Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his contribution. I wanted to touch on eight notable matters that have occurred in the last two weeks. They have been a very busy last two weeks. I have only got time for eight, but bear with me and you will get them all in due course.

The first of them is that last Wednesday the Senate saw passage of the budget tax messages which will provide $3.3 billion worth of improvement to Australia's budgetary position. Second, two days ago there was $3.5 billion worth of budgetary repair measures moved through the social services amending legislation. Third, yesterday there was the passage of an instrument that restores the biannual petrol indexation. That improves the budget bottom line over five years to the tune of $3.36 billion. Fourth, last Monday the small business package was passed. Two million small businesses will benefit from $5.5 billion worth of expenditure to supercharge their organisations, their growth and their employment.

Fifth, last Tuesday we secured the Senate's support for pension reforms. 170,000 pensioners with modest means will be better off; members opposite was voted against that. Six, on Wednesday we signed the FTA with China. We now have, due to the heroic efforts of the Minister for Trade and Investment, three major FTAs landed with our three major trading partners. That will add billions of dollars to the Australian economy and create thousands and thousands of jobs. Seventh, the thoroughly critical legislation that allows for the removal of citizenship from dual nationals who betray the Australian nation has been introduced and debated in this place. Eighth, on Thursday the white paper on northern development was tabled. It has an incredible range of recommendations for the development and growth of Northern Australia.

Those eight things alone mark out a really rather exceptional fortnight for this government. The reality is the reason why members opposite are so desperate to talk about press conferences is because without question, in my independent and fair-minded observation, this has been the strongest two weeks for this government since we were elected, which just happened to coincide—as sometimes in politics these things too—with without question the weakest two weeks that you have suffered as an opposition. Any independent, fair-minded observer would have to realise that that is the case. The topic of this MPI was talking about a failure to deliver on promises. I will give you a fair go: I will not merely compare the whole time that we have been in government with your previous government, I will back our last two weeks against your previous six years.

I will start with a very scholarly contribution that was made on The Killing Season program. I will not go into the contributions of members opposite. They speak for themselves. There was one very scholarly contribution to that show. That was by a former member of the UK Labour Party from 1992 to 2010, Mr Alan Milburn. This is not a Tory. This is a former member of the Labour Party, a comrade of yours from the United Kingdom. He said:

The hard question that the Australian Labor Party has to ask itself is this: How is it possible that you win an election in November 2007 on the scale that you do, with the goodwill that you have, with the permission that you’re gifted by the public, and you manage to lose all that goodwill, to trash the permission, and to find yourself out of office within just six years?

He went on to say:

I’ve never seen anything quite like it in any country, anywhere, anytime, in any part of the world. No one can escape blame for that, in my view.

Ouch. That is a scathing condemnation. That is a comrade of yours from the UK Labour Party saying this: you were the worst government over six years that he had ever seen in any country, at anytime, anywhere in the world. Unless you were the best at something!

Why is it that that fair-minded, independent observer would make those comments? Why is it? What was it that the Labor Party achieved in six years in office? In two weeks, we have achieved fiscal consolidation through this parliament to the tune of $14 billion. What did you achieve in six years? Over six budgets, the Labor government increased government spending in Australia by a staggering $137 billion. That is a 50 per cent increase in the size of government spending. It was a staggering $137 billion. Right now, the fastest growing bill that we are experiencing as a government is the interest bill on the debt that you left. It is an interest bill that was zero when you took office and which you ramped up to $13.5 billion a year. As said by the PBO, if you just continue the trajectory of payments and revenues prior to the budget—that is, if you continued the Labor trajectory—you would have the highest rate of debt growth in the OECD.

How is it that you go from zero to $13.5 billion worth of interest in a year on borrowings? It takes some imagination, it takes some effort and it takes some unbelievable waste. You can send $900 checks to deceased Australians. That will help get you there. You can lose complete control of your border protection, which not only costs lives but also costs $6.6 billion in taxpayer money above and beyond that which was routinely budgeted for. You can have an NBN which blows out by a staggering $29 billion. You can spend $69 million advertising the carbon tax. You can even be forced into a situation where you assassinate Prime Minister and have to pay out his staff, who also find themselves without jobs, to the tune of $1.3 million. We and the Australian people are supposed to believe that we can trust you and we can believe you that you will bring this country back to surplus?

In the big year of ideas, Labor has had two ideas so far. They are both taxes. One of them is with respect to multinationals, which is already adequately covered in this budget, and the other is with respect to superannuation—yes, it is an idea. It is an idea about tax and it is a terrible idea. There have been two ideas in the year of ideas. I have got a prediction for you. We have not yet reached peak oil. I do not think we are anywhere near it. In the hipster movement, I doubt that we have yet reached peak beard. But what I can tell you is: halfway through this year, we have reached peak idea for the Labor Party. We have hit peak idea, six months through the year. You are halfway there, and two ideas in a year? What a staggeringly good effort! There are some absolute gems from the Leader of the Opposition. When he was pressed about the year of ideas, in an interview, we got this amazing level of detail:

Today, I say very clearly, Labor will support reform which is fair. Labor will fight reform which is unfair.

That is very, very helpful, isn't it! Let me give you this description. The light bulb is an idea. The saying 'Let there be light' is just a motherhood statement. They are two very different things. When pressed again, in an interview, to describe what the ideas are, one idea was described as:

… to have a growing economy, which is fundamental to our future, we've got to make sure that we don't leave people behind.

That is not an idea. That is a motherhood statement. Quote:

… rather than cut pension increases, we should encourage Australians to save for themselves for the future. These are big ideas.

And yet we are encouraging Australians to save for themselves for the future by taxing the hell out of their superannuation? Not only is it not an idea; it is a motherhood statement that is inconsistent with one of the only ideas for the year. When we look at all of this, we are meant to believe that members opposite are going to, with a plan, get us back to surplus. One of the very sensible contributions that members opposite have made was that of the shadow Treasurer in outlining Labor's fiscal policy approach to the National Press Club last year. He said this:

Let me be clear. There are medium and long term challenges in our budget. They are real.

Okay. Thank you. He said:

We will go to the next election with an alternative vision for the nation …

He said:

Labor does not necessarily object to the quantum of fiscal consolidation in this budget.

He was talking about our first budget. In other words, they consider that you have to make similar savings to those which we proposed. But the thing is: their savings are a secret. Even in the year of ideas, we are not there yet. (Time expired)

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