Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One of the great concerns I have had during this debate on the Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013 is the delusion—the most dangerous delusion—that I have heard from speakers on the other side of the chamber. They have attempted to create the fiction that somehow Labor's reckless spending over the last 5½ years has so-called saved Australia from the so-called GFC. They are trying to spin the fiction that their raining down $900 cheques upon people, their pink batts scheme and their building of overpriced school halls were something that saved this nation from the so-called GFC. And I say 'so-called GFC' because, if you look at our nearest neighbours, China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia, these countries in our region all continued to grow while the countries of Europe and North America went into recession.

The true reasons why Australia did better than Europe and North America during that period were several, and none of them have anything to do with the reckless spending of the Labor government. Firstly, it should be noted that in the year 2008-09 our GDP per capita actually fell. Our GDP per capita in that year fell by 0.8 per cent. It was only because of increasing levels of migration that our overall GDP grew, but the slice of the pie that every person received during that period was smaller. However, we succeeded during that period because of the strength of our region. The Chinese economic machine hardly took its foot off the accelerator. We had experienced before that a decade of strong growth through the policies of the Howard and Costello government. We had the lowering of interest rates. Our interest rates declined by three per cent, putting a lot of money into the pockets of people who were paying off mortgages. We also had a substantial fall in the currency. Our currency fell to a bit less than US60c, and this stimulated our export industry. We also had strong prudential regulations, the legacy of the good policies of Peter Costello, the former Treasurer. This is why we did well during a period when European and North American countries experienced recession.

In fact, the reckless spending that we saw from the Labor government made the problem worse. Labor come in here and talk about how they are concerned about unemployment. Under the Labor government, the unemployment queues in this country increased. They increased by 200,000 people. We could fill the MCG twice with the number of people who were unemployed when that government left office compared to the number when they took office. As I said, this is a dangerous and deluded theory that the current opposition come up with.

These $900 cheques are a stark reminder of the folly of Keynesian spending. We know that Keynesian spending has been tried and tried and tried again. Every single time, it has failed. I can understand that for members of the Labor government, with their trade union backgrounds, having absolutely no experience in government, the Keynesian policy of spending looks good in theory, but in practice, as history shows, it does not work.

I think perhaps the best quote from history of why it did not work is the comments of the American treasurer Henry Morgenthau, FDR's treasurer, who was the architect of stimulus spending during the Great Depression in the USA. He said:

… we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot!

That quote could equally sum up the experience that Australia has had from the Labor government.

But we now face a situation where we have inherited Labor's legacy of growing unemployment, so what should we do? Should we roll out another lot of $900 cheques and get our nation further into debt? I say no. To get this country moving, to get jobs created, we need to get rid of the carbon tax, we need to get rid of the mining tax, we need to reduce the red and green tape on small business, and we need to release the creativity and the ingenuity of our Australian people. But sadly, although we in government are trying to do that, we have been blocked in that, in everything the government is doing in the Senate. (Time expired)

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