Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak in the budget debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010, an appropriation bill which outlines the price Australian families will have to pay for Labor’s reckless spending spree over the past 18 months, and related bills. As a consequence of Labor’s senseless budget, forward projections indicate that there will be one million unemployed by 2010-11, a record $58 billion deficit and a record net debt of at least $188 billion by 2012-13. These figures are all key markers of the failure of the Rudd Labor government’s economic management. It is important that all Australians are aware of the damage that the Rudd Labor government has inflicted on our national economy. Two-thirds of the debt owed by taxpayers in 2012-13 will be due to spending decisions taken by the Rudd Labor government over the past 18 months. Paterson families are far worse off under Rudd, as are all Australian families.

Since the November 2007 election, Labor has announced measures which have increased Commonwealth spending by $124 billion. That is an average of $225 million of new spending every day. The Rudd Labor government must not continue to pretend that the destruction of our nation’s balance sheet is an unavoidable consequence of the global recession. It is a result of its economic mismanagement. The proposed budget highlights that the Prime Minister and Treasurer have failed to deliver a credible plan for recovery for the Paterson electorate. I listen to my constituents in Paterson electorate who call my office daily to tell me how they fear for the nation’s future under Kevin Rudd. They ask: ‘How can one man waste so much money?’ and ‘Will I ever be able to retire?’ Many add, when asked this difficult question, ‘I think to myself: how long is a piece of string?’

What this budget reveals is the biggest tax and spending binge in Australia’s peacetime history, driving an expansion in the size and scope of the public sector not seen since the Whitlam years. The electorate of Paterson is as diverse as it is large. Scoping south from Nelson Bay, north to Forster and Tuncurry and out west to the township of Gloucester, Paterson is filled with an array of industry, infrastructure and colourful individuals.

However, as diverse as all the 91,000-plus Paterson constituents are, they all have one thing in common: they are fundamentally and absolutely worse off under a federal Labor government. From broadband to education, health to energy and resources, Labor’s budget reveals that Paterson’s constituents will be left in the dark due to Labor’s reckless spending over the past 18 months. Not only that but due to the Rudd Labor government’s incompetence the constituents of Paterson will pay the price through higher future taxes, higher future interest rates, higher future foreign debt and higher unemployment. As I mentioned, no portfolio is safe from the Prime Minister’s tornado of destruction.

In the lead-up to the last federal election the current Prime Minister declared that he would fix health by mid-2009. Instead, Labor’s reckless spending means that Australians will now pay more for their health care. Alarmingly, whilst Labor splashed $23 billion in cash around the nation, not one cent went to health. Labor’s budget reveals that Australians will now pay more for their health care, with a tax on the private health insurance rebate, the Medicare safety net, and pathology and diagnostic services. Labor’s budget delivers a significant blow to the private health sector, despite the Prime Minister and Labor promising not to alter rebates for private health. 1.7 million Australians will be immediately affected by changes to rebates for private health insurance, facing either higher premium payments or higher tax payments through the Medicare levy. This includes nearly 50 per cent of all enrolled voters in the Paterson electorate—58,289 people who were deceived by the Prime Minister when they took him at his word that their private health insurance costs would not increase. It is an absolute disgrace the way that the Prime Minister has misled the people of Paterson in his pursuit for power.

Debate interrupted.

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