Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion on the MySchool, MyHospitals and MyChild websites should win a prize—it is one of the most hypocritical I have seen since I have been in this place. It is a motion one should describe as an own goal, or a self-inflicted wound. Where does one start to dissect a motion that talks about this government's performance, or about how greater access to information helps Australians make the best choices? It is self-evident that greater access to information helps Australians make the best choices—just look at what happened at the last election, back in August, when Australians went to the polls.

At that time, the information on the carbon tax that Australians had access to was a solemn promise from the lips of the Prime Minister that there would not be one. If Australians had greater access to information and had not trusted a single word that came out of the Prime Minister's mouth, they would have made the best choice and simply not voted for the Labor Party. While on the subject of access to information and helping Australians to make the best choice, last night we had 'Carbon Cate' and this ridiculous 'We say yes' campaign on TV—possibly the most dishonest and deceptive advertisement ever shown on national TV. How can Australians seriously make the best choice when served up such dishonesty?

One of the golden rules that applies equally in government as it does in life is that you should practise what you preach. Unfortunately, that does not seem to apply to this government. If this government truly believes greater access to information helps Australians make the best choice, what about the NBN? Certainly a cost-benefit analysis would help provide greater access to information about the NBN. A cost-benefit analysis would help this Labor government but, instead, it is rushing ahead and spending billions of dollars on a lick and a promise when already the alarm bells are ringing loud on the NBN. If the member for Fraser, who moved this motion, truly believed that greater access to information helps Australians make the best choices, why is he not demanding that a cost-benefit analysis be undertaken before they spend a further dollar on the NBN? Hypocrisy, thy name is Labor.

We have also seen this government's approach to access to information with its simplistic notion 'let us build a website'. Who can afford the high farce of this governments GroceryWatch website? Perhaps the worst thing about this website is the damage it did to the credibility of the ACCC. The ACCC took a political stance by aiding and abetting this Labor government's attempt to flog the lemon of GroceryWatch while the public was laughing at them. What the ACCC should have been doing was prosecuting this government for misleading and deceptive conduct.

If this member truly supports Australians having better access to information about government performance, how about a website that details the Labor government's performance in relation to the debt that they have created? Let us have a website that informs the public about how this government is building a mountain of debt by borrowing $135 million every day or $5.5 million every hour or $93,000 every minute. We could call it 'Labor debt watch'. Unfortunately, the problem with such a website is that it would struggle to keep up with the growing mountain of debt.

We could also have a website that informs the public about the effect on prices from a tax on carbon dioxide at different rates. The website could set out how much electricity prices would rise with a tax set at $20, how much electricity prices would rise if the tax were set at $30, at $40, at $50 and so on all the way up to $100 and more. We could also have a website that informs the public about how much this carbon tax will actually reduce global temperatures. In conclusion, this motion is just a further demonstration of how out of touch this government is and how their real intention is to hide the facts about this government's dismal performance.

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