Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to speak this evening in the debate on the adjournment of the House to make some observations on what happened in this House during question time today. Question time today, not surprisingly, began, as it has in recent days, with questions from the opposition to the government on the size of the debt that has been undertaken in this budget, on the assumptions that underlie the premises of the budget and on the strategy to return the budget to surplus—a significant and important debate, one would think, and one which the opposition claimed to be engaging in in the national interest.

We did not get through five questions before the opposition sought to move a censure motion, subsequently moving a motion to suspend. Asking only five questions of the government when there was the opportunity to ask 10 seems to indicate that the opposition’s tactical response to dealing with the issue in this House has run out of steam. I have to say that, if the situation was as bad as the scare campaign of the opposition seemed to indicate, it was an awfully wasted opportunity to question the government on the issues that they claim are of such significance and dramatic implication for the community at large. It seems to me to point to the fact that it is indeed a scare campaign surrounded by stunts and props rather than a serious attempt to debate the issues of the day. There was a complete failure by the opposition, as there has been since budget night—even though this is apparently the biggest, most significant issue facing not only this generation but, as they continually remind us, the children of the future—to provide an alternative view on the issues that confront us.

One of the most significant components of the challenge that we are addressing is the significant drop in revenues that this country has faced as a result of the international downturn. One would think the member for Higgins, who contributed to the adjournment debate tonight, for example, would have something of interest to say on this issue. I well remember, as deputy chair of the Economics Committee in the previous parliament, that the member for Higgins, as Treasurer at the time, gave us two references on investigating the future of the manufacturing and services sectors post the mining boom. So one would think that he would have something constructive to say on the massive drop in revenues that this country has faced to contribute to the party room deliberations on the opposite side and the proposals put forward but, no—not a word on the issue of the drop in revenues.

So one would think that perhaps they would go to the issue of the government stimulus, the attempt by this government to intervene quickly and decisively by taking action to inject demand into the economy at a time when the private sector was pulling out. No, there was no constructive alternative view there either. Perhaps they have an issue with the size of the stimulus. Did we get a direct answer on which of the particular stimulus activities they would avoid or would target in a different direction? No, just a criticism that it is too big. Perhaps they have proposed savings. Do we see a raft of proposed savings to decrease that debt? No, we do not. What we saw in the budget reply was simply, ‘We wouldn’t reform the Medicare rebate; we would instead increase the excise as an alternative,’ which would have no effect at the end of the day on the size of the deficit.

Presented from the opposite side are only three solutions. The member for Higgins’s solution is, ‘It’s me; I’m the solution,’ which probably is not a surprise to anyone in this House, as I understand he made the point that the election was not lost because of Work Choices or climate change but because of a failure in generational change in their own leadership. The shadow Treasurer’s solution is, ‘I’d have a $25 billion smaller deficit than the government,’ in some sort of bizarre game of ‘Mine’s smaller than yours’ in debating this issue, but he has made no indication of exactly how he would achieve that or what that strategy would be about. The opposition leader merely offered a substitution proposal in his reply—hardly a response of appropriate size and significance considering the 75-year significance of the challenge that we face.

It was a wasted opportunity in question time today. Five questions was the best they could manage in order to back up a scare campaign. (Time expired)