Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Gillard government made a great virtue of its commitment to transparency and a commitment to consultation before the last federal election. It was these commitments that were supposed to set the Gillard government apart from the Rudd-Gillard government. Yet everything that we have seen so far, after only 45 days since the Prime Minister was sworn in with a minority government, is more of the same. Far from greater transparency and consultation, Labor is intent on going down the same path. It has already broken faith with the Australian people by breaking faith with the promises it made before the last federal election. In fact, it would be right for Australians to ask if in fact the Gillard government ever intended to honour a number of these commitments.

There is a long and growing list of instances now where the government has displayed nothing short of arrogance in its approach to policy. It has refused to enter into discussion or even allow members of the community a right of reply. The government likes to claim that we are in a new paradigm and that, in fact, it is the coalition that is the problem; it is the coalition that is being obstructionist. This, of course, is not the case. It says that we should be working together, but we all know that this is code for wanting to avoid scrutiny and for wanting to avoid accountability for the decisions that it makes and for the promises that it has made.

The government would love the coalition to tick and flick all their proposals. But let me just say this: if the coalition had simply ticked and flicked the pink batts program we would still have it today. The safety of Australian families and workers would still be at risk and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money would still be being spent. Let us not forget that we have had a $1 billion blow-out of this pink batts program. We are now spending over $550 million to fix it. There have been over 197 house fires that we know about that are related to this program, and over 240,000 homes have been affected. Most significantly of all, there have been four deaths.

Let us also look at another program that the government would like for us to have ticked and flicked—the BER program. Billions of dollars would continue to be spent on this program, even more than now, if we had not asked questions about the waste and mismanagement of this program, a program that has blown out by $1.7 billion. Of course, the coalition is not prepared to simply tick and flick, and we know that there has been a pattern that has been formed here. The latest instance of the government’s arrogance is its proposal to commission a new onshore detention facility in Inverbrackie in South Australia, which is completely at odds with the Prime Minister’s previously stated policy for an offshore processing centre in East Timor.

Following the breakdown of the so-called East Timor solution, the government has resorted to a secret plan to build new detention facilities in South Australia.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Secret plan? Gee, it’s not secret now.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister was in Inverbrackie the day before her announcement and refused to consult with the local community about her decision. She in fact did not even bother to consult with the Labor Premier, who said afterwards that he has made no secret of the fact that he was disappointed that the federal government did not properly consult the state government before making its announcement.

The local community has a right to be heard. It deserves an opportunity to have a say on the issue. People have raised legitimate concerns about the impact of the plan and the impact it will have on local schools, health facilities and transport in the local area. And they are right to say that they need to see the transparency of the decision and the plans that the government has put in place.

The immigration minister, Chris Bowen, refuses to meet with members of the community. He refuses to discuss the issue, preferring instead to accuse them of overreacting. As I said, this is part of a pattern. We only need to look at the recent announcement of Minister Tony Burke in relation to the draft guide to the draft plan of the Murray-Darling Basin, we only need to look at the $43 billion that is being wasted on the NBN project, we only need to look at the fact that the government is going to introduce a carbon tax, to know this is an arrogant government. (Time expired)