Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in the Australian parliament today as the member for Ryan. I want to grieve on behalf of the people of Ryan and the wider Australian community. Of deep concern to me, not only as a member of the opposition but also as a citizen of this country and as the father of a little 2½-year-old boy, is where our economy is going. I want to grieve about the direction of the Australian economy and I want to express some thoughts on behalf of the hundreds of Ryan constituents that have contacted me in the last couple of months, particularly over the last month following the Rudd Labor government’s February expenditure package of some $42 billion. I think there is great concern in the community about the direction and the mismanagement of the Australian economy and I want to express some thoughts about government policy and about some alternatives that would have been better for the economy if they had been delivered. They would have been more sustainable, more visionary and more effective in getting the outcome that the Rudd Labor government sought to obtain—and it has failed miserably in its endeavour to do so.

In the past three months alone, we have seen the Rudd Labor government spend a massive amount of taxpayers’ money. I think that this has largely been misdirected. It goes to the question of the judgment of those in the senior echelons of the Labor government. As we all know, the first package was delivered in December 2008 and consisted of some $10.4 billion of taxpayers’ money. The second package was delivered in February and consisted of some $42 billion of taxpayers’ money. This is serious money: this is some four per cent of GDP alone. In anyone’s language this is a massive amount of money.

I want to give some context to this amount of money because I think it helps tremendously to put things into perspective. When the Labor government took office in 2007, they inherited a massive budget surplus. They inherited a surplus of some $20 billion, which was a legacy of the financial prudence of the Howard government. As an indication of the seriousness of the issue of financial management, consider the fact that it took the Howard government nearly 10½ years to pay off the deficit that it had inherited, some $96 billion of debt left by the Keating Labor government—a debt which drained the budget of some $9 billion in interest payments annually. So that puts it all into context. If it took more than a decade for the coalition government under Prime Minister Howard to repay some $96 billion in debt left by the Keating Labor government, one can only imagine the length of time that it will take for future Australian governments to repay the future deficits that will accumulate and be a chain around the necks of the taxpayers of Australia, in particular the generation of Australian taxpayers to come.

The Leader of the Opposition and the opposition have said that, considering the current difficult financial times that we have, we do not contest the point of stimulating the Australian economy with taxpayers’ money. But I think we have to draw the line somewhere and realise that this is taxpayers’ money and we do not know what lies ahead.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is it a global financial crisis or just an Australian crisis?

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regret to divert for a moment, but I will state on the record for those who will read this speech in the future that courtesy and respect for the opposition, as shown by colleagues in the parliament, should be noted. A member of the opposition is unable to express his thoughts without some discourteous intervention by Labor MPs. For the record, I note that.

As I said, the coalition does not contest the fact that we are going through remarkable global economic challenges, so there is a case for government to play a part and stimulate commercial and economic activity. We do not contest that. For those who try to persuade differently, I think it does them a great disservice and discredits them. It is about the amount that one spends; it is about where one draws the line. We do not know what is ahead, we do not know what is in the pipeline and we have no idea whether or not we are at the very beginning of a decade-long financial crisis. We do not know the timelines, so we must row forward with great prudence as to how we spend hard-earned taxpayers’ money.

We support the $4.8 billion in payments to pensioners. In fact it was the then Leader of the Opposition, Dr Brendan Nelson, a man of remarkable integrity and compassion, who called for the government to pay some respect to pensioners to make their lifestyle a little bit more generous. If one does not endorse what I say, all one needs to recall is the fact that aged Australians got on the streets of Melbourne and stripped down to make a political point. It is an affront to the government that they would have to do that to make their political point. They could not do it through normal channels of communication and representation; it took some very courageous pensioners to make a political point of such significance before the payment was made. We acknowledge that; it was important.

We support the business expenditure of the government because that is important. At the end of the day, it is about the creation of additional wealth. Small businesses and medium sized businesses create jobs in this country. Governments do not create sustainable jobs. It is very important that businesses in Australia get the support that they deserve. I have received so many communications, via email and telephone, about the opposition’s position was in contrast to the government’s position. I want to highlight that because I think it really does distinguish the position of the Labor Party and the Liberal-National coalition. The proposal that we put forward as an alternative was to pay a portion of the superannuation guarantee levy on behalf of small employers for the next two years. This measure, as the Leader of the Opposition indicated, would meaningfully help small businesses. It would improve the cash position of small businesses and, as a consequence, reduce the cost of employment and directly contribute to preserving jobs.

Anyone who receives money from the government is, of course, not going to turn their back on it. Who would turn their back on the money? The questions that need to be raised are these. Is this sustainable? Is this prudence in the context of what lies ahead? We do not know what lies ahead, so one cannot just continue to give money to individuals to spend as an artificial stimulus to the economy. So, if we are going to spend this kind of money, the federal opposition supported something along the lines of $20 billion—half the amount that the government passed in the parliament. We felt that there was a better way to stimulate the Australian economy. I certainly endorse that, particularly with the creation of wealth.

There is the idea of supplying pink batts, for example—that is, free ceiling insulation for some 2.7 million homes. All Australian homes that are owner occupied are entitled to free ceiling insulation, worth up to $1,600, if their home is currently not insulated. Anyone who thinks this is a strategic, targeted and common-sense allocation of taxpayers’ money is misdirected. That is not sustainable. To use American vocabulary, that is just Labor pork-barrelling. (Time expired)