Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There seems to be a lack of conviction from those opposite on this topic today. We know that their record on economic management of this nation is truly appalling, so it's really not surprising that their hearts are not quite in this issue today. During Labor's six terrible years in office they, effectively, destroyed our economy. Under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments, and I note there are a number of MPs in this parliament who served in senior positions in those governments, they left our nation and future generations with debt unlike anything we have seen before in Australia. There was something in the order of $277 billion, although John Howard and Peter Costello left them with $50 billion in the bank in 2007—that is responsible government.

It's impossible to list all of Labor's failed policies, but I will list a few to remind people of the waste of money that occurred under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments. There were the pink batts; the cash for clunkers; the green loans scheme; unfunded policies like the NDIS; the National Broadband Network; and the mining tax, which destroyed jobs and industry confidence but, happily, was repealed by us when we got back into government. There was also the carbon tax, which did more to harm businesses and, again, jobs than many of their other policies, and it also pushed household power prices up. There were the school halls and having to build detention centres, because Labor lost control of our borders and drowned 1,200 people at sea—which is the most disgraceful thing that they did during their time in government. They had to build a number of detention centres. Billions upon billions of taxpayers' dollars were wasted trying to get back the control of our borders.

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