Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Mayo's important motion today. The people of Australia expect and, indeed, deserve an honest and transparent government, and I strongly support the member's ongoing dedication to minimising the damage that has resulted from the Gillard Labor-Green coalition government. I note that as of last Friday, 7 September, the member for Mayo had 85 as-yet unanswered questions in writing to the government. The government's refusal to release Treasury costings of Greens policies is more evidence that Australians are not receiving those honest answers.

Firstly, I respect the right of every Australian to make an informed decision at the ballot box and to assess what is important to them on election day and vote accordingly. Every member of this House understands they represent not just the people who vote for them but each individual elector and their community at large. At the 2010 election, almost 17,000 people in Ryan gave the Greens candidate their first preference, and I have certainly undertaken to represent the strong concern in my electorate about environmental issues. Many people also vote for the Greens and then give either the ALP or the LNP their second preference in order to send a message that sustainable management of the environment is important to them.

Thousands of hopeful voters in 2008 in New South Wales voted for many Greens candidates in their local government elections. Most grievously, people in Marrickville woke up one day to discover that they had the Greens party trying to implement foreign policy through their local council. I wish I could say that this example is but an exception to the rule for the Greens; instead, it is a regretful situation that the heinous Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel is a symptom of the hard left New South Wales Greens. On Saturday, voters woke up to the extreme policies of the Greens and sent them a very strong rebuke. Indeed, in Marrickville, the Liberal Party could have two councillors for the first time in the council's 150-year history.

I think it is important in that context, however, to discuss what a Greens government would actually do to this country—and we already have evidence. As a result of the Greens, we have the world's only economy-wide carbon tax and the government is going to waste $10 billion on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. We have an unfunded dental scheme celebrated by the Greens, yet another example of a multibillion-dollar announcement from Labor-Greens, without having any idea of where the money will come from.

That is why today's motion is so important and why the coalition questions Treasury's decision to refuse the member for Mayo's freedom of information request about Greens policy costings because they contained material prepared to inform deliberations of government. We are not talking about cabinet minutes; we are talking about policy and costing proposals from the Australian Greens, policies which form a direct part of many of the government's most disastrous policies. We know that the Greens pretend to be advocates for transparency; they often demand 'more transparent, accountable democracy'.

The Labor Party has trashed the system of producing regulatory impact statements, which are supposed to follow Office of Best Practice Regulation guidelines. The Productivity Commission's interim report has exposed this Labor-Greens government's trashing of accountable and transparency government. We saw this—as Henry Ergas discussed in the Australian today—during the passage of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Bill through the House, when the government ignored modelling from the Centre for International Economics because it exposed the legislation for what it was: poorly designed, rushed-through legislation that would result in far more costs than benefits. As is the wont of this government, it then decided that the solution was to do new modelling and—would you believe, surprise, surprise—an RIS was produced supporting the government.

Today's motion is so important because, on closer inspection of Greens policy, they believe that economic growth and trade are destroying the globe and must be stopped. On their website, the Australian Greens declare, in their own special weasel words, that they want 'an economy that meets human needs'. They declare that they would abolish the private health insurance rebate completely, increase the tax on family trusts, increase income tax, introduce a death tax and increase the company tax rate. They even want to renationalise companies which provide public services.

Australians want and deserve transparent and accountable democracy. With the current Labor-Greens government they have neither. Therefore, I strongly support today's motion and insist that Treasury do the right thing by every Australian and release the requested documents.

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