Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of the coalition's first budget in the 44th parliament. It is a budget that charts a real course to surplus, a budget that addresses the dual problem of unsustainable spending and fast-growing debt. Finally, after six years of hard Labor, Australia has a budget that starts to address the damage inflicted on our economy since 2008 and sets the conditions for regaining Australia's economic freedom of action. It is a budget the Australian people know is necessary to ensure we do not steal the prosperity of future generations to fund our unsustainable debt and spending today. It is a budget that delivers some outstanding projects in my electorate of Bass which help support the brighter future that our citizens deserve. I would like to touch on just a few of these projects which will create both economic activity during the construction stage and also an enduring benefit for the people of northern Tasmania.

We have $6½ million to revitalise North Bank on the Tamar River. There has been silt removed from the Tamar River for over 100 years. Some form of mechanical removal of silt has been a feature of the river's management strategy for over 100 years. We have $2½ million to make sure we can keep the Tamar River silt free, to remove the silt built up over the years and to fulfil the promise that Labor made but never delivered on. Prior to the 2010 state election the then Tasmanian state environment minister, Michelle O'Byrne, promised $6.65 million for silt removal in the Tamar River and never delivered it. There was $1 million put in that was spent on permits and all sorts of things but they never delivered. In a very cooperative way with the Launceston Flood Authority, the Launceston City Council, TasWater and others we have put together a plan that last year shifted some 242,000 cubic metres of silt and that in the next three years will continue to take away that silt accretion and promote the healthier Tamar that our community deserves.

We have $500,000 that will be provided to look at the sewerage infrastructure problem we have that also affects a healthier Tamar River. There are seven sewerage infrastructure plants in and around Launceston. It is a fairly archaic system. We are going to fund a study that charts a critical path to work out how we can get a First World sewerage infrastructure system so that at times of heavy rain we do not have sewage going into the Tamar River. The silt money and the sewerage infrastructure money will work together. Some of that money will also be used for quick wins. For example, we might build a retaining structure around Ti Tree Bend to make sure that during times of heavy rain we do not get sewage going into our river. It is a very important project for my community.

In the budget we also saw $2.7 million allocated to the Major Projects Approval Agency in Launceston. This is yet another important project announced by the Prime Minister on 15 August last year as part of the economic recovery plan for Tasmania. It is an authority that will promote more investment in Northern Tasmania, a one-stop shop for major projects based in Launceston and a single Commonwealth entry point. If someone has money to invest and they have a regulatory problem, whether it is a tax, occupational health and safety or environmental issue, we are going to help them remove obstacles impede that investment, to work with the Coordinator General, which was a promise of the Tasmanian state Liberal government at the last election, with a similar function at state level, to make sure that there is coherence in a policy sense between the way that we approach investment at a state and federal level.

As the Tasmanian representative on the coalition's Deregulation Taskforce, this is one of the most important things we can do for a community that has the highest unemployment rate in our country—I am talking about both adult and youth unemployment here—and the lowest participation rate in the country. We will benefit from the $6.5 million trial Jobs Program also announced as part of the economic recovery plan that Prime Minister Abbott put up before the last election. There is a $3,250 incentive specific to Tasmanian employers who put on someone who has been on Newstart for six months. I note also the welcome announcement in the budget of an incentive of $10,000 for employers who hire mature workers. In my community of Bass, both of those incentives will be very well received.

We have $2½ million for a mountain bike trail in Derby in the wonderful municipality of Dorset, which also extends into the Blue Tier in the electorate of my colleague the member for Lyons. I walked the first couple of kilometres of that new mountain bike trail earlier this month, with the mayor of Dorset, Barry Jarvis. It is going to be a world-class facility—some 80 kilometres of world-class mountain bike trails that will pull tourists into the that area, a depressed area of Bass, and make sure that Northern Tasmania becomes more of an entry point for our state. It is a very important project.

We have $1½ million to improve the drainage and lighting at Invermay Park—one of the most used sporting facilities in Northern Tasmania. This is where Ricky Ponting first started his career. Young people who aspire to be like Ricky Ponting will be able to use Invermay Park for many, many more weeks each year. During winter, it is often boggy and unusable. We are going to improve the drainage and the lighting so that that much used sporting facility becomes even more accessible to people in my community. Out of the $9 million that was allocated to regional airfield upgrades, we have almost $1 million of that for the Flinders Island airfield and the Cape Barren Island airfield. These remote island communities desperately need these upgrades. As we know, everything that comes onto and off Flinders and Cape Barren Island comes on and off by either air or sea, so this is a very popular project in my community.

As you can see, Deputy Speaker, this budget has a lot of good news for my community of Bass. It encapsulates a whole range of things both during the construction phase and later that will be of enduring benefit for the people of Bass. But there is much to do to ensure that the budget is repaired to make sure that we can keep doing these sorts of things into the future. There is an old adage about history repeating, and it has never been truer than in the context of the 44th Parliament. Yet, again, the Labor Party has left government with the detritus of the Australian economy in its wake. Yet, again, the Liberal Party has the task of restoring our economic fortunes, restoring our economic freedom of action. When I say 'freedom of action', I am talking here about the sort of freedom of action that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had when the global financial crisis came along. He was able to drink deeply from the economic well left to him by the Howard government and the regular surpluses delivered by Peter Costello. He was able to drink deeply from that reservoir in order to respond to the challenges of the global economic crisis. That is what we want to do: we want to pay down debt. We want to make sure that the budget is on a sustainable footing and we want to make sure that in the future we are able to respond should there be a downturn in our international or national circumstances.

The evidence for what I am saying is compelling, yet those on the other side of the House refuse to admit the damage that they have caused. We on this side of the House will not let them forget that damage. Most Australians will have heard of Bernie Madoff and the massive Ponzi scheme that he ran in the United States for over 20 years. As we now know, Madoff's asset management scheme had no foundation to it or plan. Increasing risk was built into the scheme, which was like a deck of cards built on the hopes of gullible people.

There are some similarities there with what has been happening to the Australian economy and the Australian budget over the last six years under Labor, and then Labor-Greens, government. They told Australians not to worry about Australia's economic foundation of debt and unsustainable spending. They borrowed and borrowed, and not just against the income of current Australians but against the income of future taxpayers. Those who are going through school now will get that debt and be responsible for that debt into the future.

The day after the budget I did a live-cross to a KPMG breakfast in my home city of Launceston. The room had some 270 people in it, and we had a great discussion about the budget. About an hour later, they filled the room with young year 11 and 12 children. The analogy I drew for them was: if your parents spend unsustainably, borrow to the hilt and die with a massive debt, the laws of our country say that you are not responsible for that debt when they die. Sadly, that does not apply to government debt, because every dollar we borrow today is a dollar that has to be repaid in the future. With gross debt due to peak at $667 billion, those children who I was talking to will be responsible for that debt when they enter the workforce.

We heard from the previous speaker that Labor often likes to talk about debt as a percentage of GDP, but why are we comparing ourselves to the sick men of Europe—countries that have been spending unsustainably for decades and countries like Greece that have a debt-to-GDP ratio above 100 per cent? Why is that a benchmark that we want to apply to our country? Is it not better to pick a benchmark that is more contemporary and relevant to our circumstances? What about the economy that John Howard and Peter Costello left the country at the end of 2007 with a $20 billion surplus, money in the bank, a Higher Education Endowment Fund and a Future Fund that provided the economic freedom of action for the Labor Party to respond to the global financial crisis?

It is a matter of record that in the annual budget papers Labor never delivered a surplus in six years despite promising to do so on over 600 occasions. Key figures, including Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen, even bragged that a surplus had already been delivered by Labor. In fact, Labor left us with below-trend growth, falling resource investment and rising unemployment. The economic legacy of the former Treasurer, the member for Lilley, was $191 billion in achieved deficits, another $123 billion in deficits across the forward estimates—anticipated in the four years after they left government—and gross debt due to peak at two-thirds of a trillion dollars.

We borrow a billion dollars every month just to pay that debt. Imagine going to your bank manager and saying, 'I'd like to borrow the money that I need to pay my mortgage each month.' He would kick you out, just as the Australian people kicked the Labor Party out on 7 September last year. It is unsustainable and it has to stop. This budget puts a stop to it and sets us on a path to a sustainable surplus.

The budget situation that Labor left us was significantly worse than they chose to admit when they released the 2013 economic statement just days before the election was called. They left myriad issues that should have been addressed while they were in government, including an offshore processing black hole of $1.2 billion, a secret cut in education spending—another black hole of $1.2 billion, which we have restored—and 14,500 job cuts in the public service when they had only funded 800 redundancies, along with the Reserve Bank requiring an $8.8 billion injection in part due to Labor taking dividends from the RBA against the wishes of the RBA governor.

We have started the budget repair process, yet Labor is standing in the way. They are opposing tens of billions of dollars of savings put before the parliament, including $5 billion of savings that they themselves promised the Australian people that they would implement if they were successful. I can think of no greater deception than ruining our economy and then standing in the way of those who are trying to restore our economy, to restore the budget and put us on a sustainable path to surplus. If we do not act now, the problem becomes worse. It is like a skin cancer. That analogy I made before about comparing ourselves to Europe, it is like saying that my skin cancer is smaller than yours. The problem with skin cancers, the problem with budgetary problems is that if you do not address them they get bigger and worse over time. So I would say to those opposite, get out of the way of what we need to do and what Australia knows we need to do to restore our economic fortunes into the future.

Our economic action strategy delivered through the budget will strengthen the economy, create jobs and reduce Labor's debt by $300 billion, but only if we show resolve and all contribute to that outcome. Without our plan, Australia will keep borrowing $1 billion a month every month just to pay the interest on the debt and that will get worse. This would almost triple to $2.8 billion a month in a decade if nothing is done. This is a budget that the people in my electorate and across the country know is needed to get Australia back on track. If we act now, if we cut gross debt almost by half, we solve a problem that our children and their children potentially have to address. We reduce the deficit in a manageable way and an honest path to surplus. We take our hands out of the pockets of future generations and we create the conditions for a brighter future our children and grandchildren deserve.

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