Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

Some of them, of course, have been much higher. We experienced a debt-to-GDP ratio of close to 130 per cent during the Second World War, and during economic emergencies and recessions you always respond with suitable economic strategies to make sure that you keep growth going, promote growth or try to restore growth. The coalition's approach would be to introduce savage austerity, which would send this country into recession without question. Instead, the government has created and navigated a course of prudent, responsible fiscal management that gets the balance right. In other words, we do not seek to come back to surplus at a rate that would send this country into a recession. We create a steady course back to surplus but maintain certain levels of stimulus that are necessary to keep the economy ticking over in a growth track that will then restore the sorts of revenue that the budget has been missing these last few years. That lack of revenue has, in fact, been the sole source of the debt, because with every initiative the government has introduced we have introduced offsetting savings to fund it. So the entire story of the debt, in fact, relates to that revenue situation.

I would also like to address the fact that the coalition has no plan for the future—no plan whatsoever to meet those massive challenges out there in a dynamic region that we cannot afford to fall behind. Where are the key investments that need to occur there? Let us start with the NBN. A Korean company has invested in a $200 million project in my region, a timber precinct in Bombala. This South Korean company is coming into our region and creating jobs and exciting new opportunities. The first thing it said to us was, 'We won't do that unless you confirm you're going ahead with the NBN.' Why? Because South Korean companies are already out there, linked with high-speed broadband and fibre throughout their economy. The company said it would not set the precinct up without the NBN, because it operates its business in terms of the state-of-the-art machinery that is needed in industry these days to avoid the impacts of labour and dollar costs. That plant operates on remote diagnostics and engineering solutions connected to the company's global operations. That is the sort of opportunity that exists for rural and regional Australia out of the NBN rollout, notwithstanding all of the other massive benefits in education and health as well. There is a company in Cooma—a bold new venture by a young woman named Jane Cay, who has set up a company called Birdsnest, which is now one of Australia's largest online companies. It has 90 employees in the town of Cooma, a great boost for a regional town. Those sorts of opportunities can be amplified, magnified and spread around this country by a proper investment in the NBN.

What do the coalition want to do? They want to buy the old copper network from Telstra, including, as we heard today, some of those pits and pipes that contain asbestos. So they have gone down the privatisation road but they want to go back to the situation where you get all of the downside and none of the upside. How crazy is that—a copper system that is breaking down, that would cost them $1 billion a year to try and keep on life support and that Telstra said in 2003 could not last another 15 years. They want to try and keep it going and shackle us to a capacity that will deny our people with imagination—our entrepreneurs—the opportunity to innovate and take this country ahead.

In addition to that, the ADSL system, as we know now, absorbs something like two per cent of the nation's power. The VDSL system they are proposing would require something like four per cent of the nation's power to pump that power through the copper system and create the 60,000 cabinets that there would have to be on street corners. Instead of achieving the energy efficiencies that we are all driving towards, that would send us backwards massively. I have seen estimates that you might have to build something like three to five more power stations to power this VDSL system. What an insane approach, when we know that fibre to the node achieves massive energy savings.

The Clean Energy Future initiative also is delivering fantastic results. Of course, there are the lower emissions, as we have seen—8.3 per cent in the electricity sector. We are seeing the 30 per cent rise in renewable energy. Coal-fired power is now dropping down from 80 to 75 per cent, which in itself is a great outcome just for the health burden on our economy. I have seen it estimated that fossil fuels generate about $6 billion worth of health costs to this economy. So, through the renewable energy package, we are seeing the transformation to the new economy—an investment in energy security for the future and ultimately cheaper power, because renewable energy will ultimately deliver that.

It is certainly creating a base for start-up companies all over Australia as well. In my own region, there is a wonderful company with a great idea—a local invention by Joe Ruiz-Avila, who created a system that he took to Pambula Engineering. Based on the incentive schemes and support provided by the Clean Energy Future package, they are now exporting their product all over the world, expanding rapidly. They are now going to set up their international research and development hub in Pambula.

These are great results that are occurring in my own region from that package. The most important element to that is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. How the opposition cannot see the importance of this as a venture capital base is beyond me. It is a party that is supposed to be supportive of new industry, new business, small business, but all they want to do is choke off the availability of venture capital, which we have had a marked absence of in this country.

We have also, of course, introduced Venture Australia and our innovation precincts. Within my own portfolio of Defence, there is a new $120 million package for our Priority Industry Capability Development Fund and our Defence Innovation Realisation Fund. Our investment in the defence industry will generate great investments in industry and manufacturing and great leveraging opportunities across the board for us.

These are great opportunities—great potential that is being realised under our very noses that this coalition would take away from us. They would take away the investment in skills—over $8 billion that has now seen national records of apprenticeships and trainees at half a million and extensions of funding to vocational training through the expansion of the HECS concept. These are great initiatives that arm our kids with the skills they will need for the future.

We have seen the coalition ignore those things but impose their great big new tax in their plan for the future with this paid parental leave monstrosity, which half of their party room rejects. They pose a real risk of consistency down the wrong track—a lack of vision, imagination and courage. We stand for a bright future for Australia that leads and stands in the winner's circle. The contrast could not be clearer; the choice could not be simpler.

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