Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Our position as opposition does not preclude me from pointing out many of the inconsistencies of the administration on the other side. I am within my rights to stay within the matters pertaining to this bill. In this case, it is ministerial salaries, the right to increase them and the right to make subsequent increases by regulation. I am simply, in the period of time allotted to me, pointing out the enormous waste that has occurred. Each of the ministers should be speaking to this bill but they have not come and done so. I ask the ministers who thought up the 2020 Summit to come and speak on this bill. I ask the ministers who are asking for a pay rise, who dreamt up GroceryWatch and Fuelwatch, to come and speak on this bill. But they are silent, and that in itself says something about the subconscious guilt that exists on the other side about their performance in the last 2½ years.

In effect, with respect to the member on the other side—and I have taken this question in good faith—they are simply too shy to come up and justify a pay increase. I would not mind if this were a government that had set out with some pretty big challenges and had done fairly well. I would not mind if this administration had actually been fairly incompetent but not wasteful. But, no, they have wasted enormous sums of money. To the average small business holder in this country they would say, ‘If the till is a little bit out, there are plenty of workers around who have been asked to make up the difference.’ But there is no minister who will take responsibility for the enormous waste that we have seen.

I will commend one minister. The member opposite will be pleased to know that this is not all a rant of criticism. There is one minister who definitely, on fiscal responsibility alone, deserves the pay rise. The best finance minister that the government has had in a very long time is their very own Minister for Health and Ageing, who has spent the last 2½ years bringing in Treasury bills to save money in the guise of health legislation. The best examples of that were the alcopops legislation, the cataracts legislation and the cuts to pathology funding. We have had no serious health reform to remove the overlap, the waste and the cost shifting between Commonwealth and states. No, there is none of that, which would make a more efficient health system. There is just a more bloated one with pre-election promises and a whole series of Treasury bills that have occupied our health minister for 2½ years.

The minister’s first year was completely consumed by the alcopops debate—fighting over whether we taxed tiny bottles of sweetened alcohol. Then it moved to trying halve the rebate on cataract surgery, which for three months left seniors in Australia having no Medicare rebate to assist them with a cataract operation. Then, of course, there was an idea from the blind side to gouge into pathology rebates for seniors, leaving many of them without bulk billing. If there is one minister who does deserve a pay rise, it is the health minister for being a very good finance minister. But that is a complete disaster for health, as you on the other side know. How many of the superclinics have been built? Three have been built and only two of them are operational. Even today, we had 50,000 services delivered Australia wide out of 150 million needed. It is a speck in the ocean. So for health, it is a big D; for being a finance minister, it may well be a B-plus.

Let us move onto the promises about whaling. Wouldn’t a minister wanting a pay rise admit that they had failed in their pre-election promise to actually take Japan to court? Instead we have this perpetual and tired—

See this speech in context