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

It is actually fortuitous that the member for Lilley and his chief abacus counter over there, the member for Rankin, sounding off in the front row, are in the chamber, because I would ask them: how is it economically competent and responsible—the subject of their MPI—to spend every dollar of the economic bequest left by the Howard government? How is it economically responsible to repeatedly promise but never deliver a surplus? They talked about a surplus; they simply forgot that it was the Howard-Costello governments that delivered a surplus in 2008. None of them on that side of the chamber did. How is it economically responsible to put our debt on a trajectory to $667 billion—two-thirds of $1 trillion? How is it economically competent and responsible to entrench legislated spending beyond our capacity to pay, to the point where we have to borrow $100 million every day just to pay for things our revenue does not cover? How is it competent and economically responsible to trot out poorly considered policy, at great cost to the taxpayer, that did not work?

We can all remember Fuelwatch, GroceryWatch, the set-top box scheme, cash for clunkers, the green car scheme, the solar panels program, the Indigenous housing scheme, a computer for every child. What happened to all the trade training centres and the GP superclinics? They were a huge cost, and, as Australians quickly learned, they never survived the Labor Party doorstop. Then we had the disastrous, overpriced and rorted school halls program that wasted $1 billion of taxpayers' money. What happened to the childcare centres and ending the double drop-off that never happened? Remember them unpicking our border protection policies that worked, creating $12 billion of unanticipated expense for the taxpayers? What about the pink batts scheme, and the four deaths, which is the subject of a royal commission? What about the famous back-of-the envelope calculation with Senator Conroy and Mr Rudd—$70 billion on the back of the envelope, with no business plan for the NBN? What about the $900 cheque giveaways to dead people and overseas backpackers, and the mining tax that raised no money but that they promised would raise a huge amount of money? What about the live cattle ban that destroyed our supply chains without notice and damaged our relationship with Indonesia, and the perennial favourite, the carbon tax we were never going to have under a government Julia Gillard led? How is it responsible to cut Defence spending to its lowest level since 1938, ripping $15 billion out of the Defence budget, down to 1.56 per cent of GDP, never making a decision on any ships or submarines—the capability gaps that result? What about Labor pillaging even its own aid budget of $5.7 billion? They diverted $750 million in aid spending to address the out-of-control situation on the border, making the Gillard government the third-largest recipient of Australia's aid budget. Where is the economic and moral value of Labor's 2012 legislation to commandeer people's bank accounts, their hard-earned savings—$550 million stolen from 156,000 bank accounts?

But it gets worse. Having presided over such gross incompetence, they now stand in the way of things that will actually make our economic future better. Perhaps of greatest concern is the Labor Party's appalling attempt to kill off the China free trade deal—the false, xenophobic, irresponsible campaign run by the CFMEU. It should not surprise us, because opposition leader Bill Shorten has form. They have their heads down, but they can remember him clambering onto the back of that flat-bed in Adelaide and giving a speech that the Australian said stank with racist and xenophobic overtones. That is what you do to the greatest trade opportunity confronting our country. It confirms how beholden the Labor Party is to militant unions, yet these free trade deals will provide enormous opportunities for Australia. So, what I say to those opposite, before they bring on another MPI like this, is: stop trying to rewrite history, have a look at your record and do what is right for the economic prosperity of this country.

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