Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for allowing us to debate this issue, because this is a very important issue which does go to the heart of good governance. You would have thought that other issues such as the debt ceiling should be properly debated in this place, but the government has closed down that debate just as it has chosen to close down any debate about the member for Dobell's one-hour, uninterrupted statement to the House.

When it comes to an issue such as the government's need to rein in spending there is a simple fact that Australians need to remind themselves of each day. The Labor Party has accumulated the four largest budget deficits in Australian history, totalling $174 billion. At the same time, the Labor Party is today spending $100 billion a year more than the last year of the coalition government just 4½ years ago. One of the reasons why this is a significant number is because it was at that time that the now Treasurer, the member for Lilley, said:

If the government pretend that interest rates are low then they do not have to admit that it is their policies that are putting pressure on the rates. What is putting pressure on the rates? What is partially responsible for this? It is the big spending, high taxing government.

He went on to accuse the then Treasurer, the member for Higgins, Peter Costello. He said:

... the member for Higgins, a man acutely embarrassed by his record of taking the proceeds of the mining boom—

Get a load of that! Acutely embarrassed about his record!

spending like a drunken sailor and building nothing that lasts for the Australian people.

I will tell you what we built. We built a surplus of $20 billion a year. We built a Future Fund, with $70 billion in it. We built a government that was $100 billion a year smaller in expenditure than what Labor is today. We built in an economy that had an unemployment rate with a four in front of it on a permanent basis. We built an economy with strong economic growth. We built an economy that was resilient and was able to withstand the worst of the Asian financial crisis. But when it comes to this government, which picks and chooses its measurements, I would say to you that it is the government's own spending that continues to put pressure on the economy and put pressure on the budget, because, when you set the benchmark of expenditure, you would say to yourself that what the now Treasurer, the member for Lilley, said at the time was 'a big spending government'—$100 billion a year less in expenditure; it represented, at that time, 23.1 per cent of GDP. In 2008-09, the government jumped it to 25.2, then 26 per cent, then 24.7 and then 25.1 per cent. Next year, miraculously, somehow it is going to drop to 23.5—and that is because of the money shuffle that we all know about—and then 23.7, 23.5 and 23.6 per cent. The net outcome of that is that, in no year of all the time of Labor in government, nor in the years that it promises to deliver a future budget, will it ever reach the low levels of expenditure of the last year of the Howard government, which they said was 'a big spending government'—a big spending government that was $100 billion a year smaller in expenditure that this current government.

But we know why Labor should not be trusted with money, and it comes back to waste. There is a conga line of example of initiatives, from $900 cheques going to dead people and people living overseas, to pink batts going into homes and causing the homes to be burnt down, to the massively overpriced Building the Education Revolution school halls program, particularly in New South Wales.

Even today we hear of new initiatives. This week we found out in Senate estimates that Senator Conroy spent $526,000 on selecting 11 ABC and SBS directors. He spent $50,000 on each directorship, on finding a director. And, in that situation, he appointed a very respectable but long-standing Labor icon, Jim Spigelman, as the chairman. So he spent $50,000 going through the parade of trying to identify directors. And then they appointed someone that they were extremely familiar with.

On 14 May, Labor allocated $36 million more for carbon tax advertising—and it does not mention the carbon tax. Surely you don't need to be John Singleton to work out that if you are going to spend $36 million on an advertising program you should mention what the product is. That is kind of obvious, isn't it? We do not have to go to the 'Where do you get it?' ads—do you remember those ads in the 70s? 'Where do you get it?' Where do you get the carbon tax? From the Labor Party. Where do get the carbon tax? From Julia Gillard. Where do you get the carbon tax? You get the carbon tax in your bills. That is a pretty simple ad, and you just got it for free. You didn't have to spend $36 million. But I tell you what—what a great use of taxpayers' money: $36 million to tell people that they are advertising a carbon tax and the ad does not even mention the tax itself! But wait—there's more!

The Gillard government is spending $20 million promoting the National Broadband Network, which is a now-$50-billion program that the government thinks people should know about. So, just in case you have not noticed the excavator out the front of your house, they are going to take out ads on your TV to tell you that you should be signing up to the National Broadband Network.

But there is, of course, more. The one that most Australians would be most angry about is the blow-out of $1.7 billion for Australian taxpayers in the costs of managing the asylum seekers arriving on illegal boats—$1.7 billion. This is the latest blow-out. It includes a blow-out of $424 million on this year's figures and it will add a debt cost to taxpayers of an extra $1.1 million a day. So, for so long as you can see, taxpayers are going to have to pay $1.1 million a day just on the interest for the debt that has accumulated because the Labor Party does not know how to control the borders.

But, of all the examples they continue to roll out, the ones that are most on people's minds are the ones where better management could deliver a better outcome. Take Labor's digital set top boxes installation program—an average of $350 per installation per box. Harvey Norman is offering them for $168, and Gerry Harvey would discount that too; he might give you five years interest free on that as well—might toss that in. The Australian reports now that the average installation cost of the set top boxes has risen to $700 a unit. You could buy the whole TV—you could probably get 52 inches for $700, couldn't you?

The Australia Network tender—what a great tender that was! Labor's bungling of the Australia Network tender has cost at least $2 million. It was recommend to the government that Sky News should receive approval to continue with the Australia Network, and then there was an internal struggle—remember that?—between the then Minister for Foreign Affairs and the minister for communications, and they were swapping responsibility between departments. The net result was that compensation is now being paid to Sky News for winning the tender but not getting it.

And of course there are others. The Australian Research Council is spending millions of dollars on questionable research projects, such as on climate change emotion. I will tell you, there is plenty of emotion in here about that. Here is another one: ancient economic life in Italy. Well, we are watching what is happening overseas quite carefully, and I think contemporary Italy is more interesting than ancient Rome. Other projects include: $578,792 to the University of Western Australia for a study of 'an ignored credit instrument in Florentine economic, social and religious life from 1570 to 1790'—

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