Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for the protection, Madam Deputy Speaker, from this rowdy mob, although I have to say they are not as rowdy as the contributions we had just after question time. There was a fair bit of hide, a fair bit of bluster—and a fair bit of spittle that went around the room at the same time. But it always indicates to me just how shallow, hollow and how empty the rhetoric is—the louder it is. We saw plenty of that before from the shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney. Again, I thought I should have a close look at what this urgency matter is. What could be so urgent? Is something imminent about to happen? A collapse or an ending of something? This urgency starts to wear a little bit thin after more than two years of hearing it—'The government's going to collapse,' 'Something's going to happen,' all these things. It just is not the case. So I figured out what the urgency is. It is the urgency of these guys to warm their backsides on the seats of government. That is the urgency. The urgency is actually about them. It is about their personal urgency. They want to get on this side. That is the only urgency. These guys are in a hurry.

One thing that we do know is that they do not respect democracy. From day one the only mantra they have had is: 'We need an election tomorrow.' That is their whole mantra, that is their policy basis: 'We need an election tomorrow so that we can get to government quicker. Forget the three-year terms, forget the process, forget the Constitution.' The urgency of this motion is about how quick these guys can get themselves into the seats of power. Believe me, they have form. That is the only urgency.

Then I thought, if it is not just about the urgency issue, perhaps it is the control of government spending. What is urgent about the control of government spending? I thought there must be something disastrous happening either in Australia or in the world. I looked at the world and I thought, 'There is something disastrous happening.' Most of the world is feeling those ill winds of the global financial crisis. I know those opposite have forgotten already; they forgot the same day it happened. The global financial crisis, according to Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, just did not happen. They like to skip over that bit, because the Labor government actually did a good job of getting through it. So they do not want to talk about that; they do not want to remind people about that. So what is the urgency here? What is the getting back into control of the spending? I thought I had better go and check the books. What is the best way to find out if spending is out of control? Go and check the books. So I did. I went and had a look at the books and I found—guess what—that the Australian economy has grown larger, by 11 per cent, since we came to government. How is that even possible? We were facing a global financial crisis but we still managed to grow the economy. And guess what? We did not grow it by sacking people. That is what the Queensland LNP and Campbell Newman do and that is what Barry O'Farrell does in New South Wales. We grew it by adding jobs. We grew it by investing in infrastructure. We grew the economy by investing in education, investing in skills dealing with productivity and looking at what the economic drivers of the economy are.

I know they are hollow words for the opposition. They do not even know what those words mean. They are not concerned. In fact, in this one matter of public importance you can see what this opposition are all about. It is about their urgency to warm the seats of government, their urgency to run to the Lodge, their urgency to be in the halls of power—not to deliver anything, not to achieve some good, not to deliver some outcome and not to deliver better education outcomes or better health services.

Let us take a leaf out of the book of those LNP and Liberal and National party governments that are in government right now. We know they are on the same page and are singing from the same song sheet. They are in the same broad church. What are they doing? What are they doing to their economies? What are they doing in their states? Let us take a look at Queensland. You would think that in difficult economic times you would try to boost upwards the economy. You would perhaps try to support mining. You would not want to increase royalties. A direct hit—regardless of profit, just on the sheer amount you pull out of the ground. At the same time that we have got price pressures downwards on resources, they actually put a tax the other way. They put a tax on the quantity that comes out of the ground rather than when you make a profit. Where have the great market economists of the Liberal Party gone? They are not sitting on the opposition benches. They are not even on the crossbenches.

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