Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to make a contribution to today's MPI on the subject of listening, learning and changing. At the start, what needs to be recognised by the debt and deficit deniers on the other side of the chamber is that the federal Treasury is currently having to borrow $100 million every single day of the year. Our excess spending is $100 million a day. Close to $40 million of that is the interest payment on this previous Labor government's debt.

What does the Leader of the Opposition suggest that we should do about this? I quote from his recent appearance on the ABC's 7.30. He said:

… we've got to go for growth. And the way you go for growth is you spend money … what I'm spelling out is our direction for the future.

That is, spending money. So, if we are going to learn, for a good place to start I say that we should go back to the time of the Great Depression and to the words of US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. In 1939, when the US had been through seven years of high unemployment and when the US had continued to run budget deficit after budget deficit, Morgenthau said:

No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat.

…      …   …

I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started.

…      …   …

And an enormous debt to boot!

He went on:

… what are we going to do about it?

He also said:

… the biggest deterrent of all … is that the country does not know when the end is in sight and this unbalancing of the budget …

That is the biggest deterrent of all. We cannot continue to borrow $100 million every day indefinitely.

While we are on the subject of listening, learning and changing, I would like to quote from today's editorial in The Daily Telegraph headed 'Bill Shorten an economic Pontius Pilate':

He was at it again during Question Time on Monday. "You are an extreme government motivated by an extreme ideology,” Shorten railed, looking like a furious, slightly less orange Oompa Loompa.

It goes on:

… he could perhaps use some remedial … education. It is by no means extreme to seek a balanced budget or to aim for a budget surplus.

It goes on:

This from the man who was a key player in the knifing of the last two Labor prime ministers.

…   …   …

Abattoir workers have less blood on their hands after a 12-hour shift slaughtering haemophiliac cattle.

It concludes:

The next time Bill Shorten wants to discuss social justice and unfairness, he ought to first consider his own actions. He should also consider the damage committed against future generations of Australians by his Pontius Pilate-like, cynical refusal to assist the government in reducing our national debt …

That was today's editorial from The Daily Telegraph.

One of the great philosophers of our time, Edmund Burke, talked about the contract between generations. He described it as:

… a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

This opposition is simply proposing a plan to allow today's voters to live at the expense of those who are too young to vote or those who are to be born.

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

This is the tragedy of what this government is doing. You are engaged in intergenerational theft against the future kids and grandkids of our nation. You are an absolute disgrace.

On the subject of listening, learning and changing, we know what happens should this Labor Party ever get back into power. They will bring back the carbon tax as sure as night follows day. They will be weak on border protection. We saw 800 boats, 50,000 arrivals, an $11 billion blow-out in costs and over 1,000 deaths at sea. They will bring those policies back, and we will see bigger and bigger debt and a continual intergenerational theft against our children and grandchildren. You lot are an absolute disgrace. (Time expired)

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