Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on these appropriation bills which will start to set the course to get Australia back into a good position. Oh for the days of being elected as a new government in 2007 facing the budget that they inherited! Here we are as an incoming government that has been given a financial mess—not one we created—to clean up. Listening to lectures by the economic academics on the other side on how wrong this budget is defies belief. To think that they actually put these thoughts into books—I am worried about the education of young people who may pick them up and actually believe in them! It is well known and well documented that, when Labor came to power, they inherited a $20 billion surplus, they inherited cash in the bank. What have we received? It is deja vu 1996—budget black holes, debt. I want to remind people of their track record while they were in power. In 2008-09 they promised a $21.7 billion surplus. It would not have been too hard considering the fact that they had already inherited a $20 billion surplus and $50 billion in the bank. But what did they deliver? A $27 billion deficit. In fact, that is a $48.7 billion turnaround in just one year. To show you the enormity of that, in 1996, when we were elected, the whole of the deficit was only $96 billion.

In 2009-10, they promised a $57.6 billion deficit, so perhaps they were starting to speak about the true Labor ways of deficit, and still only delivered a $54.5 billion deficit. They improved their bottom line by $3.1 billion. In 2010-11, they promised a $40.8 billion deficit and blew that out by $6.7 billion to a $47.5 billion deficit. In 2011-12, they promised a $22.6 billion deficit and delivered a $43.4 billion deficit, a blow-out of $20.8 billion. And the cracker is 2012-13, from these great economic minds. They promised the Australian people a $1.5 billion surplus. They had the economy under control; they knew what they were doing; the GFC had finished. Instead, what did they deliver? They delivered an $18.8 billion deficit, a turnaround of $20.3 billion.

So to stand in this House and listen to Labor lecture the coalition on economic management defies belief. In fact, they could not even lie straight in bed if they intended to. They made all these promises and all these inferences. They knew what they were doing. The thing that really galls me is that they based everything on the global financial crisis. The global financial crisis did not run for six or seven years; in fact, the main part occurred in northern Europe and the US, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the effect of that was only over months. But this Labor Party, when in government, used it as the excuse to spend, spend, spend. It is as though they believed in Mark Latham's magic pudding.

As I said right at the very outset, we did not create this economic mess, but we have been charged with the responsibility to address it and to fix it. Wishful thinking will not fix the problem. No amount of rhetoric will address the issue. Only by addressing the core fundamentals of economic management can we get this economy onto a pathway to recovery. I say this: through the MYEFO period, we were to have a deficit accumulation of $667,000 million—$667 billion. Through the measures that have been implemented by this government, it has been able to be reduced to $389 billion. The problem is not fixed; it has just been reduced. I give all credit to the Treasurer and the financial team of Mathias Cormann for being able to get it down far.

I do not like delivering a budget where people feel pain, because when I was here during the Howard government we had the budget under so much control with growth and prosperity that we were able to hand out tax cuts and cheques and still deliver budget surpluses. This mob opposite destroyed the confidence of the Australian people, overspent, overreached and were never apologetic for it. In fact, they thought it was their God given right to continue to spend, spend and spend. If they had kept going, my great-great-great-great grandchildren, who have not even been thought of—I am not even a grandfather yet—would be paying off their debt. They would have entrenched it so hard that there would be no way of recovery. It is only when you do the hard yards and the heavy lifting as a government that you can turn it around.

One of the other areas that concerns me is the fact that we are paying in excess of $12,000 million each and every year in interest—$1 billion a month. At the same time, the Labor opposition criticised the government in relation to health, in relation to Gonski and in relation to the NDIS. The interest bill alone, per annum, is more than the cost of Gonski and NDIS together. I would like to think what $1,000 million a month would do for much-needed roadworks.

The other thing I take great umbrage at is when members opposite get up and deliberately mislead the House when they say we are cutting funding for health. The facts in the budget are that New South Wales hospital funding will increase each year, from $4.6 billion in 2014-15 up to $5.9 billion in 2017-18, and hospital funding for New South Wales will increase from $4.2 billion this financial year to $4.6 billion on 1 July in the 2014-15 year. So I ask myself the question. I thought that when you actually increased, when the numbers went up, that was more money going out. But I can understand the comments of those opposite, because they actually believe that their deficits are surpluses. They told us on so many occasions that budgets would keep returning to surplus. But do you know what? They had no intention at all.

There is confusion out there. It is not like me to make negative comments on my state colleagues in the New South Wales parliament. I say this of my New South Wales colleagues because I want to be honest in relation to this budget. The fear that is being whipped up amongst our pensioners and concession cardholders is palpable. The fact is that the Commonwealth will provide—no adjustment to it—twice a year pension increases by the CPI. This year the CPI will be the highest form of measurement. So that is the benefit to our seniors. We are not cutting their pensions. All of the Commonwealth government concessions stay there. They stay there for pensioner concession cardholders, they stay there for Commonwealth health care cardholders and they stay there for Commonwealth senior cardholders. They stay there.

According to some of the numbers in relation to the New South Wales concessions, and to the New South Wales Treasury analysis on the information provided to me, over the next four years, or the forward estimates, $732 million in public transport concessions, $323 million in council rate discounts, $643 million in water bill exemptions, $881 million in electricity rebates, and $1.2 billion in fee exemptions for drivers licence tests and mobility parking schemes were to be paid out to pensioners over the next four years. The federal contribution to the New South Wales government is but $107 million from 1 July this year and $450 million through the forward estimates. So if you work out that, of the $807 million that New South Wales will be paying this year, we are paying $107 million. If all of these concessions are to go, I do not think it is actually the federal government's funding that is cutting these concessions. I think that the state government should be a little bit more honest, if it intends to cut concessions, as to whose budget it is playing with—because it is not the federal budget. As I said, those concessions are primarily the responsibility of the state government. The state should be honest enough—not just New South Wales; other states have jumped in on this—to fess up to the people of where and why the cuts are coming. They are not coming because of cuts made by the federal budget.

There are a couple of key reasons I support this budget. First and foremost, it starts to get our economy back under control, reduces the deficit and therefore reduces interest bills. Also, there are particular aspects of this budget and appropriation which will help work with mobile telephone blackspots in my electorate and the rollout of NBN in my electorate in particular, as I now have three more towers going up for fixed wireless networking in my electorate. As you would know, Deputy Speaker, as you have been up in my area a number of times, the geographic and topographic restrictions in my area and the spread of the population means that the broad land mass of my electorate will not receive cable to the home under any form of government. So fixed wireless installations are the answer, and they are getting underway.

Addressing mobile phone black spots is part of the $100 million package put up by the coalition prior to the election and is now in our budget. One that is particularly impressive is the money that will be spent with our defence forces. After $30 billion worth of cutbacks in defence, we are starting to catch up. There is the allocation not just for the acquisition of the joint strike fighter but also for the support services, of which $986 million will be spent at Williamtown RAAF base, upgrading facilities for them to come, making sure that our national interest and our national security is protected by the best platforms available.

Making sure that the men and women of our nation have the best possible assets and face the minimum personal risk to themselves is paramount for any government. The decision by the coalition to invest in the air warfare destroyers, the LHDs, and now the joint strike fighters as a continuation of that, shows we are providing the best assets for our people. I look forward to that investment at Williamtown, because the base upgrade will mean jobs for local people, as contractors engaged to upgrade runways and build new buildings, but also the employment aspect because Lockheed Martin will be engaging a lot of people to work in a private capacity through contractors as a part of the project. There will also be flow-on effects to local companies such as Varley, to name but one, that will be manufacturing parts for the joint strike fighter in and around my region.

I also welcome the road funding aspect of the budget. I congratulate the Prime Minister and also the Deputy Prime Minister for wanting this government to be known as an infrastructure building government. For too long we heard the Labor Party, in particular the member for Hunter, bang on about things like the Scone bypass. There were many years of rhetoric, but we have put the money in place and work is commencing. We have put up the hard cash in the budget—it is a line item, not just a rhetorical promise days before an election. The money is there. The former Deputy Prime Minister in the days before an election promised there would be money for the Tourle Street bridge, but it was not in their budget. There were all the promises by the former Labor member for Newcastle but they never amounted to anything. The money is there now and work is beginning. My colleague and friend to the north, the member for Lyne, will appreciate the $16 million for Bucketts Way. That is great funding, although it should come down into my patch a little bit more. He has been doing a tremendous job up there.

We are starting to see a greater rollout of roads of importance that will fix traffic congestion. We are starting to build the infrastructure of the future. Upgrades on the now M1, which used to be the F3, and the important piece of infrastructure, the connection between the M1 and the M2, so people no longer have to battle with traffic lights all the way through to get on the M1 and M2, are critically important. The best and brightest minds in the Labor Party lecture us when it comes to the economy, but I say to my constituents, and to the Australian community: have a look at their track record. They could not even get their projections right, let alone the outcome. They promised surpluses umpteen times, and delivered only deficits in the entire period they were in government. (Time expired)

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