Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I am certainly pleased to have this opportunity to speak in the cognate debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2010-2011 and related bills—in other words, on the Rudd Labor government’s most recent budget. It is instrumental when looking at the Rudd Labor government’s performance over the past almost three years to look at the way in which this government has truly come to fruition in terms of the promises it has made to the Australian people and how much it has actually delivered. It is instructive when you look at the journey of the Rudd Labor government and at the state of the nation’s economy to look at who it is we now have governing this country and what their philosophical and ideological beliefs are.

We know in 2007 that the Prime Minister stood before the Australian people and said, ‘Elect me because I am fiscally responsible, I am economically conservative and you can trust me.’ Shortly after being elected the Prime Minister wrote a treatise effectively in which he spoke about the dangers of neoliberalism, about the great concerns that he had about capitalism and about the structures that this country and others have had in place for decades. He did it in the context of global economic tumult as a consequence of the so-called GFC. I have no doubt that, within the core of the man who is our Prime Minister, there is a wholly unreconstructed socialist who is pulling the levers of the economy of this country.

As a young man growing up I often heard comments about former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Gough Whitlam is heralded as being among the greatest of the Labor pantheon. He was a man who represented all the greatest ideals of the Australian Labor Party. His approach to government in a short period of time—I would argue, with my knowledge of history, it was too long a period of time—did incredible economic damage to this country. A common statement was that the very last thing Australia needed was another Gough Whitlam. I almost thought it was common knowledge. Unfortunately, that is where we find ourselves with this Prime Minister. This Prime Minister and his Labor government in less than three years have brought profound change to this country, and I predict it will take decades to repair the damage that has been done.

We know the former coalition government, in 12 years in office, did a number of notable things. Among them was the full repayment of $96 billion of Labor Party debt. The Labor Party have form when it comes to managing the nation’s finances and their form is to spend big and to tax big. Every time Labor are in power in this country they spend recklessly and then have to raise taxes to pay off their debt. Every time Labor are in power they drive the budget into deficit. Every time Labor are in power there is a reason why it has to happen. This government once again, true to form, have done exactly that.

So after 12 years of diligent, disciplined, safe stewardship by the former Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Treasurer, Peter Costello, the coalition paid off in full Labor’s $96 billion debt. We effectively lifted a burden off future generations of young Australians so that they would not have to pay the price for the ridiculous and reckless spending of the previous Labor government. We got the budget back into the black, and because we had paid off the debt and had the budget back in surplus, we were able to ensure that instead of paying billions of dollars every year towards the repayment of Labor Party debt, that money was better able to be channelled into the programs that the Australian people needed.

It was done in two ways. One was through investment in issues like health, education and infrastructure, and the second was through the provision of tax cuts, meaningful tax reform and personal income tax cuts. Those tax cuts, when it came to personal income taxes, amounted to around $150 billion. Our tax reform package, which Labor opposed, included the abolition of wholesale sales tax, which was being levied—I think from memory—at 12, 22 and 32 per cent, and it was replaced by a single growth tax, the GST, with all the funds flowing directly to state governments so that they had an ongoing source of revenue. That was the tax reform legacy of the coalition. More than that, the previous coalition government brought about reforms which actually reduced this nation’s unemployment level to a 30-year record low, to below four per cent. So I believe on any measure that Australians can be justifiably proud of the performance of the previous coalition government.

Contrast that with what we see happening under the appropriations bill and the performance of this government. We know that there was global economic tumult. We know that there was some need for some stimulus of the Australian economy. But the problem is that what the Labor Party gave the Australian people was not what they promised or what the Australian people wanted. What the Labor Party has given all Australians—and, most distressingly, future generations of young Australians—is debt and deficit. In the short course of around two years this Labor government has racked up what is expected to be net peak debt of around $95 billion. So we spent 12 years paying off the debt that Labor gave us, only to have them in two short years turn around and deliver another $95 billion of debt. That is the indictment on the Australian Labor Party, because it will be my children and the children of tomorrow that have to pay off Labor’s debt.

Frankly, I—and I know many other people in the community—get fed up with Labor Party politicians and with this Prime Minister and this Treasurer marching around the country claiming to be Santa Claus, saying, ‘If you do not like spending on schools, then get out of our way. If you do not like spending on these projects, get out of our way. If you do not like spending on this new initiative that we have got, get out of our way.’ I say right back to the Australian Labor Party—what I believe in and I know young Australians believe in—and that is: let us have sustainable spending and value for money, not the kind of ridiculous, wasteful, reckless spending that we see from this government, which has absolutely scant regard for value for money and for what Australian taxpayers work damned hard for. Australian taxpayers can spend their money a lot better than Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, and it is disgraceful that the Labor Party would dare to stand up and argue that $600,000 school canteens and $1 million covered outdoor learning centres, which only two years ago had a cost of around $200,000, are in some way justifiable given the economic tumult.

It is absurd that Labor Party politicians would say to future generations of Australians: ‘Yes, we know we promised that we were going to provide a computer to every child in school between year 9 and year 12. We know we have only delivered 25 per cent of that—one in four. And we know that the cost has doubled to now be in excess of $2 billion. But that doesn’t matter. It’s only a billion dollars!’ So a billion dollars on computers in schools, several billion dollars under the so-called Building the Education Revolution, billions of dollars wasted under the solar program, homes burning down under their completely bungled and botched insulation program—and Labor members have the audacity to look Australians in the eye and say, ‘We’re doing a good job.’ How patently absurd.

I went to the opening recently of one of these new so-called education revolution buildings at one of my schools in Moncrieff. I endured a Labor senator standing there and waxing lyrical about how visionary the BER was and how it was a record investment in Australia’s school needs. I had the opportunity to speak, and when I stood up in front of those children I said to them: ‘You should enjoy this building. The community should own this building because, you know what, the community is going to take decades to pay off the debt that put that building there—decades to repay the $95 billion of debt that needs to be repaid.’

We hear the sophistry of the Treasurer when he says, ‘We’re going to get Australia back in the black in three years time,’ as if in some way it is a credit to their economic stewardship. But they will not have Australia back in the black in three years time. They might, if everything goes exactly according to their overly optimistic forecasts, get Australia’s budget a billion dollars back into surplus, but the $95 billion debt will still be there—and it will be there for decades. So when I see people like the member for Lindsay, who spoke prior to me, stand up and crow that Labor has Australia in the lowest net debt position in the Western world, I am forced to scratch my head over what an incredibly misleading tale Labor members provide in this parliament. The reason that Australia has the lowest level of debt in the Western world is because of the starting point: zero net debt—in fact, nearly $50 billion worth of assets.

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