, Senator Xenophon. Minister Wong, the minister for the environment and water, I think—

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