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

This is what happens after Labor governments have a go at running the country. This budget is a clean-up job. Under Labor, the spending gets out of control, the country gets into debt, and then the electorate votes the coalition in to sort it out. It reminds me of a jingle that was put together in 2007 for the 2007 campaign in my electorate of Swan. They wrote a jingle saying, 'Vote Labor back in and you'll just vote for debt and deficit,' which turned out to be what it was. This more than any other is the reason that the coalition was voted in last September, and the people of Australia now fully expect us to sort out Labor's mess. The Howard government did it in 1996, and now it is the responsibility of the Abbott government to do it in 2014. History repeats itself in that respect.

The challenge facing the Abbott government is unfortunately on an altogether different scale compared with that confronting Treasurer Costello in 1996. Howard and Costello faced a Labor debt legacy of $96 billion, and that required some difficult and unpopular decisions at the time to bring the budget back under control. To pay back the $96 billion debt inherited in 1996, there had to be some quite severe expenditure cuts. Again, it was about cutting expenditure, not about increasing revenue through taxes. These were, of course, opposed by Labor. If you remember, there was a riot by the unions outside Parliament House. Now there are riots in universities. But the government stayed the course and turned Australia's financial situation around, paying back the debt and leaving money in the bank and a $20 billion surplus, saving Australia in the process.

At the time, I was running a small business under the Keating government. I know there are some other people in the room who were high-profile business people then. The member for Fairfax might have gone through that period in 1992 when interest rates were up to 22 per cent. To save my business, I went without wages for 12 months. All my staff got paid but things were that tight that it was a terrible experience, again under a Labor government.

So a debt of $96 billion confronted the Howard government after 13 years of Labor government. In September 2013, the Abbott government inherited Labor debt of $667 billion and projected deficits of $123 billion. If you listened to those on the other side of the chamber and to the previous speaker, they think that is a good economic record. Incredibly, $1 billion is currently being spent every month on interest payments on the debt we owe to those from whom Labor borrowed the money.

This is the scale of the job confronting this government and the people of Australia. This is the money which has to be paid back and the problem we have to confront as a nation. All Australians recognise that the $667 billion of projected debt cannot be paid back without some tightening of the belt and some restraint. All Australians recognise that you cannot go on borrowing money to service interest on debt. It is unsustainable and eventually leads down the path of some of the debt-ridden European countries. It gets to a point where you no longer control the debt but the debt begins to control you. All Australians recognise that, just as a household has to balance its books, so does this country. So after six years of Labor chaos, what do you get? You get a bill and this is where the country has to pull together to get rid of that bill.

Sadly, the debt is a burden for all Australians to pay. It is a burden which the Labor Party, to its shame, has put on the shoulders of all Australians. We must make sure that that burden is fairly distributed. We must all do our fair share. While there will be people who do not like some of the measures, I think this budget attempts to share that burden. In the context that I acknowledge this budget is tough and tough in a number of areas, at a local level it certainly delivers for the people of Swan.

At the last election, in addition to promising to get the budget back under control, to stop the boats and to scrap the carbon tax, the coalition also made a commitment to build the roads of the 21st century. This budget delivers an unprecedented amount of spending on road infrastructure in my electorate of Swan. I say unprecedented because $300 million is budgeted for the Gateway WA road upgrade project in my electorate of Swan during the 2014-15 financial year. We have been working on this project for some time. It was under a cloud of funding uncertainty under the Labor Party.

The previous government said they would fund Gateway WA entirely through the proceeds of the mining tax. That became an impossibility. Like some of the surpluses they produced, it became a terrible uncertainty. The uncertainty generated was typical of the uncertainty that proliferated during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. It became the hallmark of how Labor ran the nation.

By contrast, the coalition has had an unambiguous commitment to Gateway WA for the past two elections and we will deliver it without a mining tax. The election of the Abbott government last September has finally given the project the certainty it needs. I included it as part of my five-point local plan for the electorate and we are now delivering on it for the people of Swan. The spectacular part of the funding in this budget is that the Abbott government has looked beyond isolated projects and to the integrated Perth road network as a whole. This is the first time I have seen a federal government look at roads funding in this way since I have been a member of parliament. This is a model of strategic thinking which the previous government and ministers just did not possess. We see the Abbott government's vision in projects such as WestConnex and the Western Sydney airport plan and here we see it in my electorate of Swan with the Perth freight link announced in this budget.

The budget looks beyond Gateway WA, with an integrated freight transport route which is the connection between Perth airport, Kewdale freight terminal and the Fremantle port. This is a joint project between the WA state government and the federal government. It will include a five-kilometre Roe Highway, a four-lane dual carriageway extension from the Kwinana Freeway to Stock Road in Coolbellup and improvements to Stock Road and High Street. What a great vision for Perth and a great boost to economic productivity in the state. As a result of this strategic thinking, there is much more bang for the buck both in the immediate sense in the funding of the project and the long-term impact of the productive infrastructure.

In the immediate sense, this is a $925 million contribution from the Commonwealth to a $1.6 billion project. The Commonwealth and West Australian governments will be seeking opportunities for private sector co-contribution to fund the balance, and this will ensure maximum value is achieved from taxpayer dollars with minimal impact on the federal budget. In terms of long-term benefit, the Western Australian government estimates that the Roe Highway extension will deliver benefits of $5.20 for every dollar invested—a great return for the people of Western Australia. I would say at this point that I think the Howard government also possessed this strategic approach to infrastructure demonstrated by the Abbott government in the budget. At the 2007 election at which I was elected, John Howard announced the Perth roads package, which focused significantly on the Great Eastern Highway. My Liberal campaign for the seat of Swan was thrilled at the time as we had run a community campaign for an upgrade to the Great Eastern Highway with Belmont Mayor and now MLA for Belmont Glenys Godfrey. But John Howard and then minister Truss had not just seen it as one-off project, or an opportunity to win a seat; he saw the broader strategic importance of the Eastern Gateway to Midland and the East, which is how the Perth roads package originated. After John Howard announced the package, I must admit that Kevin Rudd at the time thought it was such a great package that he announced it four days later, so it was a benefit to the people of Swan and to Western Australia.

Labor and the previous minister did not possess this thinking or vision about the Perth roads package in the original instance. Consider the money shovelled out the door over the last six years, the borrowed money that has left the country in the perilous financial position that it is in. It was not carefully targeted or spent as part of an overarching strategic vision or strategic plan. It was just splashed out on pink batts and overpriced school halls. I remember a particular roads example in my own electorate of Swan where the Labor Party candidate promised before the 2010 election to build a roundabout at the corner of South Terrace and Labouchere Road in South Perth. It was ranked over 270 on the black spot roads program but all of a sudden it became a priority for my seat of Swan. I know this intersection particularly well. It is at the bottom of a steep hill just round the corner from my house in South Perth. This was clearly no place for a roundabout. There had been another one 500 metres the other way that had to be taken out because it caused a road blockage. There had clearly been no real thought put into the suggestion by the Labor candidate and the Labor Party for that roundabout. It was just about doing something for the sake of doing something. The road of course never went ahead in the end, to the embarrassment of the Labor candidate. The money was actually sent to the city of South Perth, which on investigation thought it was such a bad idea it returned that money to the government. Can you imagine how much economic benefit this would have generated? I think it would have had the opposite effect as it generated congestion and road problems. I am pleased that the Abbott government infrastructure package in this budget continues a great tradition of coalition roads funding for my electorate of Swan that started in my political lifetime with the Great Eastern Highway and continues with Gateway WA today.

In addition to our roads funding commitments in the electorate of Swan during the last election, we also put forward a proposal for a $1 million Swan-Canning River recovery program. This particular commitment was one I started working on in 2008-09 after consulting with the environmental groups in the electorate and took to the 2010 and 2013 federal elections. It was a fantastic moment to see this project in the black ink in the budget papers and I thank the Minister for the Environment for his personal interest in the program and for ensuring that it can be delivered at the first possible opportunity. I do not propose to say too much more on that recovery program today, as I spoke about it in some detail during the debate on the Social Security Legislation (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014 recently. Last Monday I went down to the Canning Wetlands to celebrate the grant with the Wilson Wetlands Action Group, who were coordinating a day of planting with Wilson Park Primary School. Along with Russell Gorton I donned some waders and went into the Wilson Lagoon to help remove some of the hydrocotyl weed on the surface. This grant will be significantly aimed at getting on top of the hydrocotyl problem once and for all. If you go into a lagoon, make sure the waders you are wearing fit you, otherwise you will end up in the drink, which I happened to do. The local media did not get a copy of that, fortunately. I can say to the House that the local environmental groups are very happy with the $1m commitment and already have some good plans for putting it to use, which will develop in due course.

Also in the budget was $45,000 for the City of South Perth Aquatic Centre feasibility study, delivering on another election commitment that we made locally to the people of Swan. This is another very pleasing commitment to see in black and white, in the budget papers. The South Perth Aquatic Centre is a local issue campaign that I started working on in 2011, after being contacted by a constituent. We ran a survey in the local area and had over 1,000 responses from members in the community, saying that they wished they could have an aquatic centre. After consultation, we were told that a detailed feasibility study was required to take this proposal to the next level, and that is what this funding provides. So we will continue to fight for money and, hopefully after the study from the $45,000, we will come out with a positive response. The City of South Perth has voted to accept the funding, and I look forward to working with them on the feasibility study over the course of the next budget period. I know that the people of South Perth and the aquatic organisations in the local area are pleased to finally see a feasibility study budgeted for. I am pleased that the Abbott government has seen fit to deliver on this 2013 election commitment at the first opportunity.

The coalition takes a strong stand when it comes to crime and anti-social behaviour and has had a particularly strong record on delivering security infrastructure in the City of Belmont. The Howard government pioneered the rollout of CCTV in Rivervale and Kewdale. This budget builds on that legacy, with a $100,000 CCTV grant for the perimeters of the Belmont Forum and the Belmont Village. This funding will be delivered through the $50 million Safer Streets program. The City of Belmont supports this commitment, because CCTV is already working to make Belmont safer. In Belmont, between January and August 2013, some 48 incidents recorded by closed circuit television were given to the police, with 20 positive results where offenders were identified and prosecuted; 24 were filed, pending further information; and four are still under investigation. These are all results which could not have been achieved without closed circuit television. So I am pleased to be able to help deliver these security improvements at what is the main shopping and meeting place in the Belmont area.

While this is no doubt a tough budget, it is a budget that delivers for my electorate of Swan. We are delivering on the local plan put forward to the people of Swan at the last election. And we are delivering on our national commitment to get the budget back under control—a commitment that the public expects us to deliver. We hear from the other side many things about the budget, and how it is cutting here and there, but I think we need to stop scaring the pensioners, to stop scaring the people who want to go to university and to clearly explain to people in Swan in Western Australia that there are safety nets. I am happy for people to contact my office about them. We need a budget that gets rid of the debt. We see one of the major business people in Australia in this room. I know that he has no debt. He understands that no debt is an important part of running any business and being successful in that business.

I seek leave to table to two documents from the City of South Perth in regard to the aquatic leisure centre.

Leave granted.

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