Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I join with many members on this side of the House in fully supporting Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and cognate bills. It would be remiss of me if I did not start my contribution to the debate on the legislation by saying that it is a responsible effort by the government to bring the economy back into surplus as quickly as possible. I know that in their scaremongering some time back those opposite were declaring that it was likely that the economy would be in deficit for a decade or more. But one of the responsible aspects of this particular budget is that we have designed it to bring the economy back into surplus in three years. I know there are others around who want to dispute that. The shadow minister at the table, Mr Robb, is already on record expressing a number of views about that. But I urge them to go to the document itself and see what plans and proposals are there, see what the government are doing to bring the economy back into surplus. I think it is evident to all those out there listening to this debate that we should put aside the scaremongering that is taking place here, put aside the politicking that is taking place here. Those who are serious about building the community will see that this is a responsible budget.

I must stress that bringing the economy back into surplus in three years time is in excess of three years earlier than what was planned 12 months ago. Clearly, a number of things have happened over that period of time. Do not forget that our last couple of budgets were framed around a situation where we were planning our way through the worst economic crisis that had confronted the world in 75 years. That fact seems to have disappeared from this debate altogether. It certainly will not be raised on that side of the chamber. They will not raise the fact that Australia was one of the only OECD economies that did not go into recession.

The opposition finance spokesman is sitting at the table. The member for Goldstein criticised the government widely in his contribution to this debate. But, when he got down to talking about the world’s worst recession in 75 years, he categorised that as being simply one quarter of negative growth. I think they were his words. In his view, the stimulus package was all about addressing one quarter of negative growth. I do not think there would be a person out there—and certainly no-one at school who has read the papers a little—who does not understand that this was a very serious world economic crisis. It required attention. We are not going to point the finger at those opposite and say that we inherited office from a government that caused that crisis, because we know that is not true. But the thing is that we did not predict it either. We did not predict that there would be a crisis. We had to work towards addressing the situation, to overcome our position and to ensure that Australia’s economy stayed in strong hands.

It was only last week that the Secretary-General of the OECD commented on this. It did not take me by surprise that one of the things that he had to say was that Australia’s response to the global economic crisis was an exemplar to many of the mainstream economies. The fact that we went out and specifically targeted our stimulus package was something that was praised by the leaders of the OECD. That is what kept our economy from going into a recession—not one quarter of negative growth, as it is being portrayed now.

It was not all that far back that we were all shocked—and clearly the Americans were shocked—when Lehman Brothers became insolvent. The American government did not propose bailing that bank out. It was just going to be treated as a commercial reaction to the market. However, when that situation became more commonplace, the Bush administration found itself moving in to prop up America’s banks. In the land of the free they were moving in to nationalise some of their banks to make sure that they kept them afloat. Look at the world’s largest bank, the Bank of Scotland. It almost got renationalised. The British government, the British taxpayer, bought into 80 per cent of its shareholdings to keep that bank afloat.

We are not talking here about one period of negative growth, a blip on the horizon when everything was hunky-dory. This was a very significant period in Australia’s economic history, one that had not occurred in some 75 years and one that required an immediate and targeted response. For what it is worth, I was proud to be part of a government that took up the challenge to do that, to make that response, even when those opposite tried to vote down at each and every opportunity our proposals to spend stimulus money. Whether it was education, infrastructure development or community infrastructure projects, they were all opposed by those opposite.

We went on to guarantee bank deposits to keep our banks afloat. This did require a concerted effort, but it was left to one side of this place to put that effort in, to do the heavier lifting. We now reap from that the criticism of those opposite because there was a debt. Of course there was a debt. But, as opposed to what was being said 12 months ago, that there would be debt for the next generation, we are now paying that debt in three years.

Without apology, this is not a pre-election spendathon. This is not the traditional election budget we had over the 12 years of the Howard government, where people were hooked on middle-income welfare—where people with household income of over $1 million still had welfare payments going to those households. This is not one of those budgets. This is in stark contrast to what we saw during those 12 years. This is moving to do something with this economy by returning it to surplus and then allowing market forces to be stimulated as a consequence.

As an aside, Madam Deputy Speaker, last week I heard a comment that a former opposition finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, made on ABC radio. We are pretty thick skinned on this side of the place, we are used to a bit of criticism, but Senator Joyce wanted to criticise the government for not introducing the promised dental scheme.

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