Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

There is a scholar and a speaker in the United States by the name of Joel Barker, who is known in corporate circles as the paradigm man. He is said to have popularised the concept of a ‘new paradigm’. So there is nothing original under the sun. Mr Barker begins his lectures on leadership and vision with these words:

Vision without action is just a dream. Action without vision is just passing time. Vision with action can change the world.

What do we make then of a leader with no vision and no action—not dreaming, not even passing time, just a hollow vacuum occupying the job of Prime Minister, courtesy of the factions that put her there and holding onto government courtesy of the Independents? That is the legacy three years on of this government.

It is not as if the Prime Minister has not been pressed endlessly to come up with a vision or a plan for Australia. Just before the election on 20 August, News Ltd published an article by the Prime Minister. It was in response to a request for her to lay out her vision for Australia in 2013. It was a free kick for the Prime Minister. Supported by her army of ministers, advisers, bureaucrats and not to mention the highly paid speechwriters and consultants, she had to come up with a plan for the nation. How timely was that? Just days before the election it was an opportunity for the real Julia to show real leadership—to inspire, to move people by her insights, to lay out a path and an agenda that would carry the nation to greater heights for the betterment of all. No, we were not expecting soaring rhetoric. We were not expecting a Chifley ‘light on the hill’ rallying call. We were not expecting a Menzies ‘forgotten people’ masterpiece. But we were expecting more than a depressing and dreary insight into this Prime Minister’s limited depth and breadth of thought. Her article started off, predictably, with her usual declaration of a belief in the power of hard work and education—okay, so far so good. She then went on to say we should:

… show simple courtesy and respect by caring for each other in times of need.

Fine. The Prime Minister said that she will be guided by those values. That, members of the House, was it. The reader should have been really worried by that stage. Surely, this Prime Minister realises that those principles have been advocated by every Prime Minister and virtually every parliamentarian in history. If this is her vision, with whom is she trying to contrast herself by sprouting motherhood statements? Hard work, education, courtesy and respect are all laudable, but, seriously, this was meant to be her vision, her agenda and her plan for 2013. This was meant to inspire people to vote for her in 2010, yet she could only sprout sentiments held by every politician in the past 100 years.

The Prime Minister listed her priority of investing in infrastructure and nominated as key the National Broadband Network, the trade training centres for schools and the GP superclinics. These were the central planks for her vision for Australia. It was strange that the horrendously overpriced school hall program did not appear on her list, given that she had personally presided over that $16 billion disastrous program. One could almost forgive the Prime Minister for being embarrassed about that program with billions wasted due to her incompetent administration. As we know from the leaked Labor caucus meeting minutes of 24 June, the Building the Education Revolution was deemed to be one of the three great failures of the Rudd government. It was strange that the Prime Minister failed to mention her delivery of the trade training centres, and that is because she did not deliver on Labor’s 2007 promise. It was also strange that she failed to mention that Labor failed to deliver any but a small fraction of its 2007 promise on GP clinics. That was it for her vision. She summed it up this way:

My vision is for a country that works, step by step, towards better jobs, better opportunities and better services for all Australians.

‘In contrast with whom all those governments that actively work to ensure, step by step, worse jobs, fewer opportunities and worse services.’ Perhaps we do have the key to her vision after all: the Prime Minister was comparing her agenda with that of state Labor governments. This Prime Minister’s benchmark for achievement is to aspire to be better than state Labor. That lowest common denominator thinking will be the hallmark of federal Labor forever more.

One of the more depressing aspects of the Prime Minister’s statement of vision for the nation was that of the 650 words in her statement about 200 were dedicated to personally attacking the Leader of the Opposition. So 30 per cent of her vision for Australia involved a personal attack on the Leader of the Opposition—so much for courtesy and respect. This is where the slag and bag began—in that vision statement and the attack on the Leader of the Opposition. What a depressing, disappointing and lazy effort it was by someone campaigning to be the Prime Minister of Australia.

Perhaps I am being too harsh, because it is entirely possible and becoming more plausible by the day that this effort was in fact her most honest revelation, that it is the extent of this Prime Minister’s vision—empty, vacuous and hollow. Since the election there has been a vacuum of leadership by the Prime Minister. A government’s agenda should be designed to give people hope that it is capable of improving their lives, making things better not worse, ensuring the government passes on to the next government a better set of circumstances than it inherited. Governments should build on the policy agendas of their predecessors and further expand economic reforms put in place by successive governments. The Hawke and Keating governments built on the work of the Fraser government by opening up and liberalising our economy, particularly the financial sector. The Howard government implemented economic reforms that built on the Hawke and Keating agendas.

One of the great legacies of the Howard government that was bequeathed to this Labor government was zero government debt. The Howard government paid off the massive debt accumulated under Labor—$96 billion of debt was paid off over 10 years. Then with $60 billion in savings and a budget surplus of more than $20 billion, this Labor government inherited the best set of books of any incoming government in our nation’s history. It was presented with an opportunity unlike that of any incoming government, which put this government in a stronger position to weather the global financial crisis than virtually any comparable economy. Yet when it was in opposition Labor opposed every reform of the Howard government and now deludes itself that it was good luck, not good management, that it inherited such a fantastic set of books.

To the great cost of this nation, it is only now clear that it was not luck but the good management of the coalition government. And, despite her professed belief in hard work, the Prime Minister lacks the grace and dignity to acknowledge the Howard government’s achievements. In a number of manifestly visionary moves, the coalition established the Future Fund so that future generations of taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the superannuation entitlements of those in public service in this generation. The coalition established the $6 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund and the Leader of the Opposition, when health minister, established a medical infrastructure fund. Our vision was for these growth funds to exist in perpetuity to provide universities and hospitals with an additional source of funding for their infrastructure needs. The first thing this government did was raid those funds and spend that money, and this Prime Minister is personally responsible. She pillaged the Higher Education Endowment Fund.

Labor has spent these funds while at the same time plunging the budget deeply into deficit. It has managed to plunge the government back into the depths of Labor’s debt last seen in 1996. This government will never repay its debt. It never has; it never will. And despite its rhetoric no-one seriously believes this government will ever deliver a budget surplus. This government will go down in history as providing a far worse set of accounts than it inherited by providing economic ‘reforms’ that take the country backwards not forwards. It will be the first government in living memory that leaves this country far worse off than it was under the preceding government—apart from the 1996 Labor government. What a poor and sorry history and what a poor and sorry example of leadership for this country.

See this speech in context