Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If the member does not want to hear about it, he is welcome to leave the chamber. Whether it is through support for the vulnerable and disadvantaged; new train carriages; more police and new laws to help them; new and upgraded roads and highways; or a new world-class sports stadium, the Liberals make decisions and get things done. They are securing Western Australia's future. I believe the Minister for Defence said there was a federal drag on the election for WA Labor—they will not even mention 'ALP'; they just call themselves WA Labor. Anyway, Western Australians have made their choice. They have chosen security, certainty and direction in their state economy, which unfortunately this federal government cannot provide.

We heard the member for North Sydney speak today. He started off talking about Mr Rudd, Mr Swan and Ms Gillard, who described themselves as economic conservatives and promised to keep the budget in surplus. The member for Longman, who is sitting in front of me, has never seen, and probably will never see, a Labor surplus. For the member for Longman, let us hope that, one day, Labor will keep their promises. At the moment, they are failing to do that, and they are failing to address Australia's deteriorating fiscal position. They keep going with the same policies, driving us further into debt.

We also heard the member for North Sydney talk about the credit card limit—and the member for Dawson also mentioned it—and how we have gone from a debt ceiling of $75 billion to a debt ceiling of $300 billion. Is that something to be proud of? Is that something that the government should put on their CV and say, 'This is the right direction for any country to head in'—into a ridiculous debt situation? And we heard the member for Moreton continually quoting about the Howard government. That was nearly six years ago, but he kept talking about them. He never once mentioned that there was a $20 billion cash surplus with the Howard government at that particular time.

We also heard the member for North Sydney mention that this is taxpayers' money, not the government's money. That is what this is all about—the failure of this government to address Australia's deteriorating fiscal position. All it has to worry about is spending the money, not earning the money. It talks about a reduction in income tax from businesses. But, if you look at the way the PAYG system works, businesses are still paying their tax on last year's income. They are paying their forward tax, as you know—and I can see the Minister for Trade. I know that because I am doing it myself. My company is still paying tax on profits that were made two years ago; we are still paying it as we are going through. So you are still getting the income. But what is going to happen at the end of this financial year, when companies are not paying the same level of corporate tax? The government is going to have to repay all that money to those companies who have not made the same profits they were making one or two years ago. I am sure that has been allowed for in the budget as well.

I remind the House that Labor has produced the four biggest budget deficits on record, totalling $170 billion. We have now heard that there will also be a deficit in 2012-13. We have heard more than 500 times the government promise that it is going to achieve a surplus for all that time and for this particular year. We also know that the net interest payments are close to $12 billion per year. This government's expenditure has risen from just over $250 billion under the Howard government to over $350 billion this financial year. That is not a bad rise in spending—$100 billion within five years.

We have also heard that we are $263 billion in debt. How are we going to deal with that? Have we heard from this government how it is actually going to address that deteriorating fiscal position? We have heard two speakers from the government side, and they have said nothing about addressing the situation that this MPI is about. They have talked about the history. They compare themselves to Europe and other countries that are behind Australia's benchmarking, but they never want to benchmark us against countries that are better than us.

At the last sitting we heard the member for Moncrieff, Steven Ciobo, ask the Treasurer a question about the mining tax, which is particular to Western Australia. I call it the WA tax. He asked:

Given the mining tax has raised just $126 million its first six months of operation, when will the Treasurer face the fact that all his revised tax has achieved is that his credentials have indeed been shot to pieces?

The member for Lilley, the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, answered:

It is the case that, in the second half of last year, which coincided with the first two quarters of the MRRT, there was a huge crash in resource prices. The consequence of that has been less revenue. … All of our profit based taxes—company tax, capital gains tax, superannuation tax, resource rent taxes—have taken a very substantial hit from global volatility at the end of last year.

That is something that he has to deal with. He could not foresee that and kept saying, 'I promise: this surplus is definitely going to happen. There are no ifs or buts: it will happen.' It never happened, and it is not going to happen. It just will not happen. So we need to hear from this government how they are going to address the deteriorating fiscal policy situation.

I also asked the Treasurer a question about the Gateway project, which again he tied in an interview in 2012 on 6PR to the mining tax. That is an expenditure of $685 million for the Gateway project in my electorate in Western Australia and he said it is in the budget bottom line. If it is tied to the mining tax and you are not getting an income from the mining tax, how are you going to pay for it? We hear, 'More debt, more debt.' We are going to borrow money from overseas again to pay off a project that was tied to the mining tax. Again we hear the government talking about how well they can manage the economy when they cannot even get the funding right for the small—actually it is a pretty decent size—Gateway project in Western Australia, in my electorate. We would like to get an answer from the government on how they are going to address Australia's deteriorating fiscal policy. We have had an answer that says nothing at all and just talks about the fact that it is in the budget bottom line, which we know it is not. We know it is not there.

In Western Australia, as I said before, we have a government that provides security and confidence in the economy, a government for the people of Western Australia to vote for—and that is what we achieved on Saturday. Now all we would like to see from this federal government is the same strict fiscal policies that will create the surplus for this nation which we are still waiting to see.

The member for Dawson talked about family budgets. People have been coming up to me at various places around the electorate saying that this is a government you could not put in charge of your own household budget because they just have no way of controlling spending and no way of budgeting correctly to provide Australia with a secure and certain future in the economy. In summary, I would like to say in support of the Australian people that we need this government to come out with some direct policies to address the fiscal deterioration in our nation.

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