Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to participate in this matter of public importance debate. My grandmother had a wonderful saying, that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I think that is an interesting adage to start my contribution today in the debate. Both previous speakers from this side of the parliament have talked about the surplus budgets that were enjoyed during the last resources boom by the previous Howard government and how they failed to spend wisely in the interests of the nation during those years. It is quite a long list of things that were not done, including investment in infrastructure to support our industries. We had 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia about capacity constraints, warnings about it leading to inflation, but still no action on the government’s part. There was no attempt to invest in our schools despite many public statements about the need for a national curriculum, the need for transparency, the need to improve literacy and numeracy.

There was no investment in health and hospitals. In direct contrast, we had over a billion dollars ripped out of the health budget by the Leader of the Opposition when he was minister for health. We saw a cap on the number of GP training places. These were significant investments in health that were completely ignored by the Howard government. There was a failure to invest in broadband for the future. What did they do instead? They sold off the public telecommunications company that would have made the rollout of national broadband so much more cost-effective and efficient for the Australian people. What about the lack of investment in social and community housing? There was very little indeed, housing not even given a place of importance in the previous government’s cabinet. And of course who can forget the lack of investment in skills development and training? I acknowledge that they did give apprentices tool boxes at one stage. We are not doing that, we are actually giving them training and the opportunity for real jobs. Did the previous government reach out during that time to help the homeless? No. Did they reach out during that time to lift pensions and assist pensioners? No. Did they reach out at that time to assist and support parents with the introduction of a paid parental leave scheme? No.

I can list a number of failed programs or mismanaged programs. I will never forget the introduction of the family tax benefit where they spent the first three years of its operation suing families for overpayments of family tax benefit instead of changing the system to make it more responsive to the way ordinary families live. Or Work Choices, the introduction of an industrial relations system that saw ordinary working families’ take-home pay reduced. They did not heed warnings from unions and many people at the time about the possible implications of that scheme. We have not even begun to touch on the government advertising. While I am on Work Choices, there was $55 million for Work Choices advertising in the first round, and in the second round a further $66 million to try and explain their scheme. Australian taxpayers were forced to pay $4,581 a month to store 3½ million booklets promoting Work Choices laws. Many of these booklets were eventually pulped, a further cost to taxpayers. I have not even talked about the pens, the mouse pads et cetera.

Who can forget, given the interchange between the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott’s infamous doctor recruiting campaign of golf balls? I also remember the Australian Wheat Board scandal, the $300 million given to Saddam Hussein. I remember the ‘outstanding’ Seasprite helicopter maintenance contract: $34 million a year at the very least to maintain a fleet of helicopters we did not have. That was waste and mismanagement. They sold nearly every Commonwealth building owned in Australia except for the Russell Hill complex and the Australian War Memorial, and I bet there were some who thought about doing that as well.

The test for the opposition tonight is not just whether the shadow Treasurer is numerate but also whether the Leader of the Opposition can be a statesman, because he proved after question time yesterday, in his attitude towards Gordon Brown and the change of government in the United Kingdom, that he does not have it in him. The test is on him tonight. We know that if they had been in charge of the government benches the Australian economy would be in recession. (Time expired)

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