Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

This budget was an act of intergenerational theft because in one year the government spent the surplus from the last year, they spent the accumulated assets from the last decade, they spent the income from the current year and they placed a debt and a deficit on an entire future generation. Let me run through two things today: firstly, the numbers about this budget and, secondly, the problems with the particular environmental programs. When you turn to the numbers, they speak for themselves. The deficit in 2008-09 will be $32 billion. The next year it will be $58 billion. The next year it will be $57 billion. The next year it will be $45 billion. In the fifth year it will be $28 billion. All up what we are looking at over those five years is $220 billion worth of debt. But that is for those five years alone. We see that it will run out to 2016 before the expenditure begins, on a best-case scenario, to slow down.

So we are looking at a national gross debt of $315 billion, and that has to be paid off. In order to pay that off, we will see that, on $315 billion, if we assume five per cent interest, we are talking more than $15 billion worth of interest every year. That is an extraordinary figure, and that is money that would come from our hospitals, roads, schools—from our children and our grandchildren. That is the work of one year. If we had said prior to this year that, in one year, in a fit of panic, Mr Rudd would mortgage the next generation to the tune of $315 billion, who would have believed that possible? We would have been dismissed as incredible fearmongers. And yet we see that the minimum debt that this nation will face on a gross basis will be $315 billion.

That is a scenario that relies upon these fundamental assumptions: it relies upon record growth for a record period; it relies on record low expenditure for a record period, after we have seen the fastest-spending government in Australia’s history—in other words, a complete turnaround in character, complexion and intention on the basis of the projections in the budget; and it relies upon having to pay low interest rates for the bonds which have been dealt out to those who have taken up Australia’s government debt. These are the three fundamental assumptions just to get the best-case scenario of a $315 billion debt. That is why this budget in this year is an act of intergenerational theft. For one year’s madness in extraordinary expenditure the next generation and beyond will pay for it. That is why I worry.

There may be worthy individual project within this, but what we see is this: when you choose the entire menu, when you choose everything that is on it, then you have forgotten the notion that a budget is about living within your means, it is about making difficult choices, and it is about ensuring that one generation does not impose an act of intergenerational theft upon those still to come. That is why I have deep and profound reservations.

Even with this mass expenditure, there are serious programmatic flaws on the environmental side. Firstly, let me turn to the issue which I have just been dealing with—the management of Australia’s natural reserves and of our riparian areas by groups such as the Desert Uplands Build-Up and Development Strategy Committee—the desert uplands committee. The desert uplands committee is a perfect example of the problem that we face the way in which the Rudd government is acting. They are based in Central Queensland and represent an upland or a highland of desert area that is Australia’s No. 1 biodiversity hot spot. It used to receive about $800,000, the vast bulk of which—over three-quarters—came from the previous coalition government. Their work involved chronicling endemic species at risk; identifying strategies to deal with them; and putting in place riparian care, maintenance and management, which means protecting the headwaters of streams which run down to the coast, up to the Gulf, or out towards the Lake Eyre region. Yet we see that the care and maintenance which they have undertaken has been completely rocked, taken away and destroyed in this budget.

Why? Because instead of friends groups, local environment committees, Landcare and catchment management authorities getting funding, the money has been ripped away to supplement state Labor treasuries. State premiers have taken the money in a direct transfer, through Mr Garrett, from these small groups—Landcare, friends, catchment management. These groups have had the heart torn out of their work—and real work done by organisations, such as the desert uplands committee in Central Queensland, is being lost. That is important, that is real and that is profound. That sort of thing occurs throughout this budget.

The second example I want to give is in relation to water. What we have seen is a complete distortion of the plan which Australia needs. We need a plan to re-plumb rural Australia, not to buy the farmers off the land. Under us there was $5.8 billion set aside for re-plumbing rural Australia. For every $4 spent on re-plumbing there would be but $1 for buying water back—and only then after we had seen the re-plumbing. The ratio has been not only reversed but overwhelmed under the current government. In the budget papers we see that there is $75 million a year—that’s it—allocated to on-farm irrigation, to re-plumbing our farms, to fixing channels, dams and pipes, and to fixing up irrigation with a drip irrigation or modern centre pivot irrigation. We also see in the budget over $2 billion for buying out farmers, for selling out Australian farms and farmers, and for destroying jobs, as has been reported by one of the local mayors in the wake of the Twynam buyout.

The result will be very simple: we will lose our food security and our water productivity and waste 600 billion litres of water. Farmers in Queensland, in Bourke, Dubbo, Parkes and Condobolin in New South Wales, in Kerang, Swan Hill and Mildura in Victoria and in the Renmark and Waikerie districts in South Australia have said: ‘We’ll make 600 billion litres of savings if you invest in us and if you invest in the land.’ But that money has been transferred to buying out farms and farmers. That is a tragic outcome. Instead of the once-in-a-century re-plumbing of rural Australia, we lose this opportunity. It is a great blow and a massive waste of 600 billion litres of water.

This brings me to the final systemic flaw and it is for the environment. We see on greenhouse emissions the wasting of 85 million tonnes of CO2. The waste coalmine gas sector has set forward the prospect of saving 85 million tonnes of CO2 between now and 2020. It will also generate hundreds of jobs in outback Queensland and outback New South Wales. It will do this by harnessing the waste methane gas from fugitive emissions in coalmines. If it is not harnessed, we will see it being wasted directly or the opportunity for generating electricity lost.

Because of a simple flaw in the government’s emissions trading scheme, the entire government expenditure of $4 billion to save 50 million tonnes through energy efficiencies is overwhelmed by more than 50 per cent. It is completely wasted. There is $4 billion to save 50 million tonnes, yet with the stroke of a pen we could save 85 million tonnes. Instead, 85 million tonnes of CO2 is lost. This could be easily resolved. It makes the $4 billion of expenditure a complete waste and irrelevant.

It is time to move beyond mere symbolic action, to concentrate on real things which will save water and emissions and help groups such as the desert uplands committee. That is what sensible environmental management is about. This budget fails, firstly, the profound intergenerational test. It fails our responsibility to the next generation by saddling them with a minimum of $315 billion worth of debt. If but one of the three fundamental assumptions proves to be anything less than the most rosy and optimistic of the forecasts then the debt will blow out far more. Secondly, where it does implement expenditure it makes the wrong choices on water, it makes the wrong choices on energy efficiency and it makes the wrong choices for groups such as the desert uplands committee, who will be out of business. This will put endemic species at risk and instead the money will go to state premiers. That is why I respectfully but regretfully believe that this budget fails future generations and ultimately constitutes an act of intergenerational theft.

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