John Cobb (Calare, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have known the member for Sydney for some time. I have been on committees with her and have gone on trips with her in that capacity. She is somebody I have learnt to respect for her commitment to people who may be in need, be they Indigenous or otherwise, and I think we have a shared respect there. But I am totally puzzled as to why she would put this MPI forward, when her own government created the situation. I heard her talk about the need for pensions and school funding, and she was upset about foreign aid being cut, about low-income families, about people with disabilities, and about child care, which others have spoken about. These are all good things and, yes, they all need funding. So why did her government leave us in a position where we had to have the guts, the forethought and the determination to ensure that we will be able to fund those things in the future, because that is the issue here. I am staggered that the member for Sydney would not realise that if we do not take these firm measures there will be no ability—we will have to cut funding, and we may have to cut schools, let alone pay the teachers who work in them.

I cannot understand it. Day after day we hear from the Leader of the Opposition, but he has never apologised for leaving Australia in that position, and nor has he explained why it happened. The position of Leader of the Opposition is a high position. He has dragged us down to the lowest level I have ever seen here. He drags us down to a union shop floor free-for-all every time he gets on his feet. It is a disgrace. What is his answer? He does not have one, no matter whether it is him or is deputy leader, the member for Sydney.

The people in the cities are not the most at risk here. The most at risk are those out in regional Australia who are on pensions or who have needs, because in regional Australia there will be less to fall back on in terms of resources, when the time comes. If we had not taken the steps we have in this budget to get Australia back on the right foot, the first people who would fall out would be the people in regional Australia.

This is about communities and it is about money, which is why I cannot for the life of me understand why the opposition does not applaud us for fixing up what they messed up. Really, we need a 'sorry day'. Not one about what may have happened 200 years ago. We need a sorry day about what happened over the last six years.

A very good friend of mine said to me in 2008-09, when the government was handing it all out, that she received a cheque from the government for $850. I said, 'You didn't,' because I knew she was earning $85,000 to $90,000 a year. She has no dependents at all. She showed me the cheque and I could not believe it. If there were a federal ICAC, that is something that should go to it—straight out bribery, wastefulness or incompetence. Call it what you like, it is an ICAC thing when you give people earning as much as her that sort of money as a gift, simply because you want to curry favour with the general population. I find it unbelievable stuff.

Why are we doing a tough budget? Tell me how many businesses and families in a matter of six years could take over the sort of business you were handed and turn it into absolute chaos—and, yes, it is chaos when you take over something that is $60-odd billion in the black and turn it into a business with $660-odd billion of debt, based on your own Treasury figures. Not many could do it. It is not easy to get rid of that much money in that much time.

We are doing what you do if you have the guts to do it politically. I am not a populist, although a lot are on both sides. We have to do what is necessary. This is necessary.

See this speech in context