Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion condemning the Prime Minister and his government for seven months of watching, committees, inaction and indecision.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition moving immediately—That this House condemns the Prime Minister and his Government for seven months of watching, symbolism, inquiries, summits, committees, stunts, spin and buck-passing—anything but making a decision. In particular, for:

(1)

standing by and watching petrol, grocery, childcare and household costs rise significantly, while doing nothing about it;

(2)

watching consumer confidence plummet to 16 year lows, not seen since the days of Paul Keating’s recession ‘we had to have’;

(3)

watching the largest decline in small business confidence since the start of the survey, while doing nothing about it;

(4)

walking away from pensioners, carers, seniors, farmers and small businesses by failing to assist them in the recent Budget, while only delivering the Howard Government’s tax cuts to workers and families;

(5)

slugging Australians with $19 billion of new inflationary taxes that Labor hid from the community prior to the election;

(6)

promising the Australian people last November that he would deliver ‘new leadership and fresh ideas’ when instead, the Prime Minister has outsourced leadership and decision-making to 135 committees, reviews, inquiries and summits; and

(7)

misleading the Australian community into believing that he wanted to end the ‘Blame Game’ when on over 420 occasions in this chamber alone, the Prime Minister and his Government has variously blamed the Coalition, OPEC, the Iraq War, his own staff, the international credit crisis, the mining boom, China’s energy demands, international banks, alcohol companies, heatwaves, pubs and clubs, an ‘overheating’ solar panel industry, oil companies, overseas travel entitlements when in Opposition, State governments and State oppositions, the RACV, RACQ and RAA of South Australia, his own public service, alcopops, the drought, urban traffic congestion, global warming, four wheel drives and Taragos, the US subprime crisis, drinkers, smokers, teenagers, parents, and even the Japanese Government for the challenges he faces, but won’t do anything about it,

It is now seven months that this Prime Minister has governed Australia—and I use the word ‘governed’ loosely. George Megalogenis, who is one of the most respected journalists in the Canberra press gallery, who writes for the Australian newspaper, wrote recently of our Prime Minister:

Will he become our first federal premier, a master of the media cycle who ultimately runs a do-nothing Government?

We have a Prime Minister who, when in opposition, went around Australia and said a lot of things to Australians—that, if he were chosen to be the Prime Minister of Australia, were he to govern the country, interest rates on home loans would be more affordable. He led Australians to believe that he would do something about rising petrol prices, that he would do something about grocery prices, that he would do something to assist pensioners and those that struggle in day-to-day and week-to-week life.

But what we have had for seven months, it is now clear, is a government led by a Prime Minister who is more concerned about his popularity, who is more concerned about his image in the media, who is more concerned about micromanaging every decision that has not been made in the government, who clearly has disdain for his own public servants and who has ignored the advice of four major departments in one of his many stunts, called Fuelwatch. He had disdain for the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, keeping him outside his office for hours for no good reason. He has commissioned 135 reviews, committees, commissions, boards, working groups, inquiries, discussion papers, summits, consultations and a whole variety of things to avoid actually making a decision.

Australians have experienced in the last seven months two official interest rate rises from the Reserve Bank and another 40 basis points from the banks in unofficial rises. The average Australian family are paying more than $152 a month more on their mortgage today than they were in November last year. Confidence in the business community is the lowest on record. The Sensis survey of the small business community in May, for example, showed that only 10 per cent of Australia’s small businesses actually have confidence in the policies of the current federal government, down from 47 per cent in November last year.

We also have consumer confidence in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey at the lowest level since 1992, when, under the last Labor government, more than one million Australians were out of work and when, only a year earlier, Australians had been paying more than 17 per cent interest on their home mortgage and when small business had struggled with 22 per cent interest on business overdrafts. That is the lack of confidence the business community has had in this government since it came to office.

We had the Fuelwatch stunt. The Prime Minister decided that, in order to make it look as though he were doing something about petrol, he would have a thing called Fuelwatch—in other words, he would watch the price of petrol. No-one is opposed to consumers getting information, but what he is most cruelly actually doing—as opposed by the RACV, as opposed by the RAA amongst many others, as opposed by four of his major government departments and as opposed by his blowtorch, the member for Batman, in a letter—is making it difficult for those families who line up on a Tuesday night for the maximum discount on their petrol, making decisions about which cut of meat to buy or whether they will put another 10 litres of petrol in their car. They, Prime Minister, are the cruellest examples of the people who are suffering most under this government, which is more concerned about a media image than it is about making real decisions.

Then we had $35 million in taxes—and damned hard work on the part of everyday Australians who had earned that money—given to the Toyota motor company, which made a profit last year in the order of $17 billion—that is, $35 million that it did not ask for and does not yet know how it is going to use. This $35 million was announced so he could have his photo taken in Japan sitting in the front seat of a hybrid car which the Toyota motor company was going to make in Australia anyway, as we subsequently discovered.

Then, because the government had inherited $60 billion invested in Australia’s future and no Commonwealth debt because Labor’s $100 billion deficit had been paid off, because it inherited an economy that was the envy of the rest of the world, what did he decide to do? He decided to talk up the problems, as he saw them, with inflation in Australia. We were told by a very nervous Treasurer that we had an inflationary genie out of the bottle on the day before the Reserve Bank had a meeting to talk about interest rates that affect those of us in this country that have a mortgage. So in the cruellest possible way, for political advantage and opportunism, the government talked up an inflationary crisis to give cover for the fact that it was delivering a budget that would increase taxes by $20 billion and cut only $1 in spending for every $2 added to it.

This country needs a government that has a strategic direction. It must have a sense of priority. In desperately trying to appear to be Hawke on the outside, this government, as we know from John Lyons in the Australian and many other sources, is much more like Whitlam on the inside. We unashamedly stand up for Australians, who deserve good government and deserve a government that will make decisions with a sense of priority for Australia’s short, medium and long term. (Time expired)

Is the motion seconded?

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. There are many words that could be used to describe the way in which Australians feel when they think about what Labor promised before the election and has since failed to deliver. One I am hearing increasingly is ‘conned’. I am also hearing ‘duped’, ‘scammed’, ‘ripped off’, ‘gulled’, ‘deceived’, ‘swindled’, ‘hoaxed’ and ‘defrauded’. The people of Australia feel betrayed by this government, which promised so much but has delivered so little. This big-promising Labor government is big on blame, big on excuses and light on action—spin, no substance; talk, no action; blow, no torch. This is a government that has simply failed to deliver. In seven months and two days it is already out of ideas.

Don’t tell me the Prime Minister is actually walking out—he is not even prepared to answer for his actions! The Prime Minister is leaving the chamber, not prepared to account for his government after just seven months in office—seven months of failure; already out of ideas. This parliament has spent fewer days sitting than any other in modern history. We are about to go away for almost nine weeks on one of the longest winter breaks ever recorded and we are doing that because the government have run out of business. There are no bills. The bills that we have dealt with, apart from the budget group, were mainly leftover, B-grade legislation from the previous government. They are peppering their speakers list with 25 speakers discussing a bill that is about whether we should have three people or five people on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. This is the kind of legislation that is left for the government to bring forward to the place.

What are we going to do with the government after so many promises and so little delivery? They have commissioned 135 reviews. You would think that 11½ years in opposition would be enough time to actually think up a few ideas about what you might do when you got the government. You would think they would have been ready for action. We got all this rhetoric about how hardworking the government were going to be. No-one could take more than Christmas Day off; we were going to have parliament back before Christmas; the ministers could not have any holidays. Well, it was weeks and weeks after Christmas before parliament got back, and when we did get back there was no legislation for us to deal with. We only sat for a few weeks and we were gone again. The government were out of ideas and had nothing to do. So what we have instead are summits, reviews, inquiries and focus groups—nothing to deliver any real benefits for the Australian people.

While we are away for eight weeks the Prime Minister is going overseas again another three or four times. In fact, he is the most travelled Prime Minister in history in his early days in office. That, again, is a bit of a surprise because before the election we were told the country was in a derelict state. The economy was a mess. There was no proper investment, no proper planning and we would be so busy—so busy that he spent one month out of his first four out of the country visiting the world, telling other countries how to do things. Maybe the problems in Australia were not so bad. And he was away for three weeks during the critical budget preparations.

But let us look at what the government have actually delivered. They said they would put downward pressure on petrol prices, but they have gone up. They said groceries would be cheaper, but they have gone up. Interest rates would go down, but they have gone up. They would improve housing affordability, but housing affordability is worse and rents are higher. They were going to deliver fast broadband, but they axed the OPEL contract, and who knows whether their own scheme will ever get off the ground? They were going to spend more on roads and infrastructure, but they have spent less. They were going to save the whales, but they have rolled over and wimped out on their promised legal action. They said their expenditure would be open and transparent, but billions of dollars are covered up in Labor Party promises. They said they would get rid of regional programs that were criticised by the Auditor-General, but they have slashed the Auditor-General’s budget and developed a giant new rorts program for which only Labor candidates could apply and the applications are already closed. They said they would protect workers, but strikes have gone up sixfold. They said they would secure the future of the aged, but they have ignored pensioners in the budget and $50 billion has been slashed off their superannuation in their first six months. The stock market has plummeted. Unemployment is to rise by 134,000. And they said they would end the blame game, but they have become the blame kings—75 per cent of questions without notice have been answered by blaming someone else. (Time expired)

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the 18th motion of censure or for the suspension of standing orders moved by the opposition this year—double the number moved in 2007 in the lead-up to a federal election. The opposition are motivated not by good public policy but by dealing with their own divisions. They want to give lectures to their own backbench but make the whole of the parliament sit through them. This is the weakest censure motion moved in this parliament since Federation. Not only that, they have now wound it back so we now have suspensions of standing orders for condemnation motions because they could not bring themselves to say that this was worthy of a censure motion. Can you believe that those pathetic questions today went through their tactics committee? Unbelievable.

The opposition would have Australians believe that every problem which the nation faces began at 9 am on Sunday, 25 November. They forget about the 16-year high inflation legacy that we were left. They forget about the eight interest rate rises that occurred after the 2004 election when they promised to keep interest rates at record lows. They say they are opposed to watching and the consideration of policy initiatives but they were blind to the inflation threat. They were blind to climate change. They were blind to the fact that workers were having their wages and conditions ripped away from them through Work Choices. They remain blind to the fact that we are living through an international credit crisis. Those opposite want to pretend that it does not exist, that the global community is not going through an international credit crisis. In the US, the most prominent measure of consumer confidence, the Conference Board’s index, has fallen nearly 50 per cent since the global turbulence began. In the UK, consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in 13 years. In New Zealand, confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 1998 when it was buffeted by the Asian financial crisis.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All Labor governments.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All Labor governments, including the Bush administration in the United States! That is the level that we are left with. This guy is the Leader of the National Party—a once great party, now a party that does not even know if they will continue to exist beyond the next year—a party that have reforms and ballots on whether they should continue to exist or not. What an absolute disgrace.

The opposition argue there is no international credit crisis. They argue that there is no international impact of oil. They argue that it has nothing to do with the global situation because they cannot put forward an alternative. They simply are incapable of having one option just as they are incapable of uniting behind a weak and pathetic leader. They have one position on Work Choices, I will give them that—that is, they will bring it back because every one of them voted to confirm that they would bring back Work Choices and AWAs if they were re-elected. They have two positions on the alcopops issue. On 27 April, the Leader of the Opposition said:

The proposed increase in the excise on alcopops is something that will be supported by us ...

Come 1 May, not even a week after:

What we’ve learned—

said the Leader of the Opposition—

is that they spin a few things out into the newspaper like the outrageous half a billion dollar tax binge ...

This guy, a former doctor, a former president of the AMA, thinks that binge drinking amongst our young is just a fantasy. It is out there with the other fantasies of inflation and all the other challenges facing the community.

On the baby bonus, they have three positions. The Leader of the Opposition said on 2 May:

Every mother loves her baby. Every baby is valued and Mr Rudd should value all babies equally.

The shadow Treasurer said on 3 May, the next day:

I don’t believe there should be any means testing ...

Then on 7 May the shadow Treasurer said:

Look, there is no question that a millionaire does not need the baby bonus ...

He would know. The opposition has four positions on inflation, five positions on excise, six positions on pensions and on climate change, who would know? We simply do not know. It is impossible to define what their positions are because they are all over the shop, whether it is putting up shadecloth in outer space or over the Great Barrier Reef, whether it is that it does not exist or it does exist, whether we should have ETS—yes or no—whether Kyoto is good or bad, whether we should have the Asia Pacific climate pact—remember that? They do not talk about that. Remember the new Kyoto; what happened to that? The global system is called Kyoto, now they support it, having ridiculed us for our consistent position year after year on tackling climate change.

In this House today it was pretty interesting because yesterday I got the first question about the issue of transport and climate change but today they tried to put together two answers over two days and a quote that was about Malcolm Turnbull to suggest that I was saying something that I was not. My position is very clear and has always been clear. For those opposite, who just do not get it, it is pretty clear: climate change requires a whole-of-government strategy. Transport must be a part of climate change strategy. It is very simple. Too hard for them to understand, but a consistent position that I have held since I entered this chamber in 1996 is that climate change requires a whole-of-government strategy. That is why they did not put a question to me today about those issues—they did not want to hear a response.

They talk about government inquiries. According to the 2005-06 annual reports of government departments, the Howard government had 501 reviews and task forces set up in one financial year. There was the review of the administrative arrangements for tourist shopping, the review of the random sample survey program, the review of the draft national standard for manual handling, the forms and letters task force—we await that with anticipation—the senior executive service 360 degree review and coaching feedback; there were reviews right across the board.

Meanwhile, if you look at the portfolios held along this frontbench, a frontbench of which I am proud to be a part, what you see in each and every area is an enormous achievement over just six months in turning around the ship of state, which essentially was stuck, crashed on the rocks and going nowhere. The opposition spent all of last year worrying about whether the member for Higgins should take over from the member for Bennelong. That was what obsessed them all of last year. All of this year there has been just one issue—whether the member for Bradfield will retain his tenuous hold on the leadership. That is why we see backflips, even on positions that they have said they support, such as on same-sex superannuation entitlements. Even issues such as these—which they say they support—they cannot support because they have always got to appeal to the right wing extremists who gave Brendan Nelson the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired.

Question put:

That the motion (Dr Nelson’s) be agreed to.