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

What a very disappointing speech we just heard. It was very disappointing. We have heard the former Treasurer of this nation rant a disgraceful incitement of class warfare. There could be nothing more irresponsible than the billions of dollars of debt that you left this country! There are some young kids up there watching at the moment. I hope they understand that, in years to come, when they wonder why they are paying higher taxes, it is because of the debt from when that man was Treasurer in this nation. He ran up billions and billions of dollars of debt. We in this nation now have to pay $1 billion a month in interest because of the recklessness, the waste and the mismanagement of when that man who just spoke was Treasurer. He talks about 'Keynesian facts'. We should write that down—that is one we will always remember. Keynesian facts—that simply says it all! Look at the wording of this motion, talking about looking after the big end of town; no-one looks after the big end of town more than the Labor Party. The way they govern is with big unions, big business and big government all together, all three of them.

Let us look at a couple of examples. Who can remember the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal? Remember that one? It was a creation from the glory years of the Gillard-Rudd governments. Let's go through what Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal did—talk about looking after the big end of town!

What they did is force all small, independent truck drivers to charge a higher rate for their service than the big end of town, to drive the small guy out of business. When we tried to fix that, the Labor Party stood against it, because they wanted to look after their mates in the big end of town at the expense of the small, hardworking truck drivers in this nation. What a disgrace that was. We will always remember that.

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