Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That the Prime Minister no longer possesses the confidence of this House for repeatedly failing to keep his promises and honour his word which has diminished the Office of Prime Minister and his government, and, in particular for:

(1)

seeking a national emergency exemption to run a tax-payer funded political advertising campaign against the mining tax when a real national emergency is occurring in over 240,000 roofs across the country yet there is no ad campaign to warn homeowners;

(2)

declaring government advertising a “cancer on democracy” in 2007 but once elected, scrapping his own system of auditor-general approvals and then going around the replacement committee with a special exemption in a desperate attempt to save his political hide;

(3)

ripping $38 million out of taxpayer pockets for an advertising campaign about the new great big tax on mining which isn’t even draft legislation, let alone passed by the Parliament; and

(4)

promising to usher in a new era of accountability and to end the blame game, but instead, upon coming to government, leading a government that is spin over substance, reduced to breaking its own rules and utterly shameless with over 52 examples of broken election commitments.

The public of Australia do not know it, but this is actually day four of a national emergency. There are no guns in the street, there are no sandbags around government buildings, but it is a national emergency in the eyes of the Prime Minister because the people who mine the ore that makes the steel and the people who quarry the sand that builds the sandbags are critical of this government. This is not a national emergency for our country; it is just a political emergency for our Prime Minister. We know, because the Prime Minister has just admitted it, that he has been planning an advertising campaign for months. Yet this man, who parades as a paragon of political virtue, has gone around his own rules for a political advertising campaign that he now admits he was planning for months. This shameless Prime Minister is prepared to spend $38 million advertising a tax that he cannot explain, he cannot defend and he will not even legislate until after the next election. This is a Prime Minister who will not advertise to alert 240,000 families to the problems in their roofs but is prepared to advertise to save his own political hide. This Prime Minister’s political future means more to him than the health and safety of 240,000 Australian families.

This is a government which is looting the Treasury to pay for the government’s re-election campaign. This is a government which is looting the Treasury because this Prime Minister cannot do the job ordinarily expected of a Prime Minister—that is, to explain, justify and defend the policies of the government. There is the $30 million for climate change advertising, even though he has given up on an ETS until the election after next. There is $29.5 million for hospital advertising, even though he has not yet got a national deal, and, in any event, there is no real reform involved. There is $16 million for National Broadband Network advertising, even though he has not even got a business plan for his $43 billion white elephant. And now he wants taxpayers to shell out $38 million for an advertising campaign that is not legislated, and he is breaking his own rules to do so. This is $38 million for an advertising campaign for a tax change that was not part of the Henry review, was not legislated and is not compliant with the guidelines. He has junked his own rules to fund his own campaign. He has junked his own principles to save his political skin.

This is not just about the advertising; this is fundamentally about this Prime Minister’s integrity. Even by the Prime Minister’s usual standards of sanctimony, he has engaged in self-righteousness of a high order. Let us remember what this Prime Minister said of government advertising repeatedly in the months before he was elected to high office. He described government advertising not just as a bad thing, not just as something that he would rather not have; he said it was nothing less than a long-term ‘cancer on democracy’. This is the Prime Minister who says, of course, that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time—and he says that government advertising is a long-term cancer on our democracy. In fact, he made a compact, if not with the Australian people, at least with Kerry O’Brien. He made a compact that there would be no government advertising whatsoever in the three months prior to an election unless it had been entered into by an explicit agreement between the leader of the government and the Leader of the Opposition. That is what he said on The 7.30 Report. And Kerry O’Brien said to him:

Is that what you will promise to do in a Labor Government?

And here the Prime Minister channels Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his great inspiration in government. His actions have made Graham ‘whatever it takes’ Richardson look like a paragon of political virtue. Channelling Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Prime Minister said to Kerry O’Brien:

That is an absolute undertaking from us. I believe this is a sick cancer within our system. It’s a cancer on democracy.

Perhaps that is what the Prime Minister is crossing out as he frantically scribbles his notes over there, but at least on this occasion he is not running away from defending himself—but how can he defend himself? This is an absolute betrayal of a commitment that he gave not once but many times prior to the last election.

Not only has he betrayed the commitments that he made to the Australian people but also he has clearly misled this parliament. All of us can remember that last week he was asked about the impact of his great big new tax on mining on the currency markets and on the share markets, and he said that any suggestion that there is an impact on currency markets and share markets is ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’. Who has revealed the Prime Minister as telling a lie, lie, lie? None other than his own minister, the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, who said, ‘I further accept the Treasurer’s advice that tax reform changes impact on financial markets.’ He went on to say, ‘I am satisfied that a compelling reason for an exemption exists, particularly given the nature and extent of misinformation against a backdrop of continuing market volatility.’ This is a Prime Minister who just cannot be trusted. He cannot be trusted to be straight with the Australian people and, as we know this morning from Simon Benson, he cannot even be trusted to be straight with Morris Iemma, his own state Labor colleague. He lies shamelessly. He lies shamelessly to anyone and everyone, if he thinks there is an advantage in it for him.

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

Order! The leader will be careful of his language.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there is a national emergency today, it is not criticism of this government which constitutes a national emergency; it is the work of this government which constitutes a national emergency. I say this to the Australian people: if you want to stop the boats you have to change the government, if you want to stop the tax you have to change the government and if you want to restore decency to our public life you have to change the government. It does not matter how many times he gives a press conference outside a church on Sundays, nothing that he says can actually be believed.

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

Order! Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion. This comes down to trust. This comes down to the ability of the Australian people to trust their Prime Minister and it comes down to raw numbers. Numbers in the Corporations Act and the ASX Listing Rules require people to tell the truth to the Stock Exchange and investors. So, when the head of Rio and the head of BHP and the head of so many mining companies come out and say, ‘These are the real numbers, this is the impact on our balance sheet, this is the impact on our profit and loss,’ they have an obligation to tell the truth. It is only a shame that the government and the Prime Minister do not have the same legal obligation. Why? It is because the government has sought, at every point in this debate, to deliberately mislead the Australian people. It has misled the Australian people about the true impact and shape of the tax. It has misled the Australian people about the numbers behind old Swannie’s notes. It has misled the Australian people in the ads by deliberately excluding company tax, which has increased dramatically over the last few years. Even in question time today, the Prime Minister sought to deliberately mislead the Australian people when he said, ‘Whichever way you cut the cake—whether it is on royalties, whether it is on company tax and against all ranges of measures—the bottom line is that because of the current structure of the taxation regime the return to the Australian people via the taxation system is infinitely less than it was a decade ago.’

The facts are that royalties a decade ago were $1.2 billion. Last year they were $7.5 billion. A decade ago company tax was $1.4 billion. Last year, it was an estimated $14 billion. That is a total increase of tenfold in the contribution of the mining sector, which makes a lie of the Prime Minister in question time today. But we should not be surprised. This is a Prime Minister that had all sorts of moral courage before the last election—moral courage when he was challenged by the Australian people to reveal his innermost character. He was asked to be honest, to be fair dinkum, to be real with the Australian people and the Australian people took him at his word. They took him at his word when he said that advertising prior to an election was a cancer on democracy. I know this man understands the real impact of cancer, as so many of us do. To use that word flippantly in relation to democracy is a significant issue, because it clearly illustrates the fact that the Prime Minister will use whatever words are available at the time to emphasise his real commitment. The problem is that we do not know what his real commitment is. Does he believe in climate change? Is it truly the greatest moral, social and economic challenge of our lifetime? Are you truly a political coward if you do not act immediately to support an ETS? And are you truly engaging in supporting a cancer on democracy if you advertise just before an election?

What has happened now is that the government has been caught out. Last week we saw this policy was framed by Google. The government went to North America and got a working paper from academics. It went to Treasury and got a draft note handed around, all to justify the mining tax, and now it is seeking, through advertising—through taxpayers’ money—to deliberately mislead the Australian people about the true impact of this tax. It says a lot about the character of the Prime Minister. Anything we say on this side of the House will never have the impact of the words of our own Prime Minister being brought back to him. All the commentary, anything said by a critic, means nothing compared to the raw information that has come from the Prime Minister’s mouth at one time and now completely denied by him. He blames us for his hypocrisy. He blames us for his misleading the Australian people. He blames us for everything that has gone wrong in his life. I say to you, Prime Minister: you stand condemned not by us and not by the commentators; you stand condemned by the Australian people and, even more importantly than that, you stand condemned by your own words.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the remarks that have been made by those opposite on this suspension motion. What we have had from those opposite, and particularly from the Leader of the Opposition, is ‘full gospel’ Tony Abbott in full flight—or was it? He said that this is a debate about trust. Let us go back to a core principle that has been put on the public record by the Leader of the Opposition only recently in an interview conducted on The 7.30 Report. He said, ‘Unless I put my remarks in writing, these should not be regarded as considered remarks and should therefore not be believed.’ If you want, therefore, a full gospel truth version from Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, he said—and these are his own words—‘to get it in writing’.

That means that three-quarters of everything that he has said since he became Leader of the Opposition should as a matter of discipline and process be disregarded—absolutely disregarded. What, therefore, is his ultimate position on climate change? What is his position on the economy? What is his position on housing and homelessness? What are his positions across the whole gamut of things that he has debated in the lead-up to the debate in this parliament today? None of us know, because ‘full gospel’ Tony has said, ‘It is only if I, the Leader of the Opposition, put something in writing that you should believe it.’

Those opposite have come to the despatch box and said that this is a debate about truth, this is a debate about trust and this is a debate about reliability. I say to those opposite that they should look very carefully at the words used by the Leader of the Opposition in that seminal interview that he had on Kerry O’Brien’s show. They should look carefully at everything that is said between now and the next election. The bottom line is what the Leader of the Opposition said, which is this: ‘No-one should trust a single thing I say.’ He said that the only thing that people could trust were things that he wrote down and considered.

We can go through Battlelines and look at those things which the Leader of the Opposition wrote down and considered. Look, for example, at the provisions within Battlelines on the taxation treatment of superannuation. In Battlelinessomething which he wrote down and which is his considered view of the world—he said that the role of taxation concessions for superannuation was, frankly, not valid, not to be supported and not relevant. Is that therefore a considered doctrine, a considered manifesto and a considered document presenting what the Leader of the Opposition believes? Can I apply the Kerry O’Brien question to this? Is this the full gospel truth? Is that what the Leader of the Opposition stands for or has that been rendered redundant as well?

‘Full gospel’ Tony Abbott has been on copious display in the six months that he has occupied the position of Leader of the Opposition, as one undertaking after another has simply gotten knocked over in the breeze. As the Minister for Finance and Deregulation documented recently as he went through the various commitments made by the Leader of the Opposition, one after the other has fallen down in the breeze as he was forced to have an encounter with reality.

This suspension motion is essentially about two things, tax reform and a public advertising campaign concerning tax reform. The ultimate proposition of those opposite is this: somehow, there was something secretive about what the government has done. If it was secretive, why was it in the budget? Why was the full amount to be dedicated to this campaign outlined in the budget papers? The precise amount was articulated in the budget papers. Why was this therefore not a matter for public debate in budget week? We were here for three days in budget week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Last week we were here, as well on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Not a single question was asked. I am not sure what, if anything, was asked in estimates. I ask the Leader of the Opposition this: if this was such a dreadful secret, why was it that in the space of those two sitting weeks not a single question was raised—not one?

I suggest that the reason why this question has been raised today is that those opposite are day by day hauling up the white flag on the actual prosecution of the tax reform debate. If you look at question time last week, by the time we got to Thursday they were back to old faithful, the issue of asylum seekers. They decided to go down that road instead. We notice that the member for Wentworth has had a few things to say about that on the way through. Suddenly, having exited the tax policy debate at the end of last week, they decided to re-enter it today. But they have not really re-entered the tax policy debate. They are instead trying to have a debate about the transparency of the government’s budget allocation for a public advertising campaign to underpin this reform for the future.

Those opposite have hauled up the white flag on the issue of why we need a profits based tax as opposed to a tax which is based on production. They have entirely absented the debate because, uniquely, the Leader of the Opposition has stood in this place and said that mining companies are paying too much. That is his policy: mining companies are paying too much. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that he is absolutely wrong. They are not paying too much. Not a single person in this chamber other than him believes that mining companies are paying too much. It seems that so much have you become beholden to the likes of Clive Palmer of the LNP that you are now prepared to mouth anything that is put to you, such as that the mining companies are paying too much.

We on this side of the House stand for a fundamentally different principle of economic reform. That principle of economic reform is as follows: if you bring about a better taxation regime for the mining industry you can then engineer decent tax reforms for the entire Australian economy. That is what we stand for. We stand for better super for working families; you stand for ripping it away from working families. We on this side of the House stand for tax cuts for small business; you stand for taking away those tax cuts from small business. We stand for bringing down the company rate by two percentage points; you stand for raising it two percentage points. We stand for funding the future of this country’s infrastructure needs; you stand for blaming the states and territories on the assumption that money grows on trees and infrastructure can be funded elsewhere.

The policy priorities of the Leader of the Opposition in this debate are clear. He has those priorities because of one core reason: those opposite have effectively been bought by representatives of various elements of the mining industry. We see no evidence of independent research. We see no evidence of independent policy analysis. What we see instead is a Leader of the Opposition who simply reflects the interests of certain elements of the mining industry.

We go to their new favourite pin-up boy, Clive Palmer, of the Liberal National Party, who on various occasions has accused the Treasurer of being a communist and me a socialist. I have been called many things in the Labor Party, but never a socialist! I say to those opposite: Clive Palmer, the pin-up boy of the Liberal National Party, when asked the core question ‘Why are you engaged in this debate,’ goes out there as bold as brass and says, ‘Because I’m a member of the Liberal National Party.’ There is no independence of voice there whatsoever. We looked at the records for electoral donations. Those opposite received in the state of Queensland something approaching $1 million in campaign donations from an individual, Clive Palmer, whose position on mining tax they now mouth in this place. Talk about public policy for purchase! That is what has happened in this debate.

I notice also Clive Palmer, the pin-up boy of the mining industry—or parts of the mining industry—and the pin-up boy also of the Liberal National Party, does have a sense of balance: nearly $1 million to the LNP in campaign donations, $25,000 to the WA branch of the ALP. That is what I call his definition of balance. What we have seen in this place is the Liberal National Party in Queensland, through the agency of Clive Palmer, dictating a policy position to those opposite.

The Leader of the Opposition has sought to be particularly righteous on the question of public advertising. Mr Speaker, I have gone through in question time already what they have done in relation to Work Choices and what they have done in funding the GST campaign. Do we all remember ‘rock solid, ironclad’ guarantee? We remember that one on the Medicare safety net. Who authorised that $36 million campaign prior to the 2004 election, guaranteeing the Australian people that they would of course obtain higher Medicare rebates? The Leader of the Opposition. He was challenged on it before the election, he went ahead and advertised, at a $30 million-plus expense to the Australia taxpayer, and then in a train wreck with reality, subsequent to that election, walked away from that rock solid, ironclad guarantee. The reason he did that, notwithstanding the fact it cost the taxpayer $36 million? I presume it was because the journalist in question never got it in writing. It was not gospel Tony; it was the Tony in whom this House has no trust! (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Abbott’s) be agreed to.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.