David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this matter of public importance brought forward by the member for North Sydney. It is ironic that it is the member for North Sydney that brings forward this MPI, given the fact that he is the one that has confirmed that there is a $70 billion black hole in the opposition's costings. He has done it twice now on breakfast television. We all know about that occasion when he did it, when the minister for the environment was also side by side with him on breakfast television, and he confirmed that the $70 billion figure was correct. But after all of the hot air that we have heard from him since, we see today he went back on breakfast television. It took him a little while, but eventually he conceded once more that he does have a $70 billion black hole.

To give this some context, this $70 billion black hole comes on the back of that $11 billion black hole that they had in their election costings.

Mr Hartsuyker interjecting—

The member opposite—always one to walk into it—has come forward making an interjection about some mysterious $120 billion—no fact, absolutely no basis, no substance, another one of these Liberal scare campaigns. In fact, he is not even a Liberal. He is part of the tail that has been wagging the dog of economic policy for the Liberals—he is a National member. He is out there making these claims about $120 billion. Well, it is rubbish. There is no $120 billion black hole, and if they believe there is, provide some evidence. Tell us where this $120 billion black hole is. But when it comes to the $70 billion black hole, don't believe me. Go and talk to the shadow Treasurer. He is on the record, not once, but twice, going on breakfast television and confirming a $70 billion black hole.

But what was interesting about the comments that he made today on ABC 24 was that not only did he confirmed the $70 billion black hole, but he went on to say, 'Up to,' and when he did that, he goes on, 'what we are saying was, we will find the savings, and we have found the savings.' So he is not just saying that they have a $70 billion black hole, and not just acknowledging that they are going to need to find $70 billion worth of savings to plug the loophole. Mind you, they have not revealed to the Australian people any of these savings, except, of course, for the 12,000 public servants that they want to sack. We heard the member for North Sydney once more, on his feet just a few minutes ago, when he started talking about all these people in the public service. What he did not tell us was how many of them he intends to sack. But he has done that on a previous occasion—12,000 is the current figure. Twelve thousand. It is starting to sound familiar, isn't it? It is starting to sound just a little bit like Queensland. In fact, when we have a look at what is emerging, it is a pattern—a pattern of deceit, a pattern of Liberal and National deceit. I think it can best be described as the five-point plan coming straight out of the Liberal playbook. It always starts with step 1: talk down the economy. It does not matter how good the economic figures that are released are, the member for North Sydney has always got some spin that turns it into doom and gloom. You would think that we were a Third World country, if you listen to Premier Newman or some of those in New South Wales. They are out there saying, 'The Australian economy is up there in the same league as the Greek or Spanish economies.' Does anyone seriously believe that?

Let us have a look at the facts. We have an economy where our budget is returning to surplus. We have growth that has been achieved since the GFC of 11 per cent—our economy today is 11 per cent larger than it was before the GFC. Show me a major advanced economy, anywhere in the world, that comes within a hair of that 11 per cent growth—head and shoulders above all of our competitors, but they talk the economy down.

Unemployment is just over five per cent. We have interest rates at record lows. Remember they told us all, at a previous election, 'Interest rates will always be lower under the Liberals.' Then we had 10 consecutive increases in interest rates. To put some facts into the debate, interest rates are lower today under the Labor government than they were when the Liberals left office. In fact, a family on an average mortgage of about $300,000 is paying $4,000 a year less in their repayments. Four thousand dollars a year less—these are the facts.

We talk about strong growth, low unemployment, contained inflation, not to mention the record pipeline of investment coming into this country—half a trillion dollars worth of investment scheduled to come into this country in the resources sector alone. In addition to that, we know that our net debt—and they talk about debt and deficit—is peaking at less than 10 per cent of gross domestic product—less than 10 per cent of the size of our economy. When you compare that with our competitor economies, it is about a 10th of the average of other advanced economies. Anyone travelling to Australia says, 'What is the secret?' This is one of the miracle economies in terms of the GFC and coming out of the back of the GFC. The way in which the Australian economy is performing, it is outperforming all of its peers.

Those opposite come in here every day and talk down the economy. If they were in power, all of the indicators that they used to claim were the indicators of success. They used to say, 'We're a wonderful government, because interest rates are low.' Well, interest rates are low today. They used to say, 'We're a wonderful government, because unemployment is low.' Unemployment is low today. They used to say, 'We're a wonderful government because we've been growing.' The economy is growing today. On all of the measures that they previously stood up in this place and claimed were the benchmarks of economic success when they were on this side of the chamber, this government has achieved success. Our national economy gets a tick on all of these counts, yet day after day they come into this place and go out there into the community and talk down the economy.

They talk down the economy because that is step 1 of the five-point plan of the Liberal play book. Step 2, after they have spent all their time talking down the economy, is they make sure that they keep their policies in the top drawer. We heard from the member for North Sydney earlier today that they have costed all of these savings—$70 billion worth of savings. Have a look at New South Wales. The New South Wales Liberals have ripped $1.7 billion out of education. Look how much damage that has done. The federal party would have to make $70 billion worth of cuts. If you believe the shadow Treasurer or the member for Goldstein, who has previously said, 'We've done all the hard policy work, we've got the costings and we've got the savings,' they are in the top drawer.

They keep it in the top drawer. I am not sure if it is in the top drawer of the shadow Treasurer or the shadow minister for finance, but there is this folder. This folder has all of these nasty cuts that they want to make to health and education, like the cuts we have seen in Queensland and the cuts we have seen in New South Wales. I do not remember the people of New South Wales being let in on the secret before the New South Wales election. The Queensland people were not let in on the secret about all these cuts before the Queensland election. In the top drawer is a folder, and there is a label on this folder. The label says 'Commission of audit: recommendations', because step 3 of the five-point plan is that they hold a commission of audit.

So they would come in after talking the economy down, telling everyone that this is the worst economy in the world, and say, 'We have to take drastic action, and those policies that we costed that were sitting in the top drawer are mysteriously going to be the recommendations of the secret audit.' In Queensland they got Peter Costello to conduct the audit. I suspect that will not be happening. He is not the flavour of the month. In fact, given the way the coalition have turned their backs on rational economic policy, he has to pick up the pen and write opinion pieces day after day to point out what a tragedy it is that the once great Liberal Party, as he says, has now been taken over by that wagging dog of National Party agrarian populism. That is the shame about the modern Liberal Party.

The member for Higgins smiles. She smiles because she knows what a debacle it is that their economic policy is now being controlled by people who are xenophobic when it comes to foreign investment. They want to smash and break up Coles and Woolies.

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