Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to talk about the way in which the Rudd Labor government’s policies are having a profound and negative impact on small businesses and the tourism sector on the Gold Coast. We have heard time and time again, and as recently as today, the Prime Minister engage in some kind of Orwellian doublespeak. We have heard the Minister for Finance and Deregulation and the Treasurer from this new Rudd Labor government engage in this Orwellian doublespeak. And during question time Labor MPs have stood up speaker after speaker to lecture this side of the chamber about the importance of fiscal responsibility and careful economic management.

We have heard the Labor Party discuss—and highlight for this side of the chamber, apparently—that we need to ensure that the economy has a strong fiscal surplus and is in a strong economic position. Yet, the extraordinary thing about this is that it was only two days ago that the Labor finance minister, when questioned about $110 billion of state Labor debt, remarked that he was comfortable with it. He said he was comfortable with $110 billion of state Labor debt and that it was not inflationary. Yet, the same Labor finance minister will stand up in question time and claim that, because the coalition is questioning the $19 billion of new taxes imposed by the Rudd Labor government, that is in some way economic irresponsibility.

It is extraordinary that this level of crass hypocrisy extends so far as to also include comments that the Prime Minister makes. We heard today the Prime Minister castigate the opposition time and time again for not having a policy when it comes to the emissions-trading scheme, ETS. It is extraordinary because the Prime Minister stood at that very dispatch box and said that his government is going to wait six months before they reach a final conclusion.

This new Rudd Labor government, which went to the last election preaching to the Australian people that it was going to be strong on environmental change, provide new leadership and provide a pathway forward on climate change, stands up and says to the opposition—and we heard it on three separate occasions today—that the opposition should be condemned for not having a position on ETS. But they make no comment about the fact that the government does not have a position on ETS. The government said it is going to wait six months. The impact of these comments, and the fact that this government is engaged in this kind of Orwellian doublespeak, is negative. The reason it is negative is that the Australian people are awake to this lack of leadership by the Rudd Labor government.

The Australian people know that the government they have ended up with is a very different proposal to what they thought they were going get. Prior to the last federal election, we heard Kevin Rudd travelling across the length and breadth of this country talking about how if he was elected he would ensure that petrol prices and grocery prices came down. It is the same benchmark that the Prime Minister raised against the former Prime Minister John Howard when he said that he would do his best to keep interest rate levels low.

We know that the coalition’s track record on interest rates cannot be questioned because, although interest rates have risen slightly in the past under the coalition, they are nothing in comparison to the 19 per cent we saw under the Australian Labor Party. More fundamentally, the former coalition government were able to deliver a 33-year low on unemployment. Already in just seven months we have seen the new Rudd Labor government slowly undoing the good work of the coalition. It is spelt out in two key ways. Firstly, it is highlighted by virtue of the fact that this new Rudd Labor government is already budgeting for 134,000 Australians to lose their jobs this year. We saw only last month 20,000 Australians lose their jobs. Secondly, we have seen the complete collapse of consumer and small business confidence.

It is those two together which impact in such a negative and detrimental way on my constituents that have small businesses and that run tourism businesses, especially given the imposition of nearly $1 billion of new tourism taxes by the Rudd Labor government. So, as we go into this winter break, I will absolutely make sure that all residents in my electorate understand that this new government is very big on talk but very weak on action. I will make sure they know this government stands for big spending, big taxes and, no doubt in due course, higher inflation and higher interest rates. That will be the legacy of this government, and I feel like I am in safe territory to predict that already. (Time expired)