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

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the Leader of the Nationals, the honourable member for Wide Bay, proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The impact of the Government’s reckless spending and debt explosion on Australian families.

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—

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been hearing a lot of concern lately in cricketing circles about the future of spin bowling in Australia. Do we really have a quality spinner whom we can send on the Ashes tour? Is spinning a lost art in Australia? I wonder who it might be that spins better than anyone else. Frankly, I was rather surprised when the Australian team was named the other day and the craftiest and trickiest spinning talent was actually left on the bench. He is someone who can spin with the best of them. He can spin to the left, the left and the Left—perhaps the most extraordinary spinner we have ever seen. But he was left behind. That man, of course, is the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. In less than a fortnight since the budget was handed down, the Prime Minister—ably assisted by his spin twin, Treasurer Wayne Swan—has tossed up more leg breaks, googlies, doosras and flippers to the Australian public than even the great Shane Warne.

But it has been spin without substance. Perhaps the most stunning example of the spin was the extraordinarily stubborn refusal of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to use the words ‘$58 billion’ or ‘$300 billion’ together in a sentence to describe the government’s deficit and debt. Of course they were back at it again today, where the Prime Minister could not bring himself to use the word ‘dollars’ after the confusion about whether in fact the maximum debt is $300 billion or whether it is $315 billion.

Now there might not be much guile in a lot of that spin, and it is perhaps not surprising that the journalists were considering the actions of the Treasurer, and, for that matter, the Prime Minister, as just silly games. It was silly games, but it was not silly games by the media or the public. They had a right to be told in the budget speech how much the deficit was going to be and how much the debt was going to build up to in subsequent years.

Is it any wonder that the disease spread to the member for Petrie? She had not heard these numbers used together, so she could rightfully plead ignorance. She did not know what the deficit figure was; she did not know what the debt figure was when she was rostered for her perhaps once-a-month turn to do a doorstop on arrival to Parliament House. I guess she is off the list now, like the member for Dawson and others, who dared not to use the carefully chosen lines for the spin of the day.

For a full 13 days, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer seemed to think that if they did not mouth the words ‘$300 billion debt’ or ‘$58 billion deficit’ then the light bulb would stay off above the head of every Australian. They thought they could go on and bore interviewers, without the mere mention of any real numbers that would actually mean something to the people of Australia. But this $315 billion debt is in fact a lot of money. When the public come to appreciate how much this debt really means to them and to their future, they will know it is an awful lot of money. It is a debt bombshell like our country has never seen. And, when the spin doctors finally realised that this message was in fact starting to grate on people, they could not stop using the word ‘billion’. They were at it all the time, time and time again. Then they accuse the coalition of talking down the economy when we make frequent reference to the fact that this incompetent and incapable government has, in just 18 months, turned around a government with a surplus, a government with money in the bank, to one that is now borrowing from people around the world and heading towards a debt of $315 billion.

With all of the political spin in the world, no-one can make that sort of money sound like nothing. A billion dollars is a lot of money; a billion means a lot. In fact, if you are going to pay back this $315 billion at the rate of $1 a second, it would take more than 10,000 years to recover the debt. Labor has mounted, in just 18 months, a debt that, if it is paid off at the rate of $1 a second, will take 10,000 years to repay. It is real money; it is the money that should be in the hands and the pockets of the men and women of Australia. Mum and dad and their children will have to go without because they will be paying off the spending of this government.

This government might be master spinners, but they are completely incompetent when it comes to economic management. The children of today will not be able to go to the cricket because they will be paying off the spinners’ debt. They will not be able to go to the school camp in the future because they will be paying off their share of this enormous debt. They will not be able to enjoy the things that they should have in life because we will be paying off the debt of this government. It is simply an inevitable fact that there will be less money available to spend on roads and rail infrastructure, on schools and hospitals, on youth allowance, on cataract surgery—there will be less money in the future to spend on all of the important things in our society because one of the biggest items in every federal budget every year will be paying off this government’s debt, paying it off year after year. The debt bombshell will be blowing up in every budget between now and, the government says, some time in 2022—but that assumes record budget surpluses. It is the kind of surplus Labor have never achieved in their history, and yet we are being asked to believe it will come in, year in year out, in the future.

I have a bit of news for the spin twins: the public is brighter than they may think. The public knows a bad deal when it sees it. People were happy to get a $900 cheque to pay off some of their personal credit card bills or to enjoy a day at the poker machines or wherever else they may have chosen to spend it. I pointed out during the MPI in budget week that the interest bill for this $900 cash splash, and everything else that Labor was proposing, amounted to $900 a year. In fact, now that it has been confessed that the debt figure is $315 billion, the interest will be about twice the $900 cheque that these people have got once, except the interest bill is going to have to be paid every year until the debt is finally repaid. So, for one $900 cheque, people get a $1,800 interest bill every year of their lives until this debt has been paid off.

It is all about spin. There was plenty of spin before the budget, but when it came to budget night the ball hardly turned at all. The reality was the government was unable to make the tough decisions that were necessary to rein in its expenditure. All that is left, after all of this spending, is the debt bombshell. The chief spinner has gone off at the drinks break, leaving $315 billion worth of debt—and that is no small number. And, just because the government can think of other countries that have a bigger debt, that does not make this debt acceptable. Have they forgotten that only 18 months ago we had no debt at all? The wonder down under economy did not have a debt, but the government has wound it up so that now we can compare ourselves with the great spenders of the world. The government seems to think that there is some great, intrinsic merit in spending more than others can spend.

But it is not spending that matters; it is what you pay for that counts. The reality is that they have started to wind back a couple of the budget measures. It was not long before the union bosses came on the scene and said: ‘Hey, we won’t have this new share ownership scheme. That’s not for us.’ Now the captain, the chief spinner, did not come out to tell the public they were backing down on this story; it was twelfth man who was sent out to break the news that in fact the government was going to bow immediately to the union mates. It only took a few hours for the union mates to get their message across, and their servants, the people in government, decided to back down on this measure.

The reality is that there are plenty of other people in just as much need. What about the students who are going to lose their Commonwealth accommodation scholarships because Labor has abolished them? What about students in their gap year who are not going to get access to the independent youth allowance that they had expected? And what about those people who will no longer have access to cataract surgery because the government has decided to cut the benefit? This is the kind of approach that this government has taken to expenditure—splashing money around but, when it comes to people in need, it is time to cut and cut.

This government, like all Labor governments, spends a lot of time and spin on all sorts of things that they are going to do, and after a while the public realises that they have not actually done anything. Then we get to the next stage of the spin. The Prime Minister, or in the case of Queensland Anna Bligh, the Premier, goes out in a hard hat. They are seen in a tunnel every day pretending that something is actually being done—that they are actually a government that is delivering something. The spinners are out wearing the hard hats. Usually, in cricket when the spinner is bowling it is the close-in fieldsmen who wear the hard hats. In this case, it is the spinner himself who is wearing the hat.

They run this kind of spin that the government is spending more than the coalition did on this, that or the other. But what is important is not how much you can spend but how much you are actually paying for. Any five-year-old can go out and spend money, and spend more than the five-year-old down the street. What we really need is an understanding of where the money is going to come from. In our first eight years, we had to pay for what Labor had spent the last time. So, when they criticise us for not having spent money on roads, it was because we were paying money for the roads that Labor had built during their time in government. They have not learnt any lessons from that. They are out spending again now but not paying for it. That is a debt for future governments to pick up. The real test is how much are they paying for, not how much they are spending. So, when they go to openings—the opening of the new assembly hall that has been dumped in the schoolyard—they should not say how much has been spent on the project; they should say how much debt is being left to the children of that school to pay back: about $15,000 for each of the children in return for the school building that they get. When they have the plaque at the official opening saying how much was spent, it should also say how much debt has been left behind as a result of this spending spree.

Labor makes much of the claim that it is spending on infrastructure. But the fact is that Labor will spend less on road and rail construction over the next six years than the coalition committed to spend over the next five. For all the talk of $22 billion in new infrastructure spending in the so-called nation building for the future package, only $1.7 billion will be spent this financial year when the stimulus is supposed to be occurring. Only $1.5 billion will be spent in 2009-10. To construct all the projects that are part-funded in that package, other levels of government or the private sector will have to stump up another $60 billion. Nowhere in the budget papers or in the national infrastructure priorities are there any cost-benefit analyses to demonstrate that the project chosen is in fact the right one.

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government comes into this place frequently demanding accountability and talking about auditors’ reports. Now he is in charge, he is asking us to believe that Infrastructure Australia has done some kind of cost-benefit analysis on these projects and these are the ones that are chosen. But he will not release the figures. He will not tell anybody about it. This has all got to be confidential. We are not being told what the numbers are and why these projects have been chosen. It sounds very smelly to me, like Labor’s infamous Better Regions program—closed before it was even open. The only projects being funded are those promised by Labor members of parliament and Labor candidates at the last election. No-one else need even bother applying. I am looking forward to the Auditor-General’s report on the Better Regions program. It is a scam beyond belief. It is funding projects that have been specifically rejected by the department on the basis of their being unworthy.

Despite all the spin, this is an infrastructure package that means it is basically business as usual. It is about what the previous government would have spent in good times or in bad. The reality is that Labor is all spin and no substance.

They are also very good at criticising opposition members for being involved in openings and similar occasions for projects that might be funded under this package. Do they remember the $1.2 billion Investing in Our Schools Program? Labor members all over the place now are turning up to open Investing in Our Schools projects even though they abolished the program. Even the Treasurer turned up in his electorate to open one of these projects. He put it in his newsletter and said it was a government initiative. It was a government initiative all right—they axed the program! The hypocrisy that has been associated with this government’s criticism of opposition members for doing their job in their electorates is mind boggling. I can produce hundreds of letters from Labor members backing projects that they voted against, and their criticism is typical of the spin that the government is mounting around its budget.

It is just like when the Prime Minister arrives and the machines have to start up to provide a television picture so there is a pretence that there is something happening, and then all the machines stop when he leaves. This is the kind of government we have. Once the television pictures are done, then the project is done as well and the tab will be picked up down the track. (Time expired)

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just trying to draw a diagram to summarise what the Leader of the Nationals had to say. He started off saying it was all spin, and then he went on to say that Labor’s spending is creating too much debt. ‘Spin’ suggests that there is no spending. The next proposition is that Labor’s spending is creating too much debt, and then he says the Nationals would have the same level of spending that Labor in government has had—they would have done it anyway. I am advised by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry that during the last matter of public importance the Leader of the Nationals complained about spending cuts the entire time. So this is the problem—they say one thing in one matter of public importance debate and another thing in another; one thing in their electorates and another thing in the parliament. They hope that no-one notices, but we do notice. This government is engaged in nation building for recovery, yet this MPI criticises the two stimulus packages that have been brought down by the government.

I will go through some of the economic context very quickly so there is an appreciation of the environment within which the budget was formulated and the two stimulus packages were brought down. Australia has experienced the biggest fall in export earnings in half a century. The coalition in government enjoyed the highest commodity prices in half a century. Labor has come to government at a time when Australia has experienced the biggest fall in export earnings in half a century. That has contributed directly to the carving of $210 billion off Commonwealth taxation revenue—$210 billion has been lost from Commonwealth taxation revenue. Sounds like a big number? It is a big number. It is one dollar in every five of Commonwealth taxation revenue wiped out as a consequence of the impact of the global recession and its impact on commodity prices, meaning that the Commonwealth has lost one dollar in every five of Commonwealth taxation revenue. That $210 billion deterioration accounts for two-thirds of the total deterioration in the budget bottom line.

These are the external influences—two-thirds of the deterioration in the budget bottom line caused by a $210 billion loss of Commonwealth taxation revenue. Yet the coalition, through this pamphlet and through their websites, which I have inspected, are giving the impression that they would not have any debt—that debt is bad and the coalition stand for no debt. Not only that, the Leader of the Opposition was asked about this very topic on the AM program on 13 May this year. Chris Uhlmann asked:

But just quickly, you would have engaged in some stimulus spending and there would have been a deficit?

Malcolm Turnbull gave quite long answer, but he said:

… it may have been in deficit by a very small amount or it may have been in surplus by a small amount …

There you have the Leader of the Opposition saying that if in government the coalition would have a small deficit, a small surplus or a balanced budget. They are saying they would eliminate the deficit. That is their public statement—and yet the fall in Commonwealth taxation revenue accounts for two-thirds of the deterioration in the budget bottom line. So the Leader of the Opposition is really saying that he can fix the fundamental problem here, and that is the collapse of commodity prices. I can just see him now—King Canute: ‘I command commodity prices to rise.’ The King Canute of Australian politics, the Leader of the Opposition: ‘I’ll fix it all. I command you to rise, commodity prices.’ So absurd is the economic prescription of the Leader of the Opposition.

If he is going to go around saying that Labor’s net debt is no good and we should have a balanced budget or a slight surplus, you would think he would have used the opportunity to say so on the Thursday night of his budget reply speech—a golden opportunity. Expectations were raised. I was waiting in breathless anticipation for the Leader of the Opposition to come in here, show some courage and say, ‘This is how we would move from deficit into a balanced budget. These are the taxes that we would increase. These are the savings, the reductions in government spending, that we would make.’ What did he do? He produced not one dollar of net savings when he had a golden opportunity in his budget reply to do so. He does not have the courage to put his money where his mouth is, say where the money is coming from, say which taxes he would increase and say which programs he would cut. He is guilty of duplicity. He is guilty of hypocrisy.

Let us see what the Leader of the Opposition said about the first stimulus package, about which he has subsequently become so deeply critical. On 14 October last year he said:

… we are not going to argue about the composition of the package or quibble about it. It has our support. It will provide a stimulus to the economy, that’s for certain.

Here he is supporting the stimulus package, saying it is great. On the same day, he went on to say:

… we’re not arguing about the size of the stimulus. We support these measures and we are particularly pleased about the measure, the payments to pensioners.

What did he subsequently describe it as? A cash splash—a total waste of money. This is the duplicity and the hypocrisy of the Leader of the Opposition. He says something one day to suit his purposes and then something different the next. I will not have time to list them all, but there was a litany of quotes from the Leader of the Opposition subsequently saying, ‘We never liked that stimulus package at all. We voted for it, but we never liked it and never said it was good.’ But they did say it was good—they supported it at the time.

On the second stimulus package, of course, the Leader of the Opposition said, ‘We wouldn’t have introduced the same stimulus package; we would have had one about half the size.’ So instead of Labor’s net debt of $188 billion they are saying they would have $168 billion. Half of 42 is 21. Take 21 from 188 and you have 167.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’re not good with numbers, you lot, are you!

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I am actually a lot better with numbers than you, mate. You are the numbers man for your bloke, sitting up there on the back bench, the member for Higgins. The member for Higgins is not even here in the chamber, so do not talk to me about being good at numbers, mate. You are hopeless at numbers—absolutely hopeless.

We had the Leader of the Opposition saying that under the coalition the deficit would be $21 billion lower—$188 million; $178 billion; $168 billion; $167 billion. There it is, right on the money—$167 billion is good; $188 billion of net debt is really bad. That is really what he is saying. But even then in his budget reply he did not identify the $21 billion that he would save. He had the opportunity to do so. At least he said, ‘We don’t support this package; we’re voting against it’—and vote against it they did. Why? Because the member for Higgins, the guy for whom you are the numbers man, up there on the back bench and on Lateline, described the stimulus packages as a ‘low-quality spend’. Then it caught on. Here in Canberra the coalition, full of courage and full of bluster, said: ‘That’s a low-quality spend. We’re not voting for it.’ At least you can respect them for that. Here they are in Canberra saying that they are not going to vote for all this infrastructure and school modernisation stuff. It is far too expensive—a low-quality spend.

Okay, that would be understandable, but what have we got? This matter of public importance has been put by the Leader of the National Party, the friend of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry here—

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

I love him!

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He loves him. He is very, very fond of the Leader of the National Party. Why? Because he gives us so much material. He gives us so many lines. There are two Nationals here now from the guilty party. You are both guilty. Why? The member for Maranoa, on 1 April, put out a media release headed ‘Green light for Kingaroy road funding’. It stated:

Federal LNP Member for Maranoa Bruce Scott welcomed $650,000 in funding from the Federal Black Spots Program …

Ain’t that grand! The very program that he voted against and that they described as a ‘low-quality spend’. On the same day, April Fools’ Day, in another press release headed ‘A right move for Dalby road funding’ another $70,000 was welcomed. And then we have the National Party member for Mallee—and his name is John Forrest. I would not use the name ordinarily in parliament, but I am quoting directly from a press release:

Federal member for Mallee John Forrest says Black Spot funding approaching $2 million for the Mallee Electorate announced by the Federal Infrastructure Minister today will be money well spent.

Money that they voted against! Now we have the member for Gippsland. Thank you for coming along, because you probably thought you would get a run in this MPI and you are. The article’s headline is ‘Dangerous roads to be upgraded’. It states:

The dangerous McKean Street intersections with Victoria and Dreverman streets in Bairnsdale will be upgraded following an announcement of $500,000 from the Federal Government—

which the member for Gippsland voted against. So you are all brave here in Canberra, but when you go back to your electorates you are cowards. You are cowards in Canberra because you do not have the guts to say to your local constituents, ‘Listen, I’ve got to be honest with you, I’ve got to be frank with you, I’ve got to level with you: we voted against this; we are against these measures; we are against these local initiatives.’

The member for La Trobe is writing letters to the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government saying, ‘Look, it would be terrific, Minister, for the city of Knox if we could establish an indoor stadium and regional soccer facility.’ I have another one from the federal member for Swan—and this I think is a lovely personal touch:

Dear Minister’—

‘Minister’ is struck through and replaced with ‘Anthony’; we call him ‘Albo’—

The City of Canning in my electorate of Swan has submitted an application for assistance towards the development of replacement playground equipment, pathways and sports field lighting under the above program. I would be grateful for your consideration of the application, which I strongly endorse.

What! Out of a program that they voted against? He strongly endorses an application from a program that they oppose in Canberra but do not have the guts to tell their local constituents that they are opposing. I have three more letters—and I will not go through them all. There is one from the member for Wannon talking about three different proposals that he has asked Minister Albanese about—there is a strike-through there as well; he has changed it to ‘Minister/Anthony’. He thinks, ‘Maybe that will maximise my chances of getting the application approved.’ We have got more and more of these proposals. Sometimes you cannot be sure if they are bogus, because you cannot really believe some of the stuff that they go on with. I know people in the past have said, ‘We’ve been set up, it really wasn’t us.’ Is that really Steve Irons, the member for Swan, having a look at the new civic centre library in South Perth—the government contributing $2 million? It sure looks like him. I think that is him. And who is this handsome fellow here? Rowan Ramsey, the member for Grey, at the announcement of $2.5 million for Port Pirie Library and Internet Centre. He looks particularly pleased. He is very happy with the program that he voted against but which he pretends in his electorate that he supported.

Here we have a fairly recently elected member who replaced Alexander Downer. His name is Jamie Briggs, the member for Mayo. There he is, happy at the announcement of more than $2.3 million for a new swimming pool in Strathalbyn. And then we have the thumbs up: here is Joanna Gash with Senator Arbib. ‘Go Mark!’ says Joanna Gash, the member for Gilmore. She is really happy with her thumbs up. And who is this guy here? You can only see part of the photo. We have got Albo, the minister, here. Doesn’t that look like the Leader of the Opposition? There he is, the member for Wentworth, at the announcement of $2 million for a new pavilion at Waverley Park. Isn’t that terrific!

That is the problem, though—they just do not have any guts. Here we are, as a government, investing in roads, rail, ports, broadband and the biggest school modernisation program in Australia’s history and supporting small business and jobs, with Treasury estimates that 200,000 extra jobs would be lost if it weren’t for the stimulus packages and the budget measures that we have announced and are implementing now. Here are the questions for the coalition: where is the money coming from? Where are you going to cut spending? Where are you going to increase taxes? We are building the economy up while you spend all your time talking it down.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to support this matter of public importance by the Leader of the Nationals. I tried to listen to every word that the previous speaker uttered. There was a touch of verbal anaesthetic there, I have got to say. It was like listening to a lawnmower going over wet grass. With all his bluff and bluster and all his histrionics that those opposite have to put up with on a daily basis, you did a good job, members of the Labor Party backbench, of smiling painfully on cue. But once again he still could not bring himself to mention the $58 billion deficit in the budget.

Here two weeks ago today it was budget day. The Labor Party caucus were preparing to be briefed on the budget. When you look at the language we have had from those opposite, the conduct of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, and you measure the extent to which they have gone out of their way not to level with the Australian people, this last three weeks has really begun to show the true side of the Labor Party. Before the budget we had the astonishing use of language, with ‘six years of temporary deficits’—’temporary’! In budget week the Treasurer and the Prime Minister did not blush when they talked about ‘temporary’ and ‘six years’ in the same sentence. Imagine getting a temporary car when you get your car serviced and having it for six years. Imagine a road being temporarily closed for six years—although my colleague the member for Cook points out that this does happen in New South Wales. I thought to myself: where would the Labor Party have got this language, because they are so programmed? Did someone just think of it or did they delve back into their history? What has come to my attention is that the Labor Party, fond of their history as they are, indeed delved back into their history. Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, were not the inventors of the term ‘temporary’. Actually the inventors of it were Gough Whitlam and Rex Connor during the loans affair, where they said in an executive minute—that famous minute that summed up so much the economic incompetence of the Labor Party, that saw them thrown from office in 1975—that the borrowings would be for ‘temporary purposes’. Now we are starting to get a true picture of the Labor Party.

Then we had the extraordinary revelation of the Treasurer not being able to utter the budget deficit figure during his speech. A budget is four documents and a speech, and all these documents come down to the outcome. They all add up to one figure—the deficit or the surplus—and he could not mention it on budget night. When the Labor Party were briefed on the budget just before the budget speech it is now quite clear that they were not briefed on the figure either. There has been a lot of criticism of the member for Petrie, but she cannot say what she has not heard or what she does not know because the Treasurer did not tell his own people and deliberately omitted the budget deficit figure from the speech. As he did so, it just demonstrated the extent to which this government will go to conceal the truth from the Australian people—and those opposite know it. They know it. They know it is wrong. We have seen that time and time again.

Instead of being issued in caucus with facts and figures on the budget, what we have seen in the week after the budget is that they were all issued with hard hats and fluorescent vests! That is what we have seen all over the country. The extent to which this government will go to bring on a stunt and avoid the substance is breathtaking. This is not a government; it is a stunt factory. That is all we see from those opposite. For 100 years the budget papers were as you would expect: plain old, boring, black-and-white budget papers. Then, when this government got elected, you can see one of their biggest decisions—they probably spent the day on it—was: ‘Let’s make them blue.’ You can imagine, can’t you, the Labor strategist saying, ‘What’s the really important thing to do?’

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They should be red.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is exactly right—they should be red. That is what we have seen from those opposite. We have seen the Prime Minister join the Treasurer and refuse to mention the level of debt. The previous speaker uttered the words ‘debt’ and ‘deficit’ but he would not say how big the deficit was. The Prime Minister spent an excruciating week going out of his way to reveal the most basic figures to the Australian people. No matter how hard it is to conceal it, the Prime Minister was determined to. We had the infamous interview on Lateline, where he was asked over and over again and refused to let the words pass his lips. It made the John Clarke interview look like a serious interview. That’s how pathetic it was. When asked the debt figures both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer took the fifth—and so they should, because those figures do incriminate them.

Those opposite know that. They did everything they possibly could all week to avoid levelling with the Australian people. The Australian people are beginning to wake up to it. They are beginning to wake up to the fact that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, our Prime Minister and our Treasurer, are not up to the job of economic managers. They might be up to the job of media pictures. I think it was probably a lineball call from the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s office on whether they should actually wear their hard hats here into the chamber!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the vests.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the vests. Whenever you see fluorescent vests and hard hats coming, you know the Labor caucus and a few ministers are on their way. You should have one of those safety signs there—’Danger! Reckless Spender’—because that is what we get from those opposite. What we have seen from those opposite in the last week tells the whole story. That is why the Prime Minister, grudgingly, after a week of evasion, finally uttered the budget debt figures and the Treasurer finally uttered the deficit figures. But this is their stock in trade. As we have seen with the employees share scheme fiasco, two weeks of chaos—absolute chaos. The first instinct when a mistake has been made is to cover it up, to ignore it and to babble on like demented cockatoos.

The public are beginning to wake up to this. Those opposite get given their lines, they get given their fluorescent vests and they get given their hard hats. If they are prepared to stick to the script, the public will very quickly wake up to them. But those opposite know in their heart of hearts that for a Treasurer not to release the budget deficit figure during his speech is extraordinary. That sums it up very much for this Prime Minister and Treasurer. Of every Labor Prime Minister and Treasurer—and this is a big statement on Labor Party history—this duo is easily the most economically incompetent and irresponsible in our history.

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today’s MPI has to be one of the greatest examples of hypocrisy that I have witnessed in 11 years in this House. The opposition have already acknowledged that had they been in office they would have done almost exactly the same as the government has done. On 13 May, the Leader of the Opposition told ABC Radio’s Chris Uhlmann:

It is hard to imagine a circumstance in which the Budget this year would not be in deficit.

And, on the same day, the opposition’s Treasury spokesman said that the deficit would be only $25 billion less under a coalition government.

This government is borrowing for a legitimate purpose: it is borrowing to cushion this country from the worst effects of the global economic downturn; and it is borrowing to rejuvenate this country’s infrastructure—its roads, its railways, its ports, its schools, its broadband and its other community assets. These are investments that the Howard-Costello government should have financed out of budget surpluses from the commodities boom while it was in office. The Rudd government is borrowing to stimulate economic activity at a time when the private sector is either reluctant to invest itself or cannot raise finance because of the freezing up of global credit markets. The government’s borrowings will result in thousands of Australian businesses, large and small, getting government contracts to supply goods and services. This will keep thousands of Australians in jobs who would otherwise be on unemployment benefits and therefore unproductive.

As the government has acknowledged, there is no doubt that the remainder of 2009 and beyond is going to be tough. As with other advanced economies, the International Monetary Fund expects our economy to contract over 2009, but the IMF also believes that Australia will weather this global crisis better than virtually any other advanced economy. That is partly because of some of our strengths, like the stability of our financial system and the fact that our banks are amongst the safest in the world. But a big part of the reason we are much better placed than most other nations is—apart from the superb economic foundation built by the previous Hawke and Keating Labor governments—the decisive action taken by this government to stimulate growth, to support jobs and to mitigate the impact of the global recession on all Australians. That decisive action started last year with stimulus payments to give the economy a short-term boost, particularly in the vital retail sector, which employs over one million Australians. We saw the results of this in figures which showed that the value of retail sales increased by 2.2 per cent in the month of March. Monthly retail sales are now 4.5 per cent higher than they were in November last year before the government’s first economic stimulus payments started to flow to pensioners and families. By way of comparison, over the same period retail sales fell 2.5 per cent in the United States, 3.1 per cent in Japan, 2.2 per cent in Germany, 3.1 per cent in Canada and 1.7 per cent in New Zealand.

Following the rollout of the stimulus payments, the next stage of the government’s economic stimulus package is well underway. Two-thirds of that stimulus is infrastructure investment and these construction projects are starting now. In 12 months time there will be around 35,000 individual construction projects around the country, including the largest school modernisation program ever. All of these will be boosting thousands of local economies and small businesses right across Australia. They will be keeping contractors, tradies, truck drivers and small businesses working and employing Australians. As the minister for infrastructure informed the House yesterday, even members opposite are welcoming these investments in their own constituencies. They cannot get their hard hats and safety vests on fast enough for all the photo opportunities. But we hear nothing but criticism from them in this House and in this chamber about the enormous amount of economic activity that is just starting around the country, including in their own electorates, where they line up to try to claim some of the credit. They roar like lions here in Canberra and squeak like mice in their electorates.

Let me highlight some of those investment projects. The first sod was recently turned on the $164 million Midland Highway-Brighton bypass project in Southern Tasmania, six months ahead of schedule. This bypass and the associated transport hub are expected to create up to 380 jobs directly with additional flow-on benefits to local businesses. Work has started on installing flashing lights and advance warning systems at 13 high-risk rail level crossings in Tasmania. Builders have been selected for the new Mandurah Entrance Road in Western Australia. Work will begin in the coming months, a year ahead of schedule. Investment in other transport infrastructure projects continues, with 268 rail level crossing projects announced in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Contractors have been named for the Tarcutta and Woomargama bypasses on the Hume Highway in New South Wales. Black spot projects have been announced across Australia—160 in Victoria, almost 200 in New South Wales, 93 in Queensland, six in the Northern Territory, 27 in Tasmania and more than 50 in both South Australia and Western Australia.

Approval has been given for $250 million worth of projects by 564 local councils across Australia under the first round of the $800 million Community Infrastructure Program. Councils have now lodged applications under the second round for projects like sports grounds, community centres and town halls. Work has started on stage 1 of social housing construction all around Australia. Almost all of the 667 homes to be built in my home state of Victoria have planning approval and 503 projects are expected to start this financial year. The education sector has been a significant beneficiary of the government’s economic stimulus package. The National School Pride program, which represents 13,176 projects in 9,461 schools, has been approved and work has begun or is about to begin. Under this program each school will receive between $50,000 and $200,000 for things like building refurbishments, water tanks, sports grounds and specialised infrastructure support for students with disabilities or special needs.

I estimate that close to $142 million has been allocated to my electorate of Bendigo in central Victoria in some of the programs I have just mentioned. That, in just the first 18 months of the Rudd government, is more than the Howard government delivered in almost 12 years, if you exclude the Calder Highway funding—and remember that the Howard coalition government had to be dragged kicking and screaming for four long years before they finally allocated the promised funding for the Calder Highway.

These are just some of the projects being funded by the government’s borrowing program, which will create opportunities for businesses across the country to get involved and support thousands of jobs. The importance of economic stimulus measures such as these was emphasised recently by IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard. He noted that ‘fiscal policies have made a gigantic difference’. The IMF estimates that, without these stimulus measures around the world, world growth in 2009 would be somewhere between 1.5 per cent and two per cent lower. Mr Blanchard went on to say: ‘Therefore, we would be in the middle of something very close to a depression. So I think we have to understand that the strong policies which have been taken have made a difference.’

The Reserve Bank of Australia, in its recent quarterly statement on monetary policy, cited the government’s ‘substantial fiscal initiatives’ as a key reason why Australia is outperforming other countries. It noted that Australia’s economic activity is slowing at a significantly more gradual pace than many other advanced economies. So the government’s response to the global economic crisis has been swift and decisive and is obviously working well.

But what has the opposition got to offer Australia in these difficult times? Not one speaker from the opposition in today’s debate has mentioned anything about what they would do or any policy initiatives. There has been plenty of carping and whingeing but no policy substance. There has been no leadership, no viable policies and no direction except scaremongering about the forecast levels of government borrowing. Depending on which spokesperson you listen to, either they would be doing almost exactly the same as the government or they would be fiddling around while the global economy collapsed about them, taking Australia and Australian jobs with them. The Leader of the Opposition will undoubtedly go down in history as the Andre Rieu of Australian politics. He does bear a striking resemblance in more ways than one, except for the hair, of course—they are both fiddlers. Come to think of it, fiddling around is probably the Leader of the Opposition’s true vocation in life. Of course, he is nowhere near as good at it as his international look-alike; Mr Rieu can at least boast of considerable talent. The opposition leader’s fiddling over economic management is woefully out of tune. He and the parties opposite are out of tune with the needs of the times. They are out of tune with the actions being taken by the governments of other developed countries around the world and they are out of tune with the wishes of the Australian people.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Swan.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have your picture here.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it’s great. I’m glad you have been flashing it around. It will give me a bit of ID, so thanks for that.

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

The minister will desist from holding up those props. He does not have the call.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I pass it over? It’s the same shirt and tie.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad to note that you are also taking notice of what I am wearing. I rise to speak on this matter of public importance in relation to the impact of the government’s reckless spending and the debt explosion on Australian families. It was interesting to hear the member for Bendigo take a very positive spin on the debt. The government putting a positive spin on debt as being good for the country is like when the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy said in this very place, ‘Spending money on capital equipment will improve cash flow.’

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn’t say that.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not how it works. Money coming into your business actually improves cash flow, not money going out of it. You said it in this very place.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Emerson interjecting

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You did. It just shows that this government and its members have no idea about the consequences of their decisions and their effects on the economy, which small business people do understand. The more debt you get into as a business means that you are taking away your ability to run that business because you have to focus on meeting your debt repayments instead of running your business. Just to make sure that the government know what debt is, because they do not seem to have any concern about debt, I googled ‘debt’ as a definition and have brought the response in here to tell the government so that they will know. The definition says:

• Something owed, such as money …
• An obligation or liability to pay …
• The condition of owing
• An offense requiring forgiveness or reparation …

Debt is an offence. The plain fact is that the Labor government have lost control of the nation’s finances. The easiest thing any government and any person can do is to spend other people’s money. This is money earned by hardworking Australians and hardworking families, by people who raised a sweat, people who wore hard hats for the correct reasons and not just a photo shoot. It is the people of Australia who have earned the money and paid the taxes. That money was not earned by the Labor government and they should not treat it as their own money. You have also spent the money they have not yet earned; you have mortgaged the futures of Australians, their children and their grandchildren.

Today during question time the Treasurer spoke about paying down debt. Let him come into this place and tell the people of Australia how much debt he has paid down. I would like to bet that while the government are running around and spending like a drunken sailor, which the Treasurer accused the Howard government of today, they have not paid off any debt at all. They are not even spending this debt wisely, and we need only look to the member for Fowler, who was quoted in the Canberra Times today in reference to the government’s budget. She said, ‘I have to ask the question of whether its programs are targeted as well as they could be.’

I always look to see what the electorate is saying, and I will read a letter printed today in the West Australian. The letter is from Sean Hefferon, from South Fremantle—traditionally a Labor area but now a Greens safe haven, recently wrested away from the Labor Party in a by-election in Western Australia. The letter is to the Treasurer and Kevin Rudd, and I will read it out in total. It starts off with, ‘Please explain,’ and it is not from Pauline Hanson, either:

The Rudd Government is keen to gamble with other people’s money. The Government wants us to believe that the record debt (that the Treasurer would not mention in the Budget) will be paid off over five or six years of annual GDP growth of 4.5 per cent. This is sheer optimism at best—a lie at worst.

We are an export nation, so which of the ailing international economies are going to provide us with this 4.5 per cent growth year in and year out? The mining boom that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan go on about, saying it delivered ‘rivers of gold’ to the previous government, delivered only an average of 3.25 per cent growth a year over 10 years. This was, as Mr told us ad nauseam in 2007, apparently a ‘once in a lifetime’ boom. Now we can expect an even bigger boom when the IMF and the RBA are predicting a protracted recovery? Kevin07? By the time the debt is paid off it may be Kevin27.

Now we hear that Messrs Rudd and Swan want to cut tax breaks on people’s superannuation funds—like a pair of Nambour safe crackers creeping through the night, oxy torch in hand. This reminds me of a scene in the first Harry Potter movie when the wand maker says words to the effect, ‘I wondered when I would be seeing you.’ Similarly I have to say, I wondered when they would start to raid super. If only all of this was fiction—like the movie.

But why are we surprised with these ‘casino economics’? Wasn’t it Mr Rudd who offered in 2007 the bizarre idea that WA future (post-mining boom) lies in investing Chinese savings in real estate in Latin America? Such an idea was a clear sign of things to come. And come they have with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, charged with overseeing the national broadband network, stating that the $43 billion project doesn’t require a cost-benefit analysis! This is contrary to common sense and this Government’s duty to the Australian people.

(Time expired)

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table a photograph of the previous speaker, the member for Swan, at the new civic centre library in South Perth, to which the government contributed $2 million.

Leave not granted.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

By raising this supposed MPI the member for Wide Bay has once again shown in this place just how out of touch he and his party are. The Nationals have shown that they do not want the government to invest in jobs and infrastructure for the future. They are a party of no ideas. They are more content to mock and block in opposition because when in government they never stood up for their communities. The Nationals today are a party without vision and a party that stands for nothing. The Nationals do not want the government to invest in education, schools, community infrastructure, roads, rail and ports.

I think the Nationals like opposition. They are comfortable there. It means they do not have to fully realise what is going on in the community. We, however, are listening. The nation-building economic stimulus plan includes $14.7 billion over three years for the Building the Education Revolution program. It will fund the building and rebuilding of primary and secondary school infrastructure and the maintenance of Australia’s schools, including combined schools and special schools. The government is listening.

I have a list of all the projects here, which the Deputy Prime Minister numbers at around 216. Millions and millions of dollars are being invested in the seat of Dawson, and the opposition are against it. I went to Victoria Park State School in my electorate and met with the principal of the school and the President of the P&C on Friday just gone. They were not against it. They were over the moon. Maybe someone in the National Party could explain to them why their school does not deserve the federal government funding they are getting.

The Australian government has also brought forward $110 million of funding for the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program from 2010-11 to 2009-10. This will provide additional support for the economy now and also fast-track measures to improve the skills base of the workforce. I am pleased to announce that a $6 million trade training centre will be built at the CQUniversity site. The previous member for Dawson promised and promised this but never delivered. We have delivered for the people of Dawson. Maybe someone in the National Party could explain to Mackay North State High School, Mackay State High School, Mirani State High School, Sarina State High School and Pioneer State High School why their schools do not deserve this federal government backing.

The National School Pride Program has now successfully been implemented, with the second and final round of funding announced on 21 May 2009. Together with round 1, the NSP Program will deliver $1.3 billion to 9,490 eligible primary and secondary schools across Australia for minor infrastructure and refurbishment projects. In Dawson that has totalled over $5 million in funding. I suppose the member for Wide Bay believes they do not deserve federal government funding either.

Round 1 of Primary Schools for the 21st Century saw 1,499 eligible primary schools across Australia receive $2.8 billion in funding for a variety of projects, including libraries and multipurpose halls. This is all targeted spending on infrastructure, important nation-building infrastructure, including $800 million for the Community Infrastructure Program. This is all about infrastructure for the future and creating jobs now—something which we, the Labor Party, have a core commitment to. We do not only give it lip-service; we deliver real dollars, real investment, for real projects on the ground that will serve this nation for generations to come. Shame on the Nationals for voting against it.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion has concluded.