Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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 censures the Prime Minister for his Government’s incompetent management of Australia’s economy which has delivered a trifecta of higher unemployment, higher government debt and more strikes, greatly increasing the risk of a Rudd Recession, and, in particular, for recklessly:

(1)

delivering a failed stimulus package, squandering a $22 billion Budget surplus and burdening future generations with a $226 billion debt;

(2)

sacrificing jobs by pandering to union demands for a re-regulated industrial relations system;

(3)

proposing a bureaucratic, costly and jobs destroying Emissions Trading Scheme that will fail the economy and the environment;

(4)

ignoring the interests of Australian workers by not modelling the employment impact of its misguided policies;

(5)

increasing Australia’s skilled migration intake by 20 per cent in 2008 despite the slowing global economy;

(6)

borrowing money to fund cash hand outs, diminishing the resources available for critical government spending on services such as pensions and health care; and

(7)

rejecting alternative views or proposals and arrogantly pursuing policies that are making a difficult economic situation much worse.

The Prime Minister seeks to be the teflon man of Australian politics. He wants to be the blameless one. He wants to have no blame, no responsibility. The truth is that every step you have taken—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and you too. Every step you have taken has made things worse. Your incompetence is a disgrace. You talk about living in a parallel universe. They talk about parallel universes. Let me say, Mr Speaker, that last year, while the subprime crisis loomed and while credit was tightening around the world, this pack of incompetents talked up inflation and talked up interest rates.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ah, yes, you did. I see the Treasurer interjecting there. The Treasurer is to economics what the Prime Minister is to public speaking. They are hopelessly incompetent, disgracing both professions. The reality is that last year they made a difficult situation worse. Australian businesses were pressured by higher interest rates that they did not deserve, that they did not need and that were matched in no other country. Why? Because the government had, and always has had, a political agenda. This is a government driven by politics and driven by ideology. It does not care about the economic results of its policies; it is only interested in the spin. So politics trumped economics in 2008. Politics trumped economics when the government went for an unlimited bank deposit guarantee.

The government talk about their motor vehicle finance special vehicle, which has not yet advanced any money at all, for a motor vehicle industry that is floundering because their incompetent management of the bank deposit guarantee resulted in finance companies being starved of cash. They ignored the advice of the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank said, ‘It needs a cap, and the lower the better.’ They ignored it, until finally they brought it down to a million dollars, the highest in the world. It used to be even higher, of course.

Then we have had the cash splashes, which we were told were going to give an adrenalin shot to the Australian economy, and all we get is reports of higher sales of plasmas. This is what—some retail commitment of the Prime Minister? We keep losing jobs. We are losing jobs every month. Economic growth is going backwards, and all we get from the government is more debt. They are indeed addicted to debt and, like most addicts, they do not understand the gravity of the addiction they are under, because the government can argue that this or that policy they have today may provide some economic benefit—they can try and make a case there; all the evidence is against them—but the one thing we all know is that higher debt means higher interest rates and higher taxes.

They are throwing Australians out of work with misguided policies. We have heard that from one energy company after another this week—thousands of jobs for no environmental gain. Sheer incompetence! Who could be so incompetent as to design an emissions trading scheme that destroys Australian jobs, that damages the economy and that does nothing for the environment, exporting thousands of jobs overseas? We have evidence from Xstrata, Envirogen and one company after another complaining about the jobs they are going to lose and the billions of dollars of investment that will not go ahead. And what do we get from the Prime Minister? Just rhetoric and ideology. His essay in the Monthly about neoliberalism sums it up. He talks about being in a parallel universe. He is in a universe of his own with Hugo Chavez, waging a two-man campaign against neoliberalism. He is not even in the same universe as his Deputy Prime Minister. The Prime Minister claims that our financial system was undermined by neoliberal policies of the previous government, yet the Deputy Prime Minister here goes to Davos and says our financial and prudential regulatory system is ‘better than world class’. Who put it in place? We put it in place, not you. The people you excoriate put in place a system you say is better than world class.

But what we are losing today is jobs. We have a government that are not prepared to invest in jobs. There have been $23 billion of cash splashes: first, nearly $10 billion in December. We have the evidence of that. We know that 80 per cent of it was saved. We know that it had no impact on economic activity. We know that, far from creating 75,000 jobs, it created not one. We know that it was a flop. It was, as one economist wrote, not so much a bang for the taxpayers’ buck but simply a ‘dull thud’. But then, having failed once, the government backed the truck up with the credit card of our kids and borrowed another $13 billion and did it all over again. Now we see that there is not enough money to fund the infrastructure they claim to be so committed to, because they have spent it. They have spent the money. The big infrastructure fund of which they were so proud has no money in it because they have been spending the money on one poorly conceived venture after another. And they have the gall to stand here and say we propose nothing in reply! We proposed a scheme—a policy; a stimulus package—that would have created jobs, that would have created more economic activity and that would have given real support to small business. We proposed measures that were responsible, that were economically beneficial and that would have created jobs. Instead we have simply had a spendathon from the government.

Now we have the spectre of Ruddbank. Talk about a dog returning to its vomit! The Labor Party goes back to the failures of the past. It goes back to Tricontinental, WA Inc. and the State Bank of South Australia—all of those great examples of Labor banking. It goes all the way back to Brian Burke. Yesterday we saw the Treasurer, sight unseen, endorsing the Vision property project in Brisbane as being suitable for Ruddbank to finance. Let us see what Robert Harley wrote in today’s Financial Review:

If Swan has become the arbiter of what is or is not “viable”, this industry is in worse shape than I thought.

And his first call was a doozy. The Vision proposal—Brisbane’s highest at 79 levels—has been a marginal project for years, even in the good times. No one was surprised when, in November last year, one offshore funder got cold feet and the developer, Austcorp, deferred.

That is what we will see. They have walked in there, like the mugs they are, ready with the taxpayers’ chequebook to sign up to take over one dud loan after another—one poor investment after another. And, as Labor governments have always done, they will say, ‘We’re supporting the economy; we’re supporting jobs.’ That is what Tim Marcus Clarke said. That is what they said in Victoria. That is what Cain and Kerner said. That is what Brian Burke said. They have always got the same mantra. They talk about jobs while they destroy them. They are addicted to debt, and that debt will slow our recovery. It will mean higher taxes and higher interest rates for years—perhaps generations—into the future. (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. This government is accruing debt at over $2 billion a week, and the majority of that money is being borrowed from overseas. Now is the time to ask questions about exactly what the Rudd government have done to make a bad situation even worse. Why did they take a position where they ran a campaign against inflation, at a time when exactly the opposite tack should have been taken? They should have been talking down the impact of inflation, maintaining growth in the Australian economy and becoming aware of exactly what the impacts would be on the Australian people of a looming financial crisis.

As the Prime Minister scurries out the door to run away from what is a significant debate about the state of the Australian economy, we say this: we are opposed to increasing debt beyond the capacity of the next generation. We are opposed to increasing taxes beyond the capacity of the next generation. We do not want to see our children without jobs; we want to see our children with jobs—real jobs, innovative jobs. We want to see our economy grow. We do not want to see a return to the bad old days of Labor—Labor with state banks. What a toxic cocktail: a Labor party member and a banker! What a cocktail that is! What an unholy relationship—a bit like Elizabeth Taylor going back to Richard Burton once again. That is what it is about: the Labor Party and bankers.

If there has been any lesson learnt over the last 30 years in Australia it is that governments should not be involved in banking. When the state government of New South Wales started peeling the gold-leaf ceiling off the corridors of the State Bank of New South Wales—put there by Nick Whitlam—the taxpayers of New South Wales said, ‘The only saving grace is the fact that we did not go down the path of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.’ Yet the Labor Party today are seeking to reintroduce legislation to once again burden the taxpayers of Australia with bad debts and bad projects involving property developers.

The government have a problem. The problem is that they have committed to a limit of two per cent real growth in budget expenditure; yet their own budget papers last year indicate that, in the major areas of expenditure—welfare, health, education and defence—committed expenditure is beyond two per cent over the forward estimates. Their commitment to a two per cent limit on an increase in expenditure does not take into account the fact that they are going to have to pay the interest on all the money they are borrowing today. It does not take into account the fact that the population is growing. It does not take into account the fact that, if we are going to build the infrastructure necessary to improve productivity in this nation over the next 10, 20 and 30 years, it will require investment.

But what the Rudd Labor government are leaving us with and leaving our children with is an impossible debt to repay. They are leaving our children with the highest taxes that a generation of Australians will ever face. And that does not even take into account the structural deficit that our nation is facing, as identified in the Intergenerational report. We are facing significant challenges in Australia—not just today, but tomorrow and beyond. Today the Rudd government are focused on politics. Today the Rudd government react to the latest initiative occurring overseas. We have heard Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, lecture the world on a whole range of things over the last 15 months. He told the world that it was warming. The world really listened to that! He told the world that nuclear nonproliferation should be the main game. He told the world that he had a solution to the global financial crisis. And do you know what? He is going to go to Copenhagen and he will have nothing. He cannot even deliver a five per cent ETS to show off to the rest of the world. He is going to be embarrassed. But the people who will pay the price for all of the Rudd government embarrassments are the next generation of Australians. We stand up for the children of Australia. The Rudd government deny them a future.

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

The only person in this chamber watching when the Leader of the Opposition rose to move his censure motion today was the member for Higgins. He was the only one who was smiling. What we have seen today with this weak censure motion is the last refuge of a dying Leader of the Opposition. We saw the same thing from the member for Bradfield as he was going out the door.

We saw the opposition come in with pre-prepared censure motions, typed out in great detail and signed in advance, regardless of what happened on the floor of this chamber. I have sat on the tactics committee of the great Australian Labor Party for many years in this parliament, and not once did we make a pre-decision that, regardless of what happened on the floor of the chamber, we would move a censure motion such as they did today. It is all they have left. Because of the inconsistency this week of their discredited, disorganised Leader of the Opposition, they have absolutely nothing left.

We saw it on the doors this morning when the Leader of the Opposition continued to say one thing on issues and say another thing later on. This morning he was interviewed on Alan Jones’s program on 2GB, and he was asked about the position on Work Choices. What he said is a damning indictment of him as a person and the Liberal Party as an organisation. He was asked, ‘You said that the government had a mandate to get rid of Work Choices and therefore you wouldn’t be opposing the legislation?’ This was the response—and the member for Bradfield should listen to this:

Well Alan I—can I just cut you off there—let’s get the history straight here. The person who said WorkChoices was dead was Brendan Nelson after the election.

The only job that the Leader of the Opposition is concerned about is his own. He is prepared to roll back the clock and defend Work Choices in spite of the fact that he indicated that we had a very clear mandate after the election campaign.

They come into this chamber and they talk about jobs. The fact is that they are pleased when there are any job losses. They are a cheer squad for downturn in economic activity, because they would rather see the country fail than the government succeed. And the most obscene example of that comes from the member for Goldstein. The member for Goldstein and the member for Flinders have both recently said that Sun Metals Zinc Refinery in Townsville would shut down under a CPRS. The member for Goldstein, in a media release on 17 March, said:

… it will … be made uncompetitive if Mr Rudd’s emissions trading scheme is allowed to go ahead as planned next year.

On Lateline, on 13 March, the member for Flinders said, ‘They will probably move straight to China.’ But yesterday a spokesperson for Sun Metals told the Australian the opposite: ‘I don’t know why Mr Robb would say these things.’ He also said:

We had a meeting with … Mr Greg Hunt three or four months ago and at that time there was no emissions-intensive assistance for zinc, but since then we have made significant progress and we will now get significant compensation, so I can say for sure there is no way we will shut down …

Everyone on this side of the House thinks that is good news; those on the other side of the House are opposed to it. Their inconsistency is mind-boggling. We have had questions today about the CPRS. The Leader of the Opposition, though, said on 21 May:

The Emissions Trading Scheme is the central mechanism to decarbonise our economy.

It is 10 years to the day, 19 March 1999, when the Australian Greenhouse Office released its first discussion paper on national emissions trading. Yet, for eight years after that was released the opposition did absolutely nothing, because they were dominated by the climate change sceptics. And that is exactly what they would do were they to come back into office today.

We have also heard some extraordinary comments about infrastructure. We know for a fact that, when it comes to infrastructure, the opposition simply does not support national action. The Leader of the Opposition has consistently opposed every one of the projects and every one of the interventions that we have put up here. Two-thirds of the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan is about infrastructure. It is the largest ever spend on education infrastructure, on every primary school, in our nation’s history, yet members of parliament are coming into this House and actually being critical of members who have been out there supporting this plan.

The fact is that whether it is jobs, whether it is nation building, whether it is action on climate change, or whether it is action to address the tragedy of alcopops and the impact it is having particularly on young women, those opposite simply fail to act. They are obsessed by one issue and one issue only. The issue that they are obsessed by is simply the job of the Leader of the Opposition. When it comes to the need to provide leadership to the nation, they are not concerned about that. It is all about their internals. We saw it again today, with this suspension motion. We saw it when they came in here with suspension motions in their back pockets—probably 20 of them written by the 20 members of the tactics committee, each with a different idea to put forward—because they simply do not have the interests of the nation at heart. We have seen it with regard to their attitude towards ABIP.

Every single advanced economy in the world has had to intervene to take action to give support to the finance sector due to the global recession—every single economy in the world. But those opposite think that we should just sit back and watch and let the market rip, because when it comes down to it they are stuck in the ideology of the past: Work Choices, no action on climate change, letting free markets rip, and yet they have the hide to come into this House and ask some extraordinary questions. Today they asked about the spending in terms of the stimulus package. Every time that they do that, what they are saying is that we should not have given money to pensioners, we should not have given money to carers, we should not have given money to veterans, we should not have given money to support low-income families.

I contrast that with the fact that they are prepared to give $1.6 billion to the big distillers who run the alcopops industry. It is an absolutely extraordinary position, but it is consistent with one thing, and that is that they have opposed every single major measure of this government: getting rid of Work Choices, taking action on climate change, providing support to make sure our financial system stays intact, making sure that we have stimulus, building on infrastructure—all of these programs have been opposed by those opposite and they stand condemned.

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

Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. The question is that the motion for the suspension of standing and sessional orders moved by the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to.

Question put.