Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was a very impassioned speech by the shadow Treasurer. We all know that the shadow Treasurer has had a bit of trouble with his speeches over the last couple of years, the small problem being that he hasn't got any policies up in shadow cabinet. He hasn't got any tax policies up, any productivity policies, any economic reforms—absolute doughnut. In the absence of policies, he speaks in airy generalisations about things that he calls 'principles', and he has a name for these principles. He calls them his 'back to basics' principles. This is his back-to-basics economic approach, and, every chance he gets, he tells us about the contents of his back-to-basics economic approach. Now, I don't think he knows how the kids are using the term 'basic' these days. Nobody has had the heart to fill him in, but that's okay; for the shadow Treasurer, it's hip to be square.

The question is: what is in this back-to-basics approach? What are the principles that he holds so dear? Principle No. 1 for him is smaller government; principle No. 2, which he talks about a lot, is competitive neutrality; and principle No. 3 is reducing regulation. So, after a big week of coalition policy, I thought I'd just do a quick welfare check on how the back-to-basics approach was going. Let's go through them one by one.

Back-to-basics principle No. 1 is smaller government. That has not had a good week. Unfortunately, that one really hit the rocks when his leader announced the biggest government funded program in Australian history. The shadow Treasurer has spent two years talking about spending less. He's been complaining about the housing fund and he's been complaining about the NRF, all $10 billion of it—all these off-balance-sheet funds that he says are a big waste of Australian taxpayers' money. It turns out the problem wasn't that they were off balance sheet; the problem was that they weren't big enough! Now he's got a $600 billion off-balance-sheet proposal. It's a beauty to behold! It's 60 times bigger than the housing fund. It's 10 times bigger than the NBN. It's four times bigger than the biggest policy in Australian history, JobKeeper. That used to be the most expensive policy. It pales into comparison to the $600 billion they want to spend on nuclear energy. So Peter Dutton has completely junked the pretence of smaller government. He's taken back-to-basics principle No. 1 outside and shot it in the back of the head.

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