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

It is good to follow the member for Bruce, who just gave us some quotes from Ronald Reagan, one of which was 'Facts are stupid'. That is what the Labor Party think as well, because they hate the facts. Every time you bring up the facts in an argument they just turn away. They are very good with motherhood statements and being nice and all that sort of thing, but when you quote facts to them that is when they back off. The member for Bruce also talked about looking not at what Reagan achieved but what he actually said. That is what the Labor Party do as well. They seem to have forgotten what they did in the last six years. They have a very poor memory, because it was 'promise the world'—but I will go into some of those quotes later. I see the member for Bruce is now exiting the chamber; he does not want to hear the end of this.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this MPI put forward by the member for Perth. It is the second one she has done in three weeks, and it is all about focusing on the Western Australian Senate election. Last time her MPI was based on infrastructure, and members on this side of the chamber quoted to her all the infrastructure promises that were made to Western Australia and that failed. So I can understand why in today's MPI she did not mention infrastructure at all. One of the things we mentioned during the infrastructure MPI was the fact that in 2007 Kevin Rudd promised the Western Australian people an infrastructure fund of $100 million per annum while he was in government. Did we ever see that $100 million per annum? Never. Not at all.

The Labor government promised a lot of other things as well. I see the Minister for Communications is in the chamber. I know he loves Western Australia. He has a sense of entrepreneurship that he shares with most West Australians. I know that when he has been to Western Australia and particularly to my electorate of Swan we have been aghast about what was supposed to have been said and delivered with the NBN into my electorate of Swan. We did a hunt for those promises and outcomes and what did we find? I can see the Minister for Communications shaking his head. We found nothing. We were promised the world by the Labor Party. They seem to have a memory loss when it comes to situations like this. They have been out of government for only six months now and they have conveniently wiped what happened the previous six years and they are now saying that we have got our priorities wrong. Our priorities are correct, and I think that in the time we have left we need to say that the government has a plan to repair the budget. It has a plan to boost growth and create jobs. The next instalment of our budget repair plan will come in the May budget, when we will outline our comprehensive budget strategy to fix Labor's mess—and what a mess it is.

We are committed to ensuring that spending is directed to the highest priority areas, particularly to productive infrastructure that will boost growth and create jobs. We can see that in the plans of the Minister for Communications for the NBN, prioritising where the money needs to be spent in the areas of need, which is something that the Labor government failed to do. As we have heard repeatedly in this chamber from the Minister for Communications, in the world of Conrovia it was more about promises and wearing red underpants on their heads than it was about delivering the real outcomes for people in Western Australia.

We already have around $20 billion of savings sitting before the parliament as a down payment on the full budget repair plan. Legislation to abolish both the carbon tax and the mining tax has passed the House of Representatives and now sits in front of the Senate waiting for the Labor senators to stop standing in the way of the coalition implementing the will of the Australian people from the last election.

I would just like to give some quotes to Western Australians about the member for Perth as well, so that they know where she actually stands on the mining tax. As we know, the mining tax is an anti-Western-Australian tax, and 100 per cent, I would say, of the mining tax that has been raised has come out of Western Australia. In regard to that, Western Australians need to know of this. This is a quote from Alannah MacTiernan. Alannah MacTiernan has failed WA. Less than 24 hours after her appointment to her new position, she reiterated her support for the mining tax, saying that she stood by the principle of the mining tax and that 'there are strong arguments in favour of a profit based tax'. She said:

… the idea of a profits based tax is a sound one.

On 23 March, in a television interview, she stated: 'Certainly I support the mining tax.'

When they are in Western Australia they say one thing, but when they are in Canberra they say a different thing. So what I need to say to the people of Western Australia is: vote for the coalition in the coming Senate elections, or tell your Labor people that they need to go to the other chamber and tell their senators to scrap the mining tax and scrap the carbon tax.

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