Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

I will assist the member for Shortland. The topic of this MPI is:

The Government’s repeated failure to deliver on its election promises—

And it goes on to talk about delivering 'honest and accountable government'. That is why this is about irony.

First of all we have the question of the carbon tax. It is a small matter of importance—just a small matter—because it represents not just a fundamental breach of faith, a fundamental defiance of a commitment prior to an election, a fundamental denial of that which was taken to the people, but also rotten economic policy. Right now, on the day that they are concerned about Qantas—as we all rightly are—Qantas had a $106 million bill. They paid that bill last year, they will have a similar bill this year and they will have a similar bill next year. The difference, of course, is that this year's carbon tax is likely to be higher than last year's carbon tax because the carbon tax has gone up, and next year's carbon tax, under what they are proposing to occur if it is not repealed—although we will repeal it—would be even higher. In short, at the very moment that they come to this House and talk about trust and election promises and honesty, they are responsible for the most significant and gross and fundamental breach of a cornerstone election promise that this House, this parliament and this country has seen in decades and decades. So that is why it must be an element of irony which is confronting us.

Let us move forward, though, because there is a second component. Prior to the last election, who said, 'We will abolish the carbon tax'? We did. We went to the election pledging, promising and committing, not just once or twice but on hundreds of occasions in hundreds of for a—whether it was the then Leader of the Opposition, the now Prime Minister, or any of the frontbenchers or any of the pre-existing members of the House, or any of the candidates who have now been elected to the House, they all, on various occasions, I believe, pledged, committed and promised—to repeal the carbon tax if elected. So what did we do? We came into office. We did exactly what we committed to.

The first piece of legislation which was brought before this House was to repeal the carbon tax. The first piece of legislation passed by this House was the repeal of the carbon tax. And now what do we see in the Senate? We see an opposition, which says it is fundamental to uphold your promises, doing everything they can to ensure that a government does not uphold its promise. There may be a certain element of hypocrisy. Now, of course, I cannot allege that against any individual member of the opposition, but, collectively, they might just want to consider: if they bring a motion about a failure to carry out election promises, and if they bring a motion about honesty and accountability, perhaps—just perhaps—looking in the mirror might be a great place to start!

Having said that, this was the same group that, when in government, pledged that there would be no budget deficits. I remember the great Kevin Rudd saying: 'Our budget orthodoxy is identical to the Howard government's. There is not a sliver of light between us. I'm an economic conservative and that means budget surpluses.' Except, let me remind the House: $27 billion, $54 billion, $47 billion, $43 billion, $18 billion and, this year, well over $30 billion and climbing—those are the deficits from their six budgets. Six budgets; a perfect record of six deficits!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

No, I believe in budget surpluses and we will deliver budget surpluses.

They promised to be tough on borders. They were going to maintain, as, I think, Kevin Rudd said, a very hard line, a very tough line, on people smuggling.

Mr Chester interjecting—

Well, as the member for Gippsland says, how did that go? Not altogether well! But we pledged that we would take measures to stop the boats, and we are stopping the boats. It is 70 days and counting—we are not claiming victory yet; we are not overclaiming; but 70 days and counting is an especially good record so far.

They promised that they would not touch the private health insurance rebate. Well, we can forget that one. And then they promised there would be no new taxes. Apart from the carbon tax, there was the superannuation tax free changes, the restrictions on business losses, the changes to the employee share scheme, the impost of the mining tax—Oh, the mining tax! How are you going, member for Perth? It's great to have you in the House!—the ethanol taxation increases, the LPG increase, the tightening on restriction on medical expenses, and the increase in the luxury car tax.

But let me turn, now that we have looked at the issue of broken promises, to the second part of this motion, which is all about honesty and accountability. I cannot help but go to the words of none other than the Leader of the Opposition, who has an eye for honesty and accountability wherever he goes, talking to Neil Mitchell:

Neil Mitchell:

You've run a union, you understand these things, do you support him?

They are talking about Craig Thomson. 'Oh, yeah,' says Bill Shorten—all he had to say was, 'I support him'—

Oh, yeah, I believe him.

Neil Mitchell:

You believe him, no case to answer?

Bill Shorten:

I believe him …

Talk about an eye for honesty!

So that is what we say to these people: you come here talking about honesty? Let us remind you about a couple of other things. The Leader of the Opposition said, in 2012, on 18 June:

The 2012-13 budget delivers on the government's commitment to return the budget to surplus …

Oops! $18.8 billion dollars was the deficit which you guys had. That was the deficit which the Leader of the Opposition declared was a surplus. He also went on to say, on another occasion: 'It's a remarkable accomplishment.' I just want to repeat that:

It is a remarkable accomplishment when you look around the rest of the world to see how well this government and our Treasurer have done—

that was when they were still friends—

in producing a surplus.

Oops! Not quite! Then he went on, on another occasion, to talk about:

… delivering on our commitment to return the budget to surplus and with surpluses growing over the forward estimates.

Except for the fact: there were none!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

I will tell you what we did: we delivered 10 out of 11 surpluses.

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