David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Griffith proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The need for the federal government to take responsibility for protecting Australia’s prosperity and end the blame game.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two days ago in this chamber, during the matter of public importance debate, I said that in the 12 months ahead we are going to be engaged in a battle for ideas for this country’s long-term future. I also said that values and ideas were important because they shape everything we do. They shape our vision; they shape our policies; they shape the practical things we propose to be done on the ground that affect the lives of working families. All this will culminate in an election at the end of next year which will be the most important election in a generation.

In this battle for ideas, for values and over vision, the battlelines are already clear. Their vision is for an Australia which has about it the Liberals’ three big priorities: me, myself and I. That is the cornerstone of what their philosophy is all about—all to be delivered by a form of market fundamentalism that this country has never seen before. That is their vision.

Our alternative vision is for an Australia in which we have a strong economy based on market principles but also a fair go for all Australian families, not just some Australian families. In a nutshell, that is the difference—that is the alternative vision for the future and that is what this battle will be about.

That is why I have said that in the 12 months to come this country will indeed face a fork in the road—because there is a choice to be faced; there is an alternative to be embraced. Either you can go their way or you can go our way—let’s not pretend about it. You can go for their vision or you can go for our vision. Their vision and the market fundamentalism for which it stands has been so overtaken by extremism in recent years that this fork in the road is becoming very sharp and stark indeed. Ever since this Prime Minister got control of the Senate, this Prime Minister’s policies have become extreme, more extreme and more extreme again. We have seen that particularly in workplace relations, but we see it across the spectrum of other public policy as well.

That is their vision—one increasingly driven by the politics of the extreme. Ours is an alternative vision to restore the balance and to reclaim the centre ground, because Australian families want a balance between a strong economy and fairness for Australian working families. That is our alternative vision.

But make no mistake: when we talk about this alternative which we will face when we go to the next election, it will be made starker and starker by the events which unfold in the weeks and months ahead. Over that period I will be outlining just how these differences between us will be reflected in a different and new policy agenda for the nation, because this is what at the end of the day the Australian people will be looking for: a different vision, different policies and different things which will make their lives more liveable on the ground.

But this debate is also about a new style of leadership, because what we have pursued this week in this parliament is a debate about this Prime Minister’s style of leadership. Leadership is important. It is the vehicle through which long-term change can be brought about for the nation. Alternatively, it is the vehicle through which long-term change can in fact be thwarted in substitution for short-term political expediency. The sort of political leadership and the sort of leadership style we have had from the Prime Minister so far is one increasingly characterised by short-term political survival. That, at the end of the day, is what this Prime Minister has become a past master of.

This Prime Minister is a clever politician. His talents, skills and abilities are so focused on the arts and crafts of immediate political survival that he has lost sight of the nation’s long-term needs, the nation’s long-term prosperity, the nation’s long-term sustainable security and the long-term fairness which is available to all Australian families. At the end of the day, you have limited time and energy in this business of politics, and 95 per cent of this Prime Minister’s energy and time is spent on the art and craft of: ‘How do I get through to nine o’clock tomorrow morning?’ That is what this Prime Minister is such a clever politician at doing. But I have a message for him: the Australian people are starting to see through this. They are becoming very tired indeed of the politics of the short term—the politics of short-term expediency and opportunism.

That brings us to the matter of public importance before us today: the style of leadership that either accepts responsibility or instead always blames somebody else. You either accept responsibility or you take that course of action in which you play the blame game. We have seen today in question after question how this Prime Minister always takes that course of action which causes him least political pain—namely, to play the blame game. If your overriding strategy in politics is political survival at all costs, then the way in which you bring that about is to play the blame game, because at the end of the day that is this Prime Minister’s ultimate objective. Do you remember the Peter Sellers movie Being There?

Opposition Members:

Chauncey!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leaving Chauncey Gardner to one side, who I think had a remarkable set of talents, when it comes to the blame game, when it comes to what this Prime Minister is ultimately on about and what his ultimate objective is, it is those two words: being there; just being there—not making a difference for the long term; not making a difference in terms of how we produce a sustainable climate for the future, how we actually invest in the long-term prosperity of our economy by properly using the resources boom of today and how we best invest in our long-term security rather than simply inflaming the fires of militant Islamism within our own region. He is not interested in any of those great projects for the nation as we embark upon the Pacific century, replete with challenges and opportunities. No. It is simply Peter Sellers and Being Therebeing in Kirribilli and the Lodge and just being there. That is what guides this Prime Minister’s modus operandi. That is why so much of this clever politician’s political talent and energy is directed at the art and craft of political survival.

The hallmark of this Prime Minister’s occupancy of the most important political office in the country is always that it is someone else’s fault, never his. Yesterday, I asked the Prime Minister this question, which was very simple and pretty stark, and I thought it was an important one to ask: ‘Prime Minister, why do you always take the credit for the good news in this country and why do you never take any responsibility for the bad news in this country?’ I thought the Prime Minister looked like a stunned mullet when I asked that question yesterday, because he did not know how to respond, because that in a nutshell is how the Prime Minister conducts the political and policy business of the nation. But when it comes to things that go radically wrong, like the war in Iraq—and we had questions here today on that and this devastating report by former Secretary of State Baker—and things that go radically wrong over which this government has absolute control, such as the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal and the direct role in that of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, it is, ‘Don’t look at me.’ When we go to other scandals, such as the one which has been outlined by the shadow minister for immigration this week concerning the illegal detention of Australian children—what a disgrace—which are things that fall directly within the purchase of this Prime Minister, at the end of the day, what is his answer to them? ‘Don’t look at me; I’m just the Prime Minister.’ That is his answer: ‘Don’t look at me; I’m just the guy in charge of the country. Don’t look at me. I have tens of thousands of public servants working for me. How could I ultimately be responsible for anything that goes wrong in this country?’

I have to say to the Prime Minister and to the minister sitting at the table: after 10 long years in office, the Australian people are starting to see through this. They actually want a new style of leadership which says, ‘The buck stops with me.’ They want a new style of leadership which says, ‘I’ve got the guts to say, “The buck stops with me.”’ They want a new style of leadership which says: ‘I am committed to delivering real, long-term solutions for the nation’s long-term challenges and problems. I am not just interested in surviving until breakfast-time tomorrow.’ When it comes to the blame game, I found it really interesting this week how the Prime Minister, with increasing anxiety, responded to these questions as the week unfolded. If you go right across the spectrum of public administration here, you see it writ large. In health care the minister at the table had this to say only a short time ago:

The problem with the Commonwealth seeking any specific performance outcomes from state-run public hospitals is that the Commonwealth would be regarded as ... responsible for any failure to deliver.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We wouldn’t want that to happen!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could not have that. He continued:

So in his own words they are seeking to avoid responsibility and are seeking to blame—to avoid responsibility and engage in the blame game. The minister at the table also had this to say about the health and hospital system:

Cost-shifting is unavoidable. You can’t stop it, so you might as well just live with it.

How is that for national political leadership? We have massive cost shift and blame shift across the health and hospital system of Australia, and one of the most senior ministers in this government, responsible directly for that portfolio, turns around and says:

You can’t stop it, so you might as well just live with it.

The Australian people expect a bit better. They actually want their governments to try. This is really important. It affects people in hospitals, in acute beds and in emergency departments. It affects those seeking to find a place in aged care as well.

Speaking of aged care, on any one night in Australia it is estimated that there are 1,684 people in public hospital beds who should be receiving aged care treatment. The government have failed to meet the targets that they themselves established of 88 residential aged care beds for every 1,000 people aged 70 or above. The current shortage of aged care beds, according to the government’s own figures, is 4,613. In 10 years, the Howard government have turned the surplus of 800 aged care beds in 1996 into a 4,613 shortfall in June 2006. Their response to this is: ‘Who can I blame? Blame the states, blame anybody else, but do not blame me, because I am not taking any responsibility.’

Minister at the table, the Australian people are fed up with that. It has actually got to its use-by date. They want something different. When it comes to dental care we see the same thing. One of the first acts of the Howard government in 1996 was to eliminate the Commonwealth Dental Health Program, citing the need to make savings. Since then, the government has consistently claimed that it is not the Commonwealth’s responsibility to fund dental care, despite it being in the Constitution as such, that the Keating government never intended the CDHP to be an ongoing program and that it has fulfilled its goals of addressing waiting lists. The Prime Minister said in question time in December:

The states are responsible for the dental care of their communities, and it is about time they carried out those responsibilities.

So what is the response to the crisis in dental care? The blame game—blame the states, blame anybody else, but do not hold us responsible.

But this blame game is not just in health care, it is not just in hospitals, it is not just in aged care and it is not just in dental care. We see it in climate change—it is everyone else’s responsibility. We see it in water policy, where it is again the states’ responsibility, never the Commonwealth’s. We see it in schools, we see it in TAFEs, we see it in training and we see it in immigration. The states cannot be blamed for immigration, but the government are blaming everyone other than themselves for the complete implosion of the effective management of the immigration detention system. We also see the blame game and the avoidance of responsibility with the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal. We see it with Iraq. The Prime Minister today was at his best when he said the Baker report is all about a little change in tactics. This Prime Minister cannot accept responsibility—I asked him this three times—for the fact that policies in Iraq are not working. The Baker report says so. His spin line back—as the king of spin, the clever politician—is, ‘It is a change of tactics.’ That is about a change of strategy. It is about a change of policy. It is not fiddling with the tactics.

When it comes to this Christmas, working families will suffer as well. We are going to hit the ground in the days ahead. We are going to take our alternative vision for the country’s future out to the people. Over 10 days we hope to get to every capital city in the country and we intend to outline our alternatives for the future. We are not content with just being there. We are in the business of politics to make a difference—and make a difference we will.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should begin these remarks by congratulating the member for Griffith on his ascension to the opposition leadership. I have always regarded the member for Griffith as an intelligent, articulate and decent man and I have not been disabused of those notions over the past few days. But I will say that he has the job ahead of him now and the job will not just be to construct a wish list; it will be to explain what real improvements he intends to make and to explain how he will actually make a difference. He said today that he was going to produce a new policy agenda over the next few weeks and months. I welcome that, and I think the Australian people will welcome that, because we are helped as a nation if there is a genuine debate between government and opposition on how we can best help the Australian people. Our people will not welcome more name-calling and more undermining of the respect in which this institution is held—more undermining of the respect in which politicians generally are held—by the kinds of attacks which we saw the Leader of the Opposition make today.

It is true that the Prime Minister is a clever politician. He would not have become a party leader and he would not have been Prime Minister for more than a decade were he not a clever politician, but our Prime Minister is much more than that. The fact that the Leader of the Opposition is incapable of giving him credit for being more than just a clever politician not only shows the parallel universe which members opposite inhabit but also shows, if I may say so, an early lack of generosity of spirit which, if sustained, will do the Leader of the Opposition no good at all.

This matter of public importance is:

The need for the federal government to take responsibility for protecting Australia’s prosperity and end the blame game.

All we heard from the new Leader of the Opposition for 15 minutes was a litany of blame. The Prime Minister was being blamed for everything. If you have a problem with the blame game, please start with yourself. Lift your own game. Do not keep blaming the Prime Minister for a whole host of things which, quite frankly, are not his fault. I think it is clear what the tactic of the opposition is going to be over the next 10 days on this big listening, big spruiking tour that they are going on. There will not be any alternative vision, there will not be any new policies, but every single thing that people are unhappy about in our country will be blamed on the Prime Minister. There will be nothing anywhere in our country that is going wrong or that is slightly less than we would wish it to be that members opposite will not blame on the Prime Minister.

I do not say that the government is perfect, I do not say that the Prime Minister is perfect, I do not say that we have all the answers to all problems and I do not say that we cannot in some ways improve; but I do say that a credible opposition has to give credit where it is due. Whatever faults this government has, it has many strengths as well. I think the Leader of the Opposition would gain in stature and win opening plaudits from the Australian people if he were prepared to say on jobs, on wages, on taxes and on national security that there is much that this government has got right—two million new jobs, a 17 per cent increase in real wages, the real wealth of our country is double what it was in 1996 and, when it comes to income, according to the National Centre for Economic Modelling, the average Australian is 25 per cent better off. Some of these things no doubt happened because of reforms put in place by the previous government. Some of these things no doubt happened because of factors beyond the immediate control of this government. But much of this happened because of policies that the government has put in place and a little bit of credit where it is due would stand the opposition leader in good stead.

I want to dwell, if I may, on some hints of policy which are starting to emerge from the opposition leader. We have had in the newspapers over the last few days some suggestions that the opposition were moving towards a single-funder model in health as a way of ending the ‘blame game’. Today we had the Premier of Victoria let the cat out of the bag, because he was asked the question: ‘Kevin Rudd, the new opposition leader, has already called you and the other premiers to talk about federal-state relations. Would you like to give up funding hospitals?’ ‘No,’ says Premier Bracks, ‘we would prefer not to’. Of course, if the states do not want to give up funding hospitals, the federal government cannot force them to because under the Constitution that is the responsibility of the states. Premier Bracks said that he supported a single funding model and went on to say:

You know a contribution for the federal government and a contribution from the state and one body which administers that contribution and make sure that we have simple funding lines and less blame game and less overlap and we certainly support that ...

That is the proposition that Premier Bracks has confirmed is being put by the new opposition leader as a solution to the blame game in health. I have to say it is certainly not a new idea. For instance, back in 2004, before the last election, Premier Bracks commissioned a report by the Allen Consulting Group which called for, in chapter 8, a new health system for all Australians. It called for:

... the formation of a joint Commonwealth-State national body, the Australian Health Commission ...

to administer—

an integrated health system, under which regional health agencies would control a budget of pooled Commonwealth and State funds for acute, primary and community care, pharmaceuticals and aged care.

In fact, the new Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Lalor, said in I think June of that same year, 2004, at the AMA conference:

The principal characteristic of a unified national health system must be that existing Commonwealth money, Medicare, the PBS, payments to nursing homes and payments made under the Australian Health Care Agreements are combined with existing state and territory money for hospital communities and mental health populations, of dental care and the like, and the combined pool of money is then applied to the population’s health needs.

This policy is so old that no less a person than the now scorned former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, said in September that a single funder was an option well worth considering by the Australian Labor Party. But, when you look at this single funder, you see that it is not going to end the blame game. It is not going to end the buck passing. What it is actually going to produce is something akin to the UK National Health Service here in Australia. What this single funder means is the death of Medicare as we know it. In order to end this pernicious blame game, as the Leader of the Opposition calls it, they are going to end Medicare as we know it.

All that money which is currently spent by the federal government on Medicare, on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and on nursing homes and other aged-care facilities will be gone, all into a big pot. Who is going to run that big pot? Not the federal government and not the state government but some unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats responsible to no-one. I think health is too important to be left to the bureaucrats. I have to say that, the more Labor’s new policy crystallises, the more I think that health is too important to be left to amateur politicians, politicians in training, politicians who are still thinking more like professors and less like politicians who have thought these issues through.

Let us consider for a second this new national funding body that will run everything. The first thing that the professors who run this national single funder will say is that there is not enough money in the system. Who are they going to go to to get some more money? They are going to go to the state governments. The state governments will say, ‘Not our responsibility.’ Then they will go to the federal government. The federal government will say, ‘Not our responsibility.’ The states will blame the feds, the feds will blame the states and the blame game will continue. But the politicians will have even less power, less capacity, to actually affect the outcome.

Suppose something goes wrong with one of our health institutions under Labor’s brave new world and people go to the state health minister and say, ‘We’re very unhappy about what went wrong in our hospitals.’ The state health minister will say: ‘Not my job. Go and talk to the director-general of the Australian health commission.’ Suppose someone then goes to the federal health minister and says, ‘Something is going terribly wrong in our hospitals.’ The health minister will say: ‘Don’t talk to me. Go and talk to the director-general of the Australian health commission.’ So you might finally get in to see the director-general of the Australian health commission, and I have to say that that individual will be a lot more isolated and a lot more remote than an elected politician who actually has to get around the country. It might take six months or a year. You might eventually get into see this individual. What is he or she going to say? They are going to say, ‘Tough.’

There will be no election to remove that person and no opportunity to grill that person at Senate estimates because that person will not be a federal official. That person will not be a state official. That person will be a health tsar accountable to no-one. Yet that is the proposal that Labor is putting to us—to take away Medicare as we know it, to take away the PBS as we know it, to take away the aged-care system as we know it and to substitute something that would make what is a good but imperfect system much worse. It is a sign of a politically immature Leader of the Opposition that he is prepared to junk something that works in favour of the unknown, in favour of something which any serious reflection would say is just not worth it.

I am all in favour of reform where I am convinced that it is going to be an improvement. I am all in favour of new ideas where I think we really can do better than we are doing now. But I do not want to play games with our health system. I do not want to risk the health of Australians in pursuit of a theoretical system that has not been tried in this country and which, when subject to examination, is almost impossible to explain and almost impossible to detail.

I call on the Leader of the Opposition, lest people start to fear for the future of their health system, to come clean very quickly on exactly what he has in mind. Because I have got to say that for all the faults of the federal government’s administration and the PBS, I reckon we have done a better job than the bureaucrats did at Bundaberg Hospital. I would much rather leave Medicare and the PBS as they are than have the same people that mucked up Bundaberg Hospital and gave us Dr Death in charge of everything. Yet that is what the Leader of the Opposition is proposing.

It is really quite paradoxical. We have got the member for Lalor screaming three weeks ago for the federal government to overturn the expert body—the PBAC—and do everything itself. Now she wants the whole damn system to be given to the sort of people who run the PBAC.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the time of year when everybody is tired. I would have to say the Minister for Health and Ageing must be particularly so, given that contribution. Everybody is tired and everybody is looking forward to a Christmas break. That would be a feeling across the nation, but the malaise that is infecting the Howard government is more than just end-of-year tiredness. It is a far deeper malaise than that.

Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, as you see this government in this chamber, there is one impression that is overwhelming. Even this government’s best friends would say that its best days are behind it. I do not think anyone in this country would suggest that the best days of the Howard government are yet to come. Its best days are behind it. It is an ageing government, a stale government and a government that is now full of excuses but completely lacking the reforming drive and zeal—the new ideas, the new energy, the new style of leadership—required to make this country a better and fairer place.

It shows when a government gets this tired and stale. It shows in the way it handles issues, in the way it deals with problems and in what it is prepared to claim as successes. Let us just run through a list, even from today in question time, of the excuses this government has used for its poor performance. It was confronted with a major water crisis and its inability to get one more drop of water into the Murray river, despite the Prime Minister in February this year saying he was going to put a bomb under the process. When that is a fact confronting it, this government says, ‘We’ve let a tender,’ as if between February 2006 and December 2006, when you have ‘put a bomb’ under the process, letting a tender is good enough. Well, I would hate to see them on a slow day if that is their current definition of good performance.

Then we have got to the stage with this government where they come into this House and say: ‘Incompetence is okay. Unless we have actually done something corrupt, it does not matter. Incompetence is okay.’ Incompetence is the new standard of achievement for the Howard government. So at the end of this year, which has been so much about the wheat for weapons scandal, they proudly backslap each other because they are going to get away with gross incompetence, because incompetence is the new standard of achievement when you are as tired and as stale as they are.

And then another excuse has come into this government’s rhetoric. The excuse is: ‘We aren’t the worst.’ We saw the Prime Minister scrabbling around in question time today for references to Labor immigration policy in the late 1980s and early 1990s to justify the fact that in 2005 and 2006 his government has been detaining Australian citizens, including children, and has been seeking on at least one occasion to deport an Australian citizen. And this government’s excuse to that is, ‘Well, you know, maybe at some time in the dim and distant past something happened like that.’ As a matter of fact that is not true; nothing like that happened. But imagine a government that is supposed to be in control of the country saying, ‘Well, if we can ever look back across Australia’s history and find another time someone made a mistake, that excuses us today.’ That is the degree of malaise that is infecting the Howard government.

More than anything, we see it as they play the blame game. Nothing is ever their fault. This Prime Minister has made an art form of associating himself with success in this country. Indeed earlier, in my home town of Melbourne during the Commonwealth Games this year, the rumour through all the venues was: if you did not see the Prime Minister in the stands, we clearly were not going to win a gold medal. It was absolutely impossible at the Commonwealth Games for an Australian athlete to win a gold medal unless the Prime Minister was on hand to present it, associating himself with success. We see him jumping in his tracksuit watching his TV when we succeed on the sporting field in the soccer. And, if one is to believe the rhetoric, he is apparently the captain of our cricket team! That does not seem to be the case when I watch the cricket on TV, but I am obviously missing something. The Prime Minister is clearly the captain of our cricket team.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Until you see him bowling a ball!

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Brisbane is warned!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, until they actually show him bowling a ball, as I am reminded by the member for Brisbane, in which case the imagery very quickly dissipates.

He is always there, associated with the moments of success, but when it comes to the things that are going wrong in this country, they are someone else’s fault. Most particularly, they are the fault of the states. Sometimes it is the fault of the trade union movement. Amazingly, frequently what is going wrong in this contemporary Australia is the fault of the federal opposition! Amazingly, that seems to occur in the view of the Howard government, even though they are in government and we are in opposition. The flaws of contemporary Australia must magically be our fault. So sometimes it is the unions, sometimes it is federal Labor, but more often than not it is the states.

This would all be just clever political rhetoric if it was not for the fact that playing the blame game, most particularly with the states, makes a difference to the lives of ordinary Australians. It has been my privilege to serve for some time now as the shadow minister for health, and I have seen it affect the lives of ordinary Australians as I have travelled around the country. I have met the old man at the Wangaratta Hospital who was trapped in an acute hospital bed for 14 months because they could not find him an aged-care place. I have met the doctor in Bega who told me that the single biggest reason she prescribed antibiotics was for infections in the mouths of those waiting for public dental care. I have been to the new hospital in Kyneton—a brand new building with no staff problems because it is a pretty good region in Victoria to live; it is a nice part of the world—and I have met the administrator who administers the 47 different funding streams that come into her relatively small hospital. She loses all that administrative time because of those 47 different funding streams.

To these practical problems that are out there in our health system the Howard government simply say, ‘Too hard, not our problem, something to do with the states.’ They get on TV and they blame state ministers and the state ministers blame them back. I can tell the Howard government and I am absolutely sure of this, having served the time I have in health: the Australian public are over it. They are sick of it. They are worried not just about the blame game, which is hurting them and their access to care; they are also rightly worried that, if we keep our health system in the same state it is now and we keep money flowing down the same old stovepipes for the next 20, 30 and 40 years, our health system will be unsustainable and broken. The Minister for Health and Ageing has tried to start a fear campaign today—he always does, faced with reform. The true fear of the Australian community is that without reform our health system will not be sustainable in 20, 30 and 40 years.

That is the absolute truth. The minister for health today basically put up a straw man, claimed it was Labor’s policy and then tried to knock that straw man over. Heavens above! Let me assure you that the last person in this country who is ever going to know what Labor’s plans are is the minister for health—the last person. But at the end of his remarks he said something so stupid and so inflammatory it requires response. He said that in effect we wanted to put bureaucrats like the bureaucrats at the Bundaberg Hospital, with the Dr Death scandal, in charge of Australia’s health system. Honest to God! Why did we have the Dr Death scandal? In part it was because this government has not invested enough in training Australian doctors and nurses and largely because this government has been too lazy and too incompetent to get a national registration and accreditation scheme in place.

They are the things at the feet of the Howard government and it stands there opposed to reform. It is opposed to reform today because the minister for health in his heart of hearts knows that the only way of fixing Australia’s health system is to have a big reform process. In the past he has talked about it and on each and every occasion the Prime Minister has slapped him down. Having had so many clips on the ear he is now going to do nothing. Well, the minister for health might not be brave enough and the Howard government might be too stale, too tired and too incompetent, but we are not going to leave Australians without the health system they need and deserve not just for tomorrow but for the 10 years after and the 10 years after that and the 10 years after that. That is one of the new agendas for Labor, and it is an agenda that the Australian community want to hear. (Time expired)

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a most curious matter of public importance that the Labor Party has put forward to the House.  To listen to the new Leader of the Opposition and to listen to the new Deputy Leader of the Opposition one could be instantly taken by the prima facie proposition that they put. They say that the Labor Party under the new Leader of the Opposition is about a new style of leadership. We heard the Leader of the Opposition say that the Labor Party under him will be about a new set of policies. In the debate today we have heard from the Australian Labor Party, to reinforce this point, two key arguments.

The first argument the Australian Labor Party puts forward is with regard to industrial relations and in particular this government’s record on Work Choices. The second argument that is put forward by the Australian Labor Party deals with the issue of Australia’s health system. We heard in remarks just made by the deputy leader that the Labor Party, for the next 10 years and for 10 years beyond that, would be committed and focused on improving Australia’s health system.

I would like to turn to some of the central arguments that Labor have put forward. The Leader of the Opposition made one key comment that really stuck with me. He said that the Australian people were starting to see through the government’s line. He said that the Australian people could see through the politics and the blame game. We heard the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition trying to demonstrate, through approximately 25 minutes of rhetoric, that the Australian people were not as well off today as they were when the Labor Party was in power. This is a key point because Labor Party policies have been trialled on the Australian people previously. Labor Party policies at a state level are currently being implemented by the Labor Party in the various state governments. What have been the outcomes of Australian Labor Party policies?

We hear the Leader of the Opposition say that the Australian people need to reflect on the performance of the Prime Minister and his government. In particular, the argument was made that the Prime Minister is happy to accept credit for good results but is not prepared to take the blame and that any attempt by government to highlight inaction or resistance which has led to adverse outcomes is an attempt to engage in the ‘blame game’—they were the words that they used. Given that the new Leader of the Opposition, as the Daily Telegraph said, seems to be a man that is all about style but not particularly about substance, what do other people say?

Do not take my word for it; do not take the word of the Leader of the House, the member for Warringah; do not even take the Prime Minister’s word, if the Labor Party would like. Let us see whose word we will listen to and who has spoken about federalism and cooperative federalism. Let us see what others have said about the way in which the federal government and the state governments are working, because the entire thrust from the Leader of the Opposition and from the deputy leader is that this government is just engaged in a blame game and that the consequences for the Australian people are poor. This is what Steve Bracks, the Labor Premier of Victoria, had to say:

I think people are sick and tired of the blame game.

That resonates, doesn’t it, Mr Deputy Speaker? We have heard that somewhere this afternoon. He continued:

I think people are sick and tired of the blame game. They want us to get on with the job. They want us to have real reform which is going to sustain our economy and our population for a long time to come, and they want us to look not at just the short term but the long term ...

But there is not a full stop there. The quote continues:

... that is what’s been achieved as part of the COAG agenda.

So the very lines we have heard the Leader of the Opposition using, the very lines we have heard the Deputy Leader of the Opposition using, have been entirely rebutted, purely and simply, by the Labor Premier of Victoria, just recently re-elected, who said that we are getting on past the blame game, we are delivering real reform, sustaining the economy and the population for a long time to come and ‘that’s what has been achieved as part of the COAG agenda’. He continued:

For those who are knocking the Federation, knocking the States and Territories and knocking the relationship between the States and Territories and the Commonwealth, today is evidence, further evidence, that we are doing what the public expect, and that is not to continually snipe at each other, but get on with the job of delivering real services to our public, to the public in Victoria and the public in Australia more broadly.

So with respect to the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly is a man that has style but not substance, I would say to the Australian people: never trust the style; look for the substance. He might be presenting as new, but can I say that if there is one message to drive home to the Australian people it is this: that tribe might have a new chief but they still dance to the same beat. And the people that play that beat in the Australian Labor Party are the trade union movement. We have had Labor Party policies before; we have had union policies before; and the results were very bad for the Australian people.

This whole argument can be encapsulated in this one brief comment. The thrust from the Leader of the Opposition and the deputy leader was that this is ‘new Labor’—a new style of leadership, new policies. The key argument they used to illustrate how this government was being unfair was to talk about Work Choices. So my question is this: why then, if Work Choices is such a problem for the Australian Labor Party and this is the new Labor Party with the new leader, the new style, the new policies, is your policy on Work Choices exactly the same as it was under Kim Beazley? Why is it that an hour-and-a-half before the new Leader of the Opposition came out and addressed the Australian people, Labor’s policy on industrial relations was announced by Sharan Burrow, the head of the ACTU? I repeat: it might be a new chief but the drumbeat is the same, and that drumbeat is played by the ACTU and the various trade union movements around Australia.

Let us turn to substance. We heard 25 minutes of rhetoric from the Australian Labor Party but let us look at what this government has delivered for the Australian people. Let us move beyond the general comments that we had from the Leader of the Opposition, the general comments we had from the deputy leader, and actually deal with some facts, because I do not think I heard too many from the Leader of the Opposition—and especially not from the deputy leader, who started by talking about cricket teams, tracksuits, which Commonwealth Games finals the Prime Minister went to and so on. Let us put all of that to one side. That will never wash with the Australian people. They can see through that. What the Australian people want to hear from the opposition are your policies and the results. And in this respect I am proud of this government’s achievements. I am proud of a couple of key things. I am proud that under the Prime Minister and under the policies of this government we have reduced Labor’s $96 billion of public debt to zero—one of the key accomplishments. In terms of interest savings for this government, as a result of paying off this debt, we have seen now that the Australian people have an additional $8 billion to spend on schools, hospitals, roads and tax relief. So this government has $8 billion of additional money that it can spend to help the Australian people because we have paid off Labor’s $96 billion of debt.

What about employment? This apparently is a key issue for the Australian Labor Party. Let me say to the Australian Labor Party: if you are so concerned about fairness, explain why you had one million Australians in unemployment queues. If the Labor Party wants people to have a festive Christmas, believe you me, the Australian people would rather have a job than no job at all. And thanks to this government and thanks to Work Choices, we have now seen an increase of some two million Australians that have jobs. Since the introduction of Work Choices by this government, we have seen the creation of over 200,000 jobs. This has brought unemployment in this country down to 30-year record lows. I repeat: the Australian Labor Party should move beyond the spin and rhetoric and talk about facts. That is what the Australian people want to hear. Stop listening to the same tired old drumbeat that you march to by the ACTU and come up with some new policies. If you need some inspiration, look to the government side. (Time expired)

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.