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

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

The adverse effects of high levels of Government debt on regional Australia.

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—

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night, this House passed a bill, which will now go to the Senate, which not only contains provisions for the government to spend $42 billion but also allows them to go into debt of up to $200 billion. That is $9½ thousand dollars—nearly $10,000—for every man, woman and child in Australia. It will be our children and their children who will have to pay that back. With regard to the $42 billion, this is not job creating. Anybody who has been reading what informed economists—rather than political commentators—are saying, will realise that.

If you want to create opportunities, if you want to get a bang for your buck, you could look at what the new President of America, Mr Obama, and the Democrats are putting up. They are getting somewhere between a dollar-for-dollar return and 1.7. By the Treasury’s own figures, we are looking at something like a 30c return for every dollar of that $42 billion. If you want return in terms of jobs, it needs to be spent on infrastructure—not of a social nature but of an ongoing nature—like transport. It needs to be spent on what will help productivity, what will help employers know that they will get a faster delivery and fewer impediments in their productive cycle. That is what we need to do. Rather than putting money into a stimulus package, a social package, we need to put money into productivity, into creating jobs, into knowing that what we are doing is ongoing—in other words, that it will produce. At a time like this, when we are looking at not just a few months but a long period of tough economic times, we need to produce taxes and GST in the future, because it will have to be paid back.

The last time the Labor Party took these sorts of steps, we ended up owing $96 billion. That took 10 years—a full decade—of very hard and very good economic management to pay off. Just imagine if, during that decade of hard, tough growth that it took to pay off that $96 billion, we did not have to pay the interest on it let alone repay the capital. The interest alone paid on the $96 billion would have built a new four-lane highway over the Blue Mountains, joining the eastern seaboard with western New South Wales. It would have put a dual highway across the entire length of the Pacific Highway, built the inland railway link between Melbourne and Brisbane, fixed our ports, blacktopped thousands of kilometres of road, provided new classrooms and amenities for schools and built new hospitals in regional Australia. Instead, the coalition had to make incredibly hard political and economic decisions to pay back not just the interest but the capital as well.

Regional Australia is still scarred by the last Labor ‘recession we had to have’. I had friends who were paying 23 and 24 per cent interest rates in small business and agriculture. I guess we had a debt burden that resulted in government investment in job-creating infrastructure being curtailed. A $200 billion debt, which by the Treasurer’s own admission we are going to go to or exceed, will have an effect on everything. It is going to have an enormous effect because not only will the debt have to be paid back but the government, when we get through this very tough economic time, will have to pay the interest. It is going to have to repay the money. While the effect on interest rates of government getting into debt to this extent will not necessarily push them up in the immediate sense—in a recession we would normally expect to have low interest rates—when the corner is turned and productivity and growth start to increase again, having $200 billion of government debt putting government in competition with farmers, small business, homeowners and home builders is going to have an incredible effect. When we look back to the pressures last time that interest rates went through the roof, government competition had an enormous effect.

Farmers in small business in regional Australia do know about debt; they understand it; they deal with it. It is an industry which, because it is so capital intensive, is also very debt intensive. It is a well-known fact. A few years ago, 80 per cent of most of the debt in regional or rural Australia also produced about 80 per cent of the production. It is a strange thing, but I guess if you owe money you have got a good impetus to produce.

Debate interrupted; adjournment proposed and negatived.

An article in today’s Financial Review sums up an awful lot of what is involved in this $42 billion proposal. It says:

The Rudd government’s stimulus package provides little bang for the buck.

I believe the Financial Review is right when it states:

Of more concern is the heavy weighting of the infrastructure spending towards social infrastructure such as school buildings and public housing, which has low and distant returns, and the negligible investment in higher-yielding economic infrastructure.

As I said before, instead of a 1.7 return we are looking at a 30c return on a dollar. You do not have to be that smart to know that to come out of a recession as quickly as possible, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, it is about jobs, jobs, jobs. Without doubt, regional Australia took the brunt of the high unemployment during the last Labor credit card binge. We know about unemployment and we know about the pain it causes. We need an economic stimulus that provides job-creating infrastructure not just now but also into the future. When the member for Gippsland made his remarks, he was certainly talking about infrastructure. He was talking about job-creating infrastructure. He was talking about roads. He was talking about things that have an ongoing ability to stimulate and keep regional Australia positive about jobs.

As I said before, what is going on with the Rudd government’s $42 billion package is that it has a very low return, because it is investing in those things which do not have ongoing returns in terms of jobs, in terms of tax and in terms of GST—which might help get the Treasurer’s mates off the hook in the future. If we have to go into debt to provide an economic stimulus, it should go towards building infrastructure that helps business to be more productive so that they can employ people and so that employers can keep people on and put more people on.

We already have additional cost burdens in regional Australia because of the tyranny of distance and the need to compete. Obviously, because the options are fewer, we need the stimulus more than most places do. The options are far fewer in regional Australia. A headline in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday sums up, without doubt, many of the feelings of people in regional Australia: ‘Thanks for the help, but it could be better spent.’ The article quotes a Mirrool farmer, Buster Fairman:

‘I think [Prime Minister Kevin Rudd] should sit on some of this money until times get really tough… The financial crisis has only just begun.’

The article continues:

Mr Fairman, 56, will be putting his $950 aside for a rainy day.

Quite obviously, that is what has already happened with the $8.5 billion. No more than 20 per cent of that has been spent. People are not silly. The Prime Minister walked around the whole of December saying, ‘Spend, spend, spend,’ and then he walked around the whole of January telling everybody how terrible things are. Let us remember that all of this is exacerbated in regional Australia. People are not silly. Of course they put it in their pockets. Some spending went up, but less than 20 per cent of that $8.5 billion was spent. People are not stupid. Yes, they do want infrastructure spending, but they want it on things which are going to be ongoing and produce jobs, not just on things which have an end period and which are way out in the future in terms of return to the nation.

In regional Australia we have real health issues. In New South Wales in particular, we have health issues that you would not know about. I take my hat off to the Minister for Health and Ageing for acknowledging in question time today the state of health in western New South Wales. On Tuesday evening I related an incident about just how bad and how biased things are in New South Wales west of the Blue Mountains. Going into debt to the tune of $2 billion, and just getting warmed up with $42 billion is going to leave regional Australia in the most awful position as far as ongoing money in the future for health and for education. In the hard years we went through from 1996 on, paying back that $10 billion, it was a long time before we could put serious money into roads, health and education in regional Australia, because of what we were left with last time. Last year the government used the excuse of the inflation genie being out of the bottle to cut billions of dollars out of services and infrastructure in regional Australia. In fact, I well remember that the very first act of the Minister for Finance and Deregulation was to slash $640 million out of services and programs around Australia, and guess where three-quarters of that came from? It did not come from Wollongong or Newcastle; it came from regional Australia. It was not Sydney or Melbourne that lost that.

This should be about jobs. In my electorate of Calare, we have lost well over a thousand jobs in the last four months. There is nothing in the mining industry. There is nothing in this package which is going to help reinstate those people or find alternative employment for them. In fact, most of them were on over $50,000 so they would probably not even be eligible for the $950, because I think that was as of the end of June last year, on the last financial year’s return. So they are not going to do terribly well out of that. If the government were to just take a look at what is going on around the place, instead of stripping all the water out of the Murray-Darling Basin and making things even worse, they could put money into some infrastructure which would help efficiencies, help production, help the diversity of the irrigation industry and pay that money back in the future—which it would—and there would be jobs to go with it.

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was scathing a minute ago because, as I said earlier, the member for Gippsland said that we wanted infrastructure. We do want infrastructure, but we want to spend on infrastructure which is going to do things. Out of $42 billion there is a bit for the investment allowance, but people are not going to invest all that much in the current situation. They are going to go on about the $860 million that they are putting into various forms and classes. Well, $500 million of that—half a billion—is going to councils, once again to be spent on social infrastructure which does not have those ongoings. This is about keeping people in a job here and now and over the next few years while we get through this crisis.

It staggers me every time I hear the Treasurer get up and say that we just do not get the point. We do get the point. Regional Australia has been there before. We were there before when we had to deal with the $96 billion and, like the rest of Australia, we had to deal with what it took for those who were in government in 1996 to pay it back. We had to wait before we could get a few programs to get some seed money into regional Australia to get going again. If it took that long—a decade—to pay back $96 billion, what is going to happen when they get up over, in the Treasurer’s words, $200 billion, especially if we happen to still have a government who do not give a damn about that part of Australia? As I said, we have been there before with 23 and 24 per cent interest rates, no money for roads and no money for health or schools in regional Australia. All that money was going towards paying the cost of federal and state government debts at the time instead of putting a highway through the Blue Mountains, instead of putting roads out— (Time expired)

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every now and then when you read out part of a document, you wonder, ‘Should I table it? Should I give them access to the rest of it?’ I thought I would do the right thing and table it. I have listened carefully to the comments that have just been made by the shadow minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry where he has wanted to characterise what the member for Gippsland really meant when he uttered those prophetic words in his media release, saying:

Investing in regional infrastructure will help local communities to withstand the worst of the global financial crisis and I encourage the government to act quickly in this regard.

The shadow minister was effectively claiming that I had misrepresented those remarks because he said that what the government was offering, essentially—and I do not think I am mischaracterising it here—was short-term infrastructure projects, and what the member for Gippsland was really talking about was long-term infrastructure, like roads. So I had probably better read a little more of that media release.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please do.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the one with this heading, which will help to explain to the member for Calare his concept about the long-term infrastructure and road projects that the member for Gippsland was really talking about. The media release begins like this: ‘Chester calls for netball courts funding’. In terms of the long-term infrastructure that the shadow minister was just talking about, I give a few suggestions. First of all, I suggest that the member for Gippsland understands that projects themselves generate construction jobs and you get a whole lot of knock-on areas in the economy. For those members opposite, it is something that seems to be better understood by their backbench than by their frontbench. I would also be dearly concerned about the member for Calare’s possible occupational health and safety concerns if he sees a netball court in the future as a road. Beyond that, I make the suggestion that a document is tabled so that you can have a look at it rather than try to guess what the member for Gippsland really meant. I think he really meant what he said. It is available on the public record—and these are projects which do not meet the characterisation at all of what the shadow minister kept asserting.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look at the big picture, mate.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an interesting concept with respect to what the shadow minister just interjected, about looking at the big picture. He should understand, with the portfolio that he has, that part of understanding the big picture in a country as diverse as ours is making sure that you tend to the local picture in every part of the nation. We have a whole group of local members of parliament on this side of the House who understand how to do that in their own areas and who understand the importance in their own areas of making sure that, because a primary school is a local project for a relatively small number of people, it is still part of the big picture.

When you are talking about investing in every school—it does not matter whether it is a primary school or a high school, a government school or a non-government school, in the private system or in the Catholic system—all throughout the country, you get the big-picture benefit. You get the benefits in education because of the upgraded facilities. You get the benefits in the actual process of building those facilities—the benefits in terms of what happens for local contractors and the construction industry and the challenges that they are currently facing in the context of the global financial crisis. You get extra benefits because those contractors do not just receive the money and leave the town; the money gets spent in the area. This generates real economic activity at a time when all the advice that is coming to the government says that we need to make sure that we are generating economic activity and that we should be doing this not just in major cities but also in every school throughout the nation and looking at those black spot programs and saying, ‘Now is the time to make the investment and start fixing those’, and to actually go to the situation of the level crossings. Members opposite would understand the frustration over years of delay on doing something about level crossings and the impact that that has. Once again, you have the impact on the jobs and the workers involved in doing the job and you have the spin-off industries with them then spending the money that they have earned in the local area, and you have the long-term infrastructure improvement of local roads. All that is part of the big picture.

The Leader of the Nationals made the complaint that not every farmer will receive the $950. That is true—it is not every farmer, but it is pretty close to 21,000 of the most needy. We are making sure that they get some extra money. In terms of the business expenses that they have on their farms it is certainly a modest amount of money, but the impact that it could then have on local towns is deeply significant. The shadow minister for agriculture knows that the towns where there are the most people on EC payments are the towns where not just farmers are suffering but also every contractor and every shopkeeper is suffering. People having that extra EC money helped to generate economic activity in areas that needed it desperately, before we had ever heard of the economic crisis. Those areas desperately needed help, economic activity and assistance long before the world went into recession. Our plan provides some more money to help generate long-term economic activity, and the money will not disappear from the economy the first time it is spent.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People would much rather hear that EC is going to be continued.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to pause at that. There is a deeply irresponsible fear campaign that the shadow minister has been involved in time and time again when people’s EC comes up for assessment by the National Rural Advisory Council. We are talking about people who have the greatest mental health problems and the highest suicide rates in the nation, and you decide to run a fear campaign when you know full well that we are running the assessments with the same panel under the same rules.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tell them it’s going to be rolled over.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Communities are doing it tougher than they were when they were last given EC, so logically you can tell where that is going to end up. You know full well that there is a process that I am following—the same process that was in place under the previous government.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr John Cobb interjecting

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Calare is warned!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member for Calare feels proud of scaring farming families, of raising fear amongst some of the most vulnerable people in this country, then be it on his head.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ve already scared the hell out of them!

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Calare has been warned.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Be it on your head if that is what you want to do. I have given the guarantee time and time again that EC will be granted under the same rules. There is nothing more irresponsible than running a fear campaign amongst people who are already so desperately vulnerable in so many ways.

The projects that are part of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan are designed to make sure that we can help to generate economic activity and support jobs at a time where comparable nations are in recession. We are in a global recession, and if you were going to be anywhere in the world you would want to be here. We want to make sure that as a government we act decisively and early to make sure that we continue to generate economic activity with long-term and lasting benefits.

On this side of the House we support the $950 payments going to singles. For so long we as a parliament have made sure that we have provided assistance for families, but how many times have singles missed out, even though they have been suffering and have tremendous bills to deal with? For the first time in a long time there are bonus payments for them. On this side of the House we support the farmer’s hardship bonus, which members opposite are trying to block. We support those bonuses because we understand the situation that the globe is in.

Years ago there was a Supertramp album cover that was all doom and gloom except for a little bit of colour where someone was wearing sunglasses and sitting on a banana lounge. The album was called Crisis? What Crisis? That is the world that the opposition are living in if the comments from the shadow minister are any guide. It is as if they think the global economic crisis does not demand immediate decisive action. It is as if they have no idea how our economy interacts with the economies throughout the rest of the world. It is as if they do not understand that drought is but one of the challenges that farmers are facing. It is as if they have no idea about world commodity prices and what has happened over the last year with fertiliser and chemical prices. We know how responsive our economy is to what happens in the rest of the world. While the rest of the world is in such extraordinary hardship and recession, members opposite say, ‘Sit back, relax and take your time. But this government is going to make sure that we act decisively.

Our Nation Building and Jobs Plan covers different policy areas and will be felt right throughout the nation. The measures include free ceiling insulation for around 2.7 million Australian homes; building or upgrading a building in every one of Australia’s 9,540 schools; building more than 20,000 new social and defence homes; $950 one-off cash payments to eligible families, single workers, students, drought affected farmers and others; a temporary business investment tax break for small and general businesses buying eligible assets; and significantly increasing funding for local community infrastructure and local road projects.

When members opposite go back to their electorates this weekend, to each and every constituent who asks, ‘Am I eligible?’ they not only will have to explain whether or not they would be eligible under the government scheme but also will have to say, ‘You’d be eligible under what is proposed but we are trying to stop it.’ Make sure that you explain to the farmers in your electorates who are on EC—midway through trying to scare the hell out of them, as you seem to want to do—why you do not believe in a $950 payment for their family. Tell them why, in your judgement as the shadow minister for agriculture and representative of the National Party, you do not think they are worthy of that $950 payment.

Go and visit your schools tomorrow. Ask them first what sort of infrastructure project they would like, and then explain to them that you are trying to stop them from getting it. Explain that to the local contractors who would have got the work. Explain it to the construction workers who would have had an economic opportunity. Explain it to the subbies who would have been able to get a job. Explain why you are opposed to it to the people in retail who would have benefited from there being a higher level of economic activity in the town. If the members opposite do that this weekend, we will see if they are still as irresponsible when they come back next week.

The people of Australia understand. The people of Australia are able to watch the news and understand what is happening in the rest of the world. They want to make sure that there is strong and decisive action so that we are not exposed to the full level of pain that the rest of the world is having. They want to make sure that we have a plan that generates immediate economic activity and, beyond that, makes sure that we have the long-term infrastructure for which people have been waiting for such a long time—such things as improvement of black spots on roads, dealing with level crossings and upgrading schools. These are things that members of the Labor Party are proud to have always believed in and are proud to be able to now deliver on. We are proud that we are able to be seen as members of the Labor Party. We are proud that we are able to look at our constituents in good faith, that we can see people in genuine need and be able to say that we are on their side, notwithstanding that we sit in this chamber and face people who want to take benefits away.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this MPI and I certainly wish to note the passion of my colleague the member for Calare in supporting regional communities, because he is all too aware of what the impact of debt is on regional communities. The member for Calare is all too aware of the impact of high levels of debt on farming operations and knows that, just as high levels of debt have adverse effects on businesses—and on farming operations in particular—they also restrict the ability of governments to deliver services to the people of Australia. We had Kevin Rudd during the 2007 election campaign—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Call him the Prime Minister!

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We had the Prime Minister during the 2007 election campaign pretending to be some sort of fiscal conservative. He appeared in this rather glossy ad in front of the skyline of Brisbane and he said to the people of Australia, ‘People of Australia, I am a fiscal conservative. I am against debt. I am against living beyond our means.’ And what do we see when the Prime Minister has been elected to government? We see he has morphed from a fiscal conservative into the advocate of one of the greatest debt binges since Federation. We had Whitlam, with his good friends Mr Khemlani and Rex Connor. We had the Keating era, with massive debt handed on to a coalition government that had to clean up the mess. But compared to what has gone before, the debt binge that we are embarking upon in this year of 2009—when the objective should be the creation of jobs, jobs, jobs—makes the efforts of Keating, Hawke, Khemlani, Connor and Whitlam look like small change. In the year when the objective should be jobs, jobs, jobs, we have a $42 billion stimulus package that is going to turn, in the first year of its operation, a $22 billion surplus into a $22½ billion deficit. It is going to deliver a $70 billion deficit over the forward estimates—all of this from a fiscal conservative! If you believe that, you can believe anything.

As I highlighted earlier, the real problem is the impact of debt on reducing the ability of the government to deliver services into the future. The real problem is the impact of debt on the young people in regional and rural Australia whose employment opportunities are nowhere near as strong as they are for those in the cities. In regional and rural Australia we lack the numbers of large employers and big businesses that can provide very strong employment prospects. In regional Australia we are very dependent upon small business. The impact of high government debt on the small business sector is huge. We saw it under Whitlam, we have seen it under Hawke and Keating, and we are going to see it again under this alleged fiscal conservative.

There has been quite a bit of disquiet about this new package. I think that the members opposite believed that the people of Australia were going to rain rose petals at their feet and thank them for all the money that was going to rain down upon them. But in fact the reaction has been quite different. The people of Australia realise the impact of debt. The people of Australia realise it is not the Prime Minister and it is not the Treasurer who will be paying back that money; it is the taxpayers of Australia.

Yesterday, legislation was introduced and passed that is going to increase the borrowing capability of this government to $200 billion—that is Hawke-Keating by more than two to one. In the House today, it was absolutely stunning that the Treasurer, when asked, could not say what the debt obligations of the states were going to be. Just a day after seeking authority from this parliament to raise the debt levels to $200 billion, he could not say what the states were going to be borrowing. The Treasurer of this land knew what the Commonwealth obligation would be, but he did not know what those apparently irrelevant states were going to borrow. That is astounding. That is incompetence. That is negligent, because it is the taxpayers of those states and territories and the taxpayers of the Commonwealth who have to repay that debt, and our Treasurer was oblivious to the financial position that this country is in.

It was interesting to look at some of the editorial comments in the Financial Review today in relation to that package. I would just like to read a couple of sections. The Financial Review editorial starts:

Labor, which opposed virtually every major reform of the Howard government in opposition, is in uproar at the Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull’s plan to oppose the $42 billion stimulus package. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday accused “those free-market fundamentalists”—

those evil free marketers who created wealth over 30 years and who created growth in this country—

… in the coalition of “cheap politics” for not instantly saluting his plan, and for good measure insinuated they were somehow responsible for the global financial crisis. But it is Mr Rudd who is playing politics with his transparent attempt to fit his stimulus package into a political ploy to railroad the opposition into passing a massive set of appropriation bills in 48 hours.

Quite rightly we should be challenging this package. It is our job to place this package under great scrutiny. As time goes on and as the unintended consequences become more obvious to the Australian people and they think about the debt which they are having forced upon them, they will be quite rightly delighted, I would say, that the opposition has stood up for the them against the cheap politics of the Labor Party—dressed up as some alleged attempt to build jobs. When we look at the productivity of this package, the Prime Minister asks us to believe him—to take it on trust—that this is the most efficient and most effective way to create jobs, that it is the most efficient and most effective way to ensure that the economy rebuts, if you like, the impact of the global financial downturn.

The editorial goes on and makes some interesting observations about the relative weightings of investment in social infrastructure. It talks about the fact that the weighting in spending towards social infrastructure, which has low and distant returns, and the negligible investment in higher yielding economic infrastructure would actually cause a lower multiplier effect on economic activity than the stimulus package proposed by Obama. So we have a package that appears less effective, according to the Financial Review, than the package being put forward by President Obama in the United States, yet we have the Prime Minister telling us that this is the package that is going to deliver the goods and that this is the only set of measures that is going to deliver for the people of Australia. It is quite clearly absurd.

Michael Knox, an analyst from ABN AMRO, made some interesting observations and calculations in relation to this package. He said:

In 2008-09 we are spending 1.7 per cent of GDP in stimulus to get an increase in GDP of 0.5 per cent. That means we are spending $1 in stimulus to only get 30c of GDP. This is a multiplier of just 0.3, very low by international comparisons.

We have been asked by the Prime Minister to take this on trust, and we see from this analysis by ABN AMRO that the multiplier effect is only 0.3. It is less than what would be expected internationally. How does that provide for the needs of the people of Australia to have jobs created—

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don’t think the agriculture minister got that.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right—and growth underpinned, particularly in regional areas, because regional areas are already hard hit by rising unemployment? The member for Calare chronicled the loss of jobs in his electorate. Some 1,000 jobs in mining have gone in the last few months. I know that in the electorate of Cowper, which I represent, across all the small labour market areas unemployment is rising in the order of about one-half of one per cent to, in some cases, 0.7 per cent and, in the Nambucca Valley, 0.9 per cent. Those latest figures in relation to small labour market areas were only for the September quarter. That predated the December quarter, when we know unemployment accelerated. Quite clearly, in the current quarter, unemployment is only going to continue to rise at a far more rapid rate. The needs of regional and rural Australia are urgent. We do not want to see suboptimal expenditure of government funds, as is the case with this stimulus package. The opposition have opposed this package for precisely that fact. We believe the money could be better spent. We believe this current debt binge is only going to put a burden on the people of Australia into the future, and it is about time that the members opposite woke up to that and brought some sense into the package that they are putting forward.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a lazy way for those opposite to finish the week. Having started the week in a lazy fashion, last night, when an important debate was taking place in this House, they slept and their leader slept. Their leader did not get out of bed—

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Your leader slept!

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and did not come in here to debate the very debt issues that you now claim to be important. Why do you claim that they are important? It is not for any reason of principle but purely for your own low-rent political expediency. You know—because the story has been well chronicled by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—the way in which the National Party today spends its time in fearmongering and trying the best it can to spread fear amongst farmers and regional communities that our government does not have the interests of regional Australia at heart.

I was hoping for a real debate here this afternoon. I was hoping for a debate about jobs, about the global financial crisis, about education, about infrastructure and about economic activity. But you do not get that. What you get from a clapped out, tired National Party—tired in the first week of sittings—is a pathetic attempt to disguise politics as principle. That is not even a sad reflection on those opposite. It is just the truth—and you know that to be the truth. You know that if members opposite really believed in this motion they would have been in here last night and this morning to vote. You know that the National Party was the most underrepresented party in the parliament. While we worked, members of the National Party slept. When it came to voting on the very important matters that are allegedly the subject of the debate today, members of the National Party and their leader were simply in bed.

Let us face the facts. You do not really have a problem with debt. Your own performance as a government, your own performance with Regional Partnerships, was criticised in a three-volume, 1,200-page National Audit Office review, which pointed to the absolute collapse and failure of good governance and good administration and decent public policy. You know that the interests of the National Party are not the interests of good governance and good public administration.

What we are debating today is the plan which the government has for nation building and job protection. And what is that plan? It is about school facilities upgrades for 9,540 schools. It is about insulation for 2.7 million homes. It is about cash payments to families of $950. It is about the construction of 20,000 social houses, public houses—like the ones that I and my friend the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government grew up in—that, in almost every speech last night from members opposite, were criticised as being a waste of money. We know the view that those opposite have of renters. We know because that view has been published time and time again over the last 15 years, and we know that the previous Howard government did not put one cent into public housing. We know it did not have a minister for housing. We know that, under the last government, the public housing stock of our nation declined, and we know that homelessness increased. We know the lack of care and the lack of concern.

The announcements this week by the government also go to the creation of specific tax breaks. They boost local community infrastructure. The package is about support for jobs. It is about decisive action. It is also about aligning monetary policy with fiscal policy, something which those opposite never considered in their entire period of government. To have the Reserve Bank of Australia pushing down interest rates while monetary policy is boosting our economy is exactly the balance advised by the IMF and by insightful economists, and it is the advice taken by the Rudd government. It has not been at any time the policy matrix pursued by those opposite. In fact, as you know and we know, fiscal policy and monetary policy for the bulk of your time in government worked in opposite directions. You spent like drunken sailors and you pushed up interest rates in order to compensate, forcing hardworking families to have higher mortgages to pay for the profligacy of your government. It was a disgrace, and the people of Australia quite properly treated your government with the lack of regard that your government treated Australian families.

You say in your matter of public importance that the issue is about debt. It is not really about debt. It should be about caring for families, in cities and in regions. It is actually about putting the interests of the National Party first. That is interesting because members opposite in the National Party do not do that themselves. In your own lives, in your own work in this place, you do not put the interests of the National Party first. The great leaders of the National Party of the past would never have put a matter of public importance before this parliament in the way in which you have. McEwen would not have. Doug Anthony would not have. Charles Blunt would not have. John Anderson would not have. You know Tim Fischer would not have. Ian Sinclair would have. Mark Vaile—he would not have.

Year on year we have seen the National Party decline, at its own hands. In 1996 there were 18 members of the National Party in this place. By 1998 there were 16 members of the National Party in this place. By 2001 there were 13 members of the National Party in this place. By 2004 there were 12 members of the National Party in this place. By 2007 there were 10. Currently we have nine, when they are not asleep, when they bother to turn up in this chamber and represent the interests of the families and communities who voted for them. It tells you something about the people of rural and regional Australia—they were onto something when they decided the National Party was not for them. Barnaby Joyce knows that. Let us look at the National Party leaders: Mark Vaile gone, seat lost; Tim Fischer gone, seat lost; Ian Sinclair gone, seat now lost; Doug Anthony gone, seat now lost—at your own hands. Your ability to whittle away your own party, your own base, is why you come into this place at a late hour on a Thursday afternoon and practise what you preach, which is merely fearmongering and the invention of stories about how our government behaves to communities. Worse still, there are occasions when I think you actually believe it.

We have had a package already, in 2008, which was designed to get our economy through the difficult fourth quarter of 2008. We had a bank guarantee that has held our banking system in good stead. We have had engagement with the G20, with the IMF and with global institutions. While we work, if those opposite are not asleep, they spend their time undermining public confidence. They spend their time trying to crush business confidence. They try to destroy our national confidence. For what? For pure political advantage.

Let me explain why this matter of public importance is so weak and so pathetic. It is because people—kids, families, workers, farmers—in regional Australia are actually doing it hard. Let us talk about the real impact of the global financial crisis on jobs in regional Australia. In Western Australia in the last quarter, in Kununurra, Argyle Diamonds shed 300 jobs; at Koolan Island, Mount Gibson Iron shed 190 jobs; and at Leonard Shelf, in zinc and lead, Xstrata shed 300 jobs. At Spinifex Ridge—these places are all through the Kimberley and the Pilbara—at Moly Mines, 70 jobs were lost. At a tantalum mine, 200 jobs were lost. At Telfer goldmine, a Newcrest operation, 400 jobs were lost. At FMG’s Cloud Break iron ore mine, 180 jobs were lost. At Mount Keith nickel mine, 300 jobs were lost. At Waterloo nickel mine, 150 jobs were lost. At Golden Grove zinc-copper mine, 70 jobs were lost. I am only at the central west of Western Australia.

The impact of the global financial crisis on regional Australia and on mining communities is immense, and it is likely only to get worse. That is why our government has acted early and acted with decisive intent and with a precise set of policies to respond in a way that will help families, help our regional committees and help Australia. (Time expired)

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will not be getting any gloom or doom from me. Nor will you be getting any fear tactics. Nor do I think the member for Calare was on about fear tactics. I think what he was on about was getting certainty for EC and country areas so that farmers do not have to wait, year on year, to know whether they are going to receive assistance. There is a lot of concern in country areas, after a prolonged drought and floods, about the fragility of primary industry. If you really want to help them—as the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia said—and have a trickle-down effect to contractors and small businesses and the like, then certainly you will get some resonance from a $950 grant. But let me make an even better suggestion. If you really are concerned about the continuation of country people, why not give a two percentage point subsidy on farm debt, say, with a three-year ceiling? Then you would have money flowing in. You would have money flowing from the farmers to the contractors and to the small businesses—not just in one splash but on an ongoing basis—and you would give farmers the capacity to support those contractors and small businesses.

When it comes to the upgrade of schools, I beg you not to give the money to QBuild or state works departments, because it will never get done in the time and it will be twice the price. Feed it out to the principals and the P&Cs, as we did in the Investing in Our Schools Program—which people on the government side freely admit was a very good program. Get the money to where it needs to go. That way, the money will go to contractors, painters and so on in country towns, not the ones QBuild will bring out from Brisbane or the works department will bring from Sydney or Melbourne. We have got to stimulate. That, by the way, is the subject of today’s MPI: it is all about stimulating business and stimulating economic energy in country areas.

When it comes to road funding, do the same as we did before. Give it in a Roads to Recovery type program where you let the councils make the decisions about where the money goes. You will always get a bigger bang for the government buck. I cite two councils in my former electorate area of Eidsvold and Parry, two of the smallest shires in Queensland at the time and two of the most efficient with their roadworks. That is another thing you could look at. We talk about level crossings and, having done a report on level crossings for this parliament in 2004, I support the principle very strongly. In one sense $150 million is a lot of money and in another sense it is not, because it will only cover 200 boom-gate type level crossings and I am sure most of those will go to the capital cities or the larger provincials and their environs. If you want to help create a trickle-down effect in country areas, bearing in mind that there are 9,400 level crossings in Australia, and if you really want to help to get some of those level crossings, put lights on some in country areas. You do not need boom gates but certainly put on lights. On a country road where there are only a few trains a week, put a hundred metres of bitumen and rumble strips either side, because you will not have electricity there to provide either lights or boom gates. Do an integrated thing that trickles down into country areas and provides employment and the like.

My problem with the splashes of cash in all the recent programs is this: I am sure they work, I am sure the $1,400 and the $2,100 payments were welcome, but infinitely better for pensioners would have been a $500 grant and a $30 increase in their pension. Over the first year that would have been better than $1,400. Going to the $950 package, let me take those receiving Austudy as one example from the whole list of people getting it. Don’t you think parents in country areas trying to get their kids to school would rather have $30 a week for the whole course than a $950 splash once? Let us get fair dinkum. I will finish on another one. If we are really interested in opening up inland Australia, creating employment and generating economic energy, we should put in the inland rail. We on both sides of this parliament talk about it; we have been talking about it for 10 years. With $42 billion at hand, wouldn’t you think that three-quarters of a billion or a billion put into that inland rail would generate jobs galore and confidence galore? (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take heart from the member for Hinkler, a man whom I respect a great deal and also a man with some good ideas. The member for Hinkler has regional Australia at his heart and always has had, and so do I and so do many on this side of the House. I take heart from the member for Hinkler because to this point I have been very worried. The member for Hinkler clearly supports our package and would make a great contribution by offering a number of projects for regional and rural Australia. You clearly support it and I am amazed that you did not vote with us last night. You know that this package is clearly designed to help rural and regional Australia, as it is to help urban Australia. What worried me first and foremost before I heard you is this. We have got a problem, we have got a challenge and we have got to do something about it. This package is designed to do that. The other worry I have is that, apart from the member for Hinkler, those on the other side are not going to do anything about supporting this package for rural and regional Australia as well as urban Australia.

Today I was pleased to hear through the COAG communique the unanimous support for this package from all states of Australia—including the Western Australian Liberal Premier—and also the representative of the Local Government Association of Australia. They clearly endorse our package. With this package goes a series of programs and outlays that we developed and have put into place since the budget of last year. The member for Hinkler talked about a rail project. I do not know the details of that but I am sure that if it has merit then it will see its way into Infrastructure Australia. We have a mechanism and a process for that to happen, not just for urban Australia but for rural and regional Australia.

I can tell the member for Hinkler—and he knows I come from a rural and regional area myself—that my community of Braddon sees hope in this package and sees the good intention of it. This package is designed to try and support and sustain jobs—not to lose them but to support and sustain them. It is part and parcel of a much wider program that began when we got into government. You only have to look at the programs, initiatives and commitments we made before the election that were in our budget of last year. They will roll out over the next three years, along with what we did in October and December and what we are doing here. They are part and parcel of a much broader program. It is about jobs; it is about supporting communities. This silly talk that we are ideologically driven to put this country into debt is silly and those opposite know it, and the Australian people are sick to death of the stupidity of these arguments.

This package may not be the bee’s knees. There may be issues with it. No doubt the member for Hinkler, in his wisdom, will be able to assist with the projects for his region. He is going to benefit from this as well. He is a political representative, after all, and we expect him to do his part in promoting this and not oppose it. I say to him: do your bit for this, warts and all. Its intention is to work for both jobs and communities. We heard the shadow minister speak about infrastructure in schools as if it did not mean anything. Infrastructure is needed in our schools; we know that. In some states it is in appalling condition.

Also, this package will generate jobs. The Prime Minister, the Treasurer, our frontbench and the rest of this side have said, ‘We are interested in this program more than anything’—and this goes for the COAG communique—‘because we want to localise this.’ It is all about local jobs and local people and supporting local infrastructure and local families. Just as it is in Braddon it will be in Hinkler, Cowper and other places in this nation.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.