Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Perth proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion namely:

The government’s bad choices and wrong priorities evident in the lead-up to the May budget.

I call upon those honourable 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—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe that the problem with the Abbott government is that they are still operating as the feral opposition they were for the last four years. They are addicted to picking fights and lobbing grenades—not uniting a nation, solving problems and planning for a positive future, as a grown-up government should. Given this mindset, it is really not surprising that we are seeing the bad choices and wrong priorities that we mention in our motion today. Indeed, the government are sending this country backwards at such a furious pace that the ordinary Australians are having trouble keeping up. It is a priority for this government to throw a bomb into ethnic and Aboriginal communities, re-igniting a race debate and scaling back protections against hate speech, protections that have contributed to this nation's great record on community harmony.

They have picked fights with Holden and goaded them into leaving Australia. They are savaging our capacity to keep 21st century manufacturing skills in this country. They pick fights daily with the ABC, punishing them for being something other than a cheer squad. They have a priority to reinstate the bunyip aristocracy, to return to tugging the forelock of colonial days, with sirs and ladies. In particular, this is about our important national symbols and there has been absolutely no dialogue with the community about this. We just see this autocratic decision being made. I believe that, regardless of what people may think of this decision, the fact that it is been made in this way will be marked down savagely by the electorate. It sure has been a government of surprises. This was a great surprise. The bunyip aristocracy was a great surprise. No-one saw it coming, not even in 'Turnbullistan'.

Australia did not see coming the plan to pull the rug out from under Medicare, our universal healthcare access scheme which for decades has been an incredibly important part of the social contract in Australia. Australians certainly were not told about the proposal for the GP tax before the last election. Western Australians, in particular, did not expect, when Mr Abbott promised a unity ticket on Gonski reforms—a reform that promised more targeted money would be coming to all our schools—that he would allow the Barnett government to rip $180 million per year from Western Australian schools and then use the $110 million of Gonski payment to backfill, while, through that process, not even keep up with business as usual.

I was actually quite amazed today by the contribution of the Minister for Education who said that this is simply not happening. Every government school in Western Australia is talking about the number of teaching positions they are having to cut, the education assistance they are having to cut, the number of resources they are having to eliminate. Lockridge Senior High School—one of the schools in an area that really struggles—has been forced to completely cut its literacy program, which was really beginning to turn around the outcomes for that school.

Apparently, according to the Minister for Education, this is simply not happening. To use the favourite word of the government, it is a 'confection'—each and every one of those parent groups, those teachers, the principals of schools in Western Australia are making this up! This is not happening; they do not have less money! I can tell you it is happening and the Western Australia community is very angry about it.

Western Australians did not see that we would lose 40 trade training centres—centres designed to ensure we skill up young Australians. We are taking down the architecture that is going to enable us to do that skill development at that same time as we start unlocking the protections which have been put around 457 visas. This is at a time of record unemployment in Western Australia—the biggest unemployment since the Howard days—where 84,000 Western Australians are out of work. The voters of Western Australia know there is now likely to be other surprises waiting for them, that there are 900 pages of deep cuts in the Commission of Audit report—a report the government has been sitting on and will not release before the WA Senate election. People understand that. They get the nasty surprises that have happened and they are very mindful that the Commission of Audit report is sitting there.

Voters should also be alert and alarmed at the federal government's heavying the state governments into privatisation of important government assets, to fund critical infrastructure because what we are seeing here is a big plan. We actually do have a plan from the government. We have a plan to concoct a budget crisis so that their real agenda can be implemented. Their real agenda is an agenda of microgovernment. They want to go back to the style of government that we had in the 19th century where you did not really do that much. You were not actively engaged in creating a social contract and all of the apparatus of government that we need in the 21st century to ensure that we have the jobs, skills, social harmony and commitment to a shared vision. They want to wind it back. It is a 19th century vision. We are beginning to see a pattern. We are going to get the sirs and the dames and we are going to get a 19th century government.

I just want to make a few comments on this confection. The Parliamentary Budget Office has shown that the decision by the government to ditch the previous fiscal rules has dramatically inflated the net debt by an incredible $260 billion. The truth is that we have three AAA credit ratings, something that was never achieved in the whole time of the Howard government. We have a net debt to GDP ratio that is one of the lowest in the developed world. It is not only this recent frolic into the lords and ladies that shows us that we are living in the past. I quote from Battlelines by Mr Abbott, as he was then:

In Australia's biggest cities, public transport is generally slow, expensive, not especially reliable and still a hideous drain on the public purse.

This obviously is the rationale. It is a view of what it was like in the days when trains had steam and they went put, put, put. This is the land he is living in and it is creating a real problem for us and our cities where 80 per cent of Australians live. We have a government that wants to go back to the 19th century. They do not want to recognise that. They have dismantled the major cities project and they have made a decision that they are not interested in nor prepared to fund public transport. They do not understand the basic economics of this. Economic study after economic study has demonstrated quite comprehensively that investment in public transport is going to get you a major productivity boost in your city. Indeed, the whole functionality of cities requires high levels of mobility. That is simply not deliverable without investment in fast public transport services.

I invite the Prime Minister to come to Perth. I will take him on the Mandurah rail line. We travel at 130 kilometres an hour. It is not slow, it is not expensive and it is not inefficient. This is what we need around Australia. We need that investment. We need the $500 million that is going to be ripped out of the next budget in Western Australia restored so that we can invest in our cities.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How extraordinary for the Labor Party to come into the chamber with yet another MPI claiming that this government has the wrong priorities and that in some way we are not living up to the promises that were made. It takes a certain amount of gall for the Australian Labor Party to come in here and say: 'Don't trust the Abbott government. They're not delivering on what they said.' For goodness sake, this is coming from the Labor Party who famously, people will recall, promised there would be 'no carbon tax under the government that I lead'—the immortal words of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard—and then did a deal with the devil, in terms of the Australian Greens, and introduced the world's biggest carbon tax. Then we see the hand wringing from members of the Australian Labor Party as they say, 'Our priority needs to be on things like trades training.' The Leader of the Opposition, who considers himself a union man and a friend of the worker, is always waxing lyrical about the need to invest in trades training. What did Labor say? Labor said that they were going to build 2,650 trade training centres.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many did they build?

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a great question from the member for Longman. How many did they actually build? Instead of building 2,650, Labor unfortunately managed to get around to building only 241—around 10 per cent of what they promised they were going to do. The problem with the Labor Party is they think that everyone suffers from some kind of amnesia where, as of September last year, everyone forgot about their woeful track record, forgot about all the broken promises, forgot about Labor's projections of surpluses and forgot about the double drop-off. Remember Labor were going to end the double drop-off. Labor were going to build I think 226 childcare centres, but in reality they achieved virtually nil—I think it was about 10.

A government member interjecting—

Yes, remember Fuelwatch and GroceryWatch. The Australian Labor Party said, 'We'll put downward pressure on the cost of energy with Fuelwatch,' only to then introduce a carbon tax, which of course pushes prices up across the board.

We on this side of the chamber are so fond of hearing about Labor's abysmal record with respect to GP superclinics. It always concerns me that Labor promised to build a GP superclinic in my own electorate of Moncrieff on the Gold Coast. Nicola Roxon, who was the then Minister for Health and Ageing, went on ABC radioon the Gold Coast and very solemnly said that the people on the Gold Coast could rejoice because Australia's sixth largest city was going to get its GP superclinic. Alas, like so many others and especially those in Western Australia, it was never delivered. In fact, I am not even sure they even have a block of land identified for it.

Labor's track record when it comes to the so-called delivery of social policy is appalling. Australians know that. We on this side of the chamber do not even need to convince them, because they already fundamentally know what an abject failure the Australian Labor Party were with respect to their delivery of social policy. The most important thing is that Labor's economic track record is the clearest example of abject and total failure. I cannot help but notice that those on the other side have been very fond of trying to whitewash their track record out of history. This one here is a little bit bigger so that everyone can see it. We remember Bill Shorten MP—this is his budget news—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, and as the member knows, there is to be no use of props.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. And that applies to both sides of the chamber. I remind both sides of the chamber of that. Also, the use of the word 'you' is one that I often pull both sides up on. Please, it is not me; you are talking through me to the other side. I remind the member for Moncrieff about props.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is not a prop, it is just the notes that I am referring to, where in large print it says:

Budget News

Bill Shorten MP

A budget surplus for a strong economy – spreading the benefits of the mining boom to all Australians.

I will table that for the benefit of the Australian Labor Party.

In addition to that we have:

Australia's economic report card.

There is a great big tick and:

Back in surplus, on time, as promised

In these uncertain global times there’s no clearer sign of a strong economy than a surplus. We’ve delivered a surplus, on time, as promised.

Again, that is from the Leader of the Opposition's newsletter and I table that as well because this is what is fundamentally wrong with Labor. Labor has no credibility.

The problem for the Australian Labor Party is that you cannot just whitewash history. Australians know that you cannot put out electorate-wide newsletters, you cannot run around on over 430 occasions and promise budget surpluses and you cannot tell people at school forums and at public forums that you have delivered a surplus if it is just not true. Labor can come in here and say, 'Well, here are the warped priorities of the Abbott government,' but the reality is that the fundamental difference between the coalition in government and the Labor Party in government comes down to this—and it was put very eloquently by the Prime Minister: 'When we were in opposition we fought hard to get Labor to keep their promises, but now when Labor is in opposition they're fighting hard to stop us from delivering on our promises.'

And that is the fundamental difference! We are a government that is about delivering. We are a government that is about implementing the reforms that we undertook to the Australian people and said we would implement. We are a government of action! A government that is about repairing the fiscal damage that was left to us by the Australian Labor Party. The only people who stand in the way of us achieving our goals, of us delivering on our commitments, of us repairing the damage that was left to us by the Australian Labor Party is none other than the Australian Labor Party.

Earlier today, down at the Press Club, the Leader of the Opposition said, 'Every budget is a window into a government's soul'. They are his words: 'Every budget is a window into a government's soul'. Well let's look at Labor's six budgets. Let's look at that window into the soul that the Australian Labor Party is all about. We know, for example, in the 2010-11 budget, Labor predicted that they would have a deficit of $40.8 billion. $40.8 billion! The actual final budget outcome was $47.5 billion. We know that in the 2010-11 budget, they said that the next year's deficit—that is the 2011-12 deficit—was going to be $13 billion. The actual deficit that year was $43.4 billion dollars. But in the 2010-11 budget, they said, 'Well, in 2012-13 we will be back in surplus, and it is going to be a billion-dollar surplus'. But the reality was that the actual final budget outcome was $18.8 billion of budget deficit.

And this was Labor's gargantuan mountain that they need to overcome. No-one is going to take Labor seriously until they hold their hands over their hearts and they say, 'Mea culpa, we betrayed the people of Australia. We delivered budget deficit after budget deficit. We have indebted generations Australians to pay back that debt for years, for decades.' They will be paying back Labor's six years of reckless spending.

We on this side of the chamber do not want to be lectured to by the Australian Labor Party. We on this side of the chamber say to Labor one clear consistent message: please, get out of our way. Respect the wishes of the Australian people. When the Australian people voted in clear majority to say, 'We don't want the world's biggest carbon tax, we don't want to export jobs overseas, we don't want to see a continuation of the debt and deficit of the last six years', respect their mandate! Free our hands through the Senate so that we can undertake the reforms that will put this nation back on the pathway to consolidating debt and paying down debt.

We do not want to pay $12 billion a year in interest. We want to put $12 billion into roads, into health, into education, into defence—that is how we want use money. We certainly do not want to see a continuation of Labor's failed approach, and they need to own up their largess, own up to their failure and get out of the way so that we can be a government gets on with delivering.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is difficult to assess and discuss the priorities of a government whose objectives are so hard to find and whose stated aims, when you do find them, are so small-minded and mean spirited.

The key characteristic of this coalition government is the continuation of its deep, intractable negativity. They are not 'for' anything. They do not have a vision of Australia's best future. They are resolutely against many of what should clearly be the nation's highest priorities: universal, affordable and high-quality health care, education and training, a national broadband network and a clean energy future Instead, all this government has is an abiding nostalgia for the trinkets of the past, a blind faith in market forces and the big end of town, and a list of friends and enemies to fix up along the way.

On the basis of what we have seen so far, this government's priority is to re-hash old battles and re-heat old obsessions. They want to remove, through deregulation, key pieces of social, environmental and financial protection. They want to privatise every available public asset. They want to end the so-called age of entitlement, but only to the extent that it means removing the kinds of apparently objectionable largesse that exist in the form of measures like the low-income superannuation contribution and assistance to the orphaned children of veterans.

For Labor, a strong economy means shared economic and social benefits, starting with the opportunity to have the best education and training, universal public health care and a labour market with good jobs and fair pay and conditions. For the coalition, a strong economy means anything goes at the top end and everything goes when it comes to public assets and social services. When it comes to the economy, the government's priority has been adding new items in the spending column, including billions of dollars the Reserve Bank did not ask for and a non-means tested Paid Parental Leave scheme that people do not need.

We know there is an audit commission report that will detail cuts across the board. We do not know what is in the report, because it is being kept secret, and we do not know what will be in the budget papers, but we can make an educated guess based on the form this government has shown to date. It may involve a GP co-payment so that ordinary Australians pay more for primary health care. It will certainly involve measures to ensure that highly profitable mining companies pay less. It is likely to involve further reductions in the support available for renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. It will certainly involve changes that ensure carbon polluters pay nothing for their pollution. On the contrary, that is a tab the coalition wants the taxpayer to pick up.

We do not need to make an educated guess about this government's priorities when it comes to jobs. We know this government has no interest in longstanding industries such as manufacturing and burgeoning industries such as renewable energy. This government believes the way to create jobs is to cut pay and conditions. We know that marine protection is out but the protection of bigotry is in. We know that health star ratings and preventative health agencies are out but tobacco donations for the National Party are in.

There is one government priority that we have heard about repeatedly from those opposite. We have been told that Mr Abbott will soon come to be known as the infrastructure Prime Minister. That is a relief, because I can tell you that in my electorate of Fremantle, and indeed throughout WA, many people are looking forward to the continued delivery of the single most important infrastructure project in Australia in the 21st century, the National Broadband Network. Except, unfortunately, the NBN is out too.

So I guess the kind of infrastructure we might expect in WA is investment in public transport to continue the former Labor government's historic level of contribution to those projects, but no again. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he is not interested in partnering with state governments to help create functioning, productive and vibrant Australian cities through the delivery of well-planned public and freight transport rail networks.

So what infrastructure is it exactly that the Prime Minister expects he will come to be known for? In WA this week we had an indication, when the new Western Australian Minister for Transport announced a 'new' co-funded road project involving the widening of the Kwinana Freeway between the Roe Highway and Armadale Road, only for it to be revealed that this agreed and co-funded project was actually announced by the former federal Labor government last August. Three other transport infrastructure projects have been similarly re-announced. For all I know, the Abbott government will shortly announce and claim credit for building the Perth to Kalgoorlie pipeline, Fremantle Harbour and the 'Polly' Farmer pipe.

The Abbott government has no discernible positive priorities. It has chosen to shape and guide itself by what it wants to cut and by what it wants to remove, unwind, deregulate, sell or abandon. In WA we have no great need for knights and dames; we need forward-looking and courageous policy to secure a clean energy future, to secure established and developing job opportunities and to create fairer and more effective social conditions through mechanisms such the National Disability Insurance Scheme and by addressing homelessness and the urgent need for affordable and social housing. Unfortunately, with this government, those priorities are nowhere to be seen.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the people we like to quote often on this side of the House is Ronald Reagan. He said that the 10 most dangerous words in the English language were: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.' That could not be more appropriate and apt for the performance of the previous Labor government, because in their nearly six years in office they not only recycled prime ministers in a world-record time but also left us with a budget that had deteriorated to the point that we are now facing $667 billion of debt.

They gave us a mining tax which was unique in the world, because it did not create or raise any revenue. They gave us a carbon tax which was in complete breach of a fundamental promise that they took to the Australian people at the previous election. And they unravelled what were successful border protection measures that were put in place by John Howard, so we had more than 50,000 unauthorised boat arrivals, a massive $11 billion plus blow-out in the budget and the tragedy of losing more than 1,000 people at sea. That was the legacy of the previous government; that was the mess that they left us.

When we had previously been in office, during the Howard years, we had gotten used to fixing up Labor's mess. Now Tony Abbott and his team are again getting used to fixing up Labor's mess. We have started strongly and we have started well. Firstly, we have made a priority of stopping the boats. It has now been 97 days since we have had an unauthorised boat arrival in this country—a very significant development. We have entered into a free trade agreement with Korea—one of our largest export partners—which is going to reduce the tariffs for agricultural products and many other products and could, therefore, increase export revenue for Australia.

We have set up a Commission of Audit chaired by the head of the Business Council of Australia, Tony Shepherd—now to be replaced—a man who was well known in business circles for his work. By putting the head of the Business Council at the centre of our thinking for the Commission of Audit, we were sending out a broader message that we will think about business and the impacts on business and job creation at the heart of our policies.

We are doing a review into competition policy. We are putting out a tax white paper and an agriculture white paper. We have a plan for Northern Australia. Importantly, we are bringing back of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was successful as a cop on the beat in reducing lawlessness in that sector which employs so many people. And, of course, we have a royal commission into union finances and some of the real problems that we have seen over recent years.

We have a plan to bring back infrastructure into the places around this country that need it most. More than $35.5 billion has been committed in infrastructure projects—$6.7 billion for the Bruce Highway, $5.6 billion to finish the duplication of the Pacific Highway, $1.5 billion for the East West Link in my state of Victoria and another $1½ billion dollars for the WestConnex project. This is all real money that is having a real impact upon people on the ground.

But of course one of the other important initiatives of this government is what we are debating in the chamber today, and that is repeal day: the first time the Australian parliament has set aside a day to debate the need to get rid of redundant regulations—more than 10,000 acts and regulations will be repealed. Productivity will be lifted right across the economy. I am talking about aged care. I am talking small business. I am talking about the environment. That is where we are making a real difference to people's lives, because we believe at the end of the day it is not government that creates jobs; it is the business sector that creates jobs. We, in this place, have to get ourselves out of their lives to free them up to not only employ more people but help the people who are most in need. That is why the government has started strongly. Thank you very much.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Governing is about priorities and choices. Governing is about making the right choices at the right time. Unfortunately, this government is all about the wrong priorities. In a period of significant instability in the world and where there are significant concerns in the general community about jobs and the future of work, we have seen this government making every single possible wrong choice, every single possible wrong prioritisation.

What have we seen in the last two weeks from this government? What are the three headline issues that they want to debate in this place? They want to make it easier for dodgy financial planners to rip off customers, to make it easier for people to be racist in public, and the return to knighthoods and dames. It is truly a return to the past.

I am thankful that the Prime Minister belled the cat on the return to the past yesterday with his announcement of knighthoods, because it has finally solved a real conundrum I have been facing: why was the government so intent on killing the automotive industry? Why did they take concerted action to destroy those jobs by cutting $500 million from the ATS? I finally worked it out from their decision to return to knighthoods. It is because they do not understand the auto industry. They do not understand cars. They do not understand the internal combustion engine—when people talk about horsepower in cars, they look under the bonnet for tiny horses. They think it is some form of witchcraft, and so it has to be killed off so they can return to the horse-and-buggy era for dames and knights. That is truly what this government is about: returning to the past—cutting penalty rates, not taking care of child care, not giving people a hand with child care and, most importantly, not showing a deep commitment to jobs.

Under this government, we have seen 60,000 full-time jobs go. We have seen jobs lost in Holden and Toyota. We have seen job loss announcements by Ford. We are seeing a real debate about the future of the naval shipbuilding industry in this country where people on this side are searching for a constructive solution, and all we get from the other side is tired slogans.

We have seen it in education—an issue of utmost importance to people in my electorate of Charlton, where we have many schools that are underfunded and are really struggling to allocate resources to really give our kids a good education. Before the election, we saw the government, the then opposition, saying, 'We understand this should be a priority.' 'We're on a unity ticket on Gonski.' The education minister was calling it 'a Gonski', and he cuddled up to Labor. He said, 'We're going to support Gonski.' And what do we see after they come to government? They are cutting Gonski, guaranteeing only one year of funding. And what do we see in WA, for example? A green light to Barnett to cut $180 million in funding for education—350 teachers' jobs gone, 350 teacher aides' jobs gone—all because this government have the wrong priorities. They want to help dodgy financial planners. They want to give the green light to racism. They want to return to knighthoods but they do not want to support education. They do not want to support jobs.

On infrastructure, another important topic in WA and the rest of the country: instead of leaving infrastructure planning in the rational, apolitical hands of Infrastructure Australia, we see it being returned to the member for Wide Bay, the minister for pork-barrelling, returning it to the National Party, where we will see more regional rorts affairs.

On health—something of enormous importance to the people of Charlton and I believe the whole country—we do not see them debating how we can get more resources into hospitals; we see them debating how we can add a $6 GP's tax, a tax that will hit working families and pensioners the most. It will be an additional cost of $21 million to the people of the Hunter. It is great disgrace and it shows yet again the priorities of the government. Whenever they talk about priorities, it is about supporting their backers, not helping ordinary Australians. Yet they are not being up-front. They have the 900-page audit report but they are hiding it. It has now been turned into a draft report, because they do not want the people of Western Australia to see it before the election. We know what will happen; after the election, they will slip it out in the middle of the night and we will see more cuts, more attacks on health, on education, on the Public Service, because fundamentally these people over there do not want to build Australia. They want to bring it down. They want to return to the past. They want to call their business mates 'Sir This' and 'Lady That' instead of really talking about the priorities that will build Australia.

I am proud to come from a party that is all about building this nation. All they want to do is tear it down with their false priorities and their wrong choices.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This motion, as was last week's, is all about a reference to the impending Senate legislation that Western Australia will face alone. Poor old WA—I understand that when you win a lottery, not that I have ever had that pleasant experience, you find all of these estranged relatives coming out of the woodwork and being your best mate. That is pretty much how Western Australians feel at the moment, because every conceivable minor party is all of a sudden the best friend of the state.

Labor are having their crack as well, and I will say this for Labor: they are much improved from last week's effort of pretending to be the best friend of the state of Western Australia. In last week's motion on WA, they could not manage to rustle up a single speaker from Western Australia; in fact, with all of the speakers and all the time they had, they only managed to mention Western Australia twice. Maybe it is just me but I think, 'If you're going to try to move a motion that pretends you're the best friend of a state before an impending Senate election, you might want to at least find a Western Australian or, in the absence of one, try and mention the state perhaps more than twice.' It is much improved, best improved performance on-ground: we did actually find a Western Australian this week. Unfortunately, she forgot about it and was late turning up for the motion. Nevertheless, it is a significantly improved effort from last week.

I want to sum up what I think, from my brief political experience, is emblematic of the attitude of Labor to Western Australia. It goes back to a story in 2011 when I had the great privilege of delivering a budget as state Treasurer for Western Australia. I increased a tax, or, as I indicated at the time, I removed a concession that existed on a tax, which is a much more pleasant way of putting it than 'increasing a tax'. I will admit that when I was at university I thought all tax was theft, but I took a slightly different view when I became the Treasurer of Western Australia. It is a necessary part of any economy. This was a tax that applied to iron ore royalties. There was a longstanding 40-year discount that had been offered to a type of iron ore called fines iron ore. The rate on fines iron ore was 5.625 per cent and the rate on lump iron ore was 7.5 per cent. They are as they sound: their ferrous content is essentially the same but lump iron ore is lumpy while fines iron ore is more like a powdery substance. Traditionally the reason one was valued more highly than the other was that smelting mills in China and Asia and elsewhere were geared up for lump ore. That had changed over a 40-year period and fines was just as valuable, but this discount remained.

We removed the discount. We thought we gave Labor proper notice of the fact that that was an impending move. It was a logical, common-sense move and removing the discount brought in over the four out-years of the budget $2 billion worth of much-needed revenue to the state of Western Australia. There is much complaint in WA, of course, and I have been part of that complaint, about the distributive system of GST. But as the Commonwealth Grants Commission operates, that removal on that fines iron ore could have been treated as either a low-royalty mineral or a high-royalty mineral. This is one of those bizarre complexities of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. If the removal of the discount on fines were treated as a low-royalty mineral then, over the longer sweep past the out-years, WA probably would have lost in the diminished GST receipts about 60 to 65 per cent of that $2 billion worth of revenue. That would have been shared with our brethren from the other states and would have built hospitals in South Australia and other structures in Tasmania. If it were categorised in the high-royalty mineral rate, WA would have lost in excess of the total amount raised; it would have lost more than the $2 billion that was raised in revenue. I think that points out that one of the difficulties with the Commonwealth Grants Commission is that if WA had thought that would happen then what incentive would there have been to remove the discount, raise $2 billion and share 65 per cent of it with the rest of Australia? What a bizarre system.

In any event, the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, made public statements that he would ensure that no direction was given to the grants commission, which would have the effect of ensuring that that change would be counted as a high-value royalty mineral and that WA would lose all $2 billion. In addition, both the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, of federal Labor, indicated that because of the move they may withhold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure funding that had been earmarked for the state. So, the new best friend of the state today, not that long ago—when there was a legitimate increase in royalty rates to earn revenue for both the state and the rest of the nation—threatened to direct that all of those be taken back from the state and that previously earmarked funding to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars be withheld from the state. So when we hear the member for Perth and the member for Fremantle get up with what looks like a straight face and try to pretend that Labor is all of a sudden, on the eve of a Senate election, a great friend of the state that it imposed a mining tax on, that it imposed a carbon tax on and that it extraordinarily directly threatened to remove revenue from previously earmarked, I think that is unbelievable.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance, the government's bad choices and wrong priorities evident in the lead-up to the May budget. Government members may well want Labor MPs to get out of the way, but I can assure you that the people of Newcastle did not vote for the Liberal candidate at the last election and they certainly do not what their voice to be silent in this House.

Last year, when I was campaigning for the then federal election, knocking on the doors of thousands of homes, making those calls and meeting people at street stalls and out at community events, a number of issues certainly did get raised with me—the priorities for the people of Newcastle. Some of those were matters that went to issues of jobs and job security, education funding and access, the need for a high-speed National Broadband Network and the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But, of the thousands of conversations I had at that time, not once was I approached with a question about where I might have stood on the issue of knights and dames. Indeed, the only Knights that we Newcastle care about are those that run out into the Hunter Stadium on a weekend. Not once was I asked about what I thought about the need to rewrite the free speech laws in Australia or whether we should cut protections against bigotry. Not once was I asked about whether I believed a hyphen should have been removed from the word 'e-mail' to unleash the burdens for small business, or whether it was wise to deregulate the charity sector and remove the charity regulator. Neither was I asked whether it would be necessarily a good idea to have a new tax every time we went to visit our GP. And I certainly was not asked whether it was going to be a good idea to sell off Medicare Private to the highest bidder, as was just announced by the Minister for Finance. These are not the priorities of Novocastrians, and I am sure that at least those of us on this side of the House agree that they are not the priorities of the Australian community at large.

But, as evident through their actions this week, these are the twisted priorities of the Prime Minister and his government. This is a government that claims to have a vision for Australia, but we struggle to find that vision. It appears to be a vision that is indeed focused backwards, looking back in time for inspiration, bereft of ideas for our future. I would like to take this opportunity to remind the government of what some of those priority issues are that Australians are in fact talking about.

Firstly, there is the issue of education. Some of my colleagues have raised this before. Before the election, we were apparently on a unity ticket when it came to better funding for our local schools. This was a government that promised, as we all remember, 'no surprises, no excuses'. But no amount of spin can hide the fact that the present government's commitment to the Gonski funding agreements that they went to the Australian public with before the election completely collapsed post election. On 2 August, the now Prime Minister, who indeed promised that no school would be worse off under his government, said:

We will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into. We will match the offers that Labor has made. We will make sure than no school is worse off. We think that money is important.

His assurances were confirmed by the now education minister, 19 days later:

Every single school in Australia will receive, dollar for dollar, the same federal funding over the next four years whether there is a Liberal or Labor Government after September 7.

But we now know that they have changed the rules, meaning state governments can cut school funding, just like Colin Barnett has done in Western Australia. We now get commitments like this from the Prime Minister in December:

We are going to keep the promise that we made, not the promise that some people thought we made or the promise that some people might have liked us to make. We are going to keep the promise that we actually made.

Clear as mud, but that was the pre-election promise.

The other important issue for the people of Newcastle is of course jobs. This government stands by, watching jobs go, every day— (Time expired)

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to be able to speak to the House today about the need to make good choices instead of bad ones, and to have the right priorities in government. It is so great, that I am astounded that the Labor Party would be silly enough to raise it as a topic. But let us look at the choices being made by this side of the House compared to that side.

The coalition has chosen to scrap the carbon tax. The Labor Party and the Greens have chosen to keep the carbon tax, even though it hurts Western Australian families and business to the tune of at least $627 million, and has not measurably lowered our emissions.

The coalition has chosen to get rid of the mining tax. The Labor Party and the Greens have chosen to keep this direct tax on the Western Australian economy and on Western Australian jobs. The member for Perth, the mover of this ridiculous motion, is even on the record as saying last week that Labor should 'go back to the drawing board' on the mining tax. The Labor strategy on the mining tax sounds like an episode of Mr Squiggle: 'Hurry up, member for Perth, hurry up!'

The result of the September election was the result of the Australian people no longer being able to believe what Labor said. Labor has lost the trust and respect of the Australian people. The Australian people want the truth, not more Labor manipulations.

The member for Perth should reflect on that. The community of my electorate of Forrest remember well her election statement that a deal had been struck to save the Greenbushes to Bunbury rail line in 2008. This rail line had actually been shut down by the member for Perth as the WA Minister for Transport in March 2005. But, as is the Labor way, it was not true. No deal had been struck, because no agreement had been reached on who would pay the additional cost of putting logs on rail. It was a fallacious statement designed to win votes; a little like what we have seen today. My constituents could not trust the member for Perth back then, and the Western Australian people should not trust her now.

Cutting red tape is a great priority for this government, and we have spent the day in just such a debate. Getting our economy moving by enhancing our trade with Asia is a great priority, and the government is doing just that. Getting the national budget back under control is a great priority of this government, and that task is massive. Nobody on our side underestimates the size of that task. Yet it has almost been treated as a joke by the other side. This is thanks to the budget mismanagement of six years of Labor government.

The Rudd and Gillard Labor governments have left a legacy of gross debt. These are figures that are out and being discussed, but people often forget just how much it is; it will peak at over $667 billion—a huge amount—thanks to $123 billion in accumulated deficits. That is the Labor way.

Our priorities are: to create jobs by boosting productivity; to develop northern Australia; to boost productivity and reduce regulation, as we are doing today; to create jobs; to boost manufacturing and to enhance growth in small business. Small business is the very engine room of our economy; it employs nearly half of our Australian workers. This is a great set of priorities. And the people of Western Australia know it.

One of the things that Labor and the Greens have voted against, which is critical in Western Australia as it is right throughout rural and regional Australia, is the Roads to Recovery program, and it terminates in June this year. This is an absolute disgrace. Every local government out there that relies on this funding will be in absolute dismay at this. Labor and the Greens have underestimated the effect that this will have at the grassroots level. I say to the voters in Western Australia: in the run-up to the upcoming Western Australia Senate election, if you want Roads to Recovery, you need to vote accordingly for the coalition.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to stand and speak on this matter of public importance about the fact that this government is making bad choices and has wrong priorities in the lead-up to the May budget. When we look at what this government is trying to do, we see a government with training wheels, a government that is looking to try and set the tone for how they intend to try and govern and, through the process of that, demonise those who came before them. We have seen them juggle the figures around the budget expenditure calculations. We have seen them try and set the tone about the future with respect to the Commission of Audit.

I would like to make a couple of comments about the Commission of Audit and the circumstances around that. We know that there is a 900-page document in the hands of the government and we know that it has a range of recommendations, but we do not know the detail. Why is the government not releasing that report? Why is the government not prepared to be fair dinkum with the voters of Western Australia in the lead-up to biggest by-election/re-election in the history of this nation? Those on the other side will say, 'There were reports held by the previous government for longer than this', in a situation where details were not provided publicly. There is one big difference. By the time there was an electoral contest of any significance, post things like the Henry tax report, the details were out there in the open and those who were having a democratic say were able to consider whether they agreed or disagreed with what was being proposed.

Some of the speculation that has occurred around that audit commission—and frankly some of the things have not been ruled out—is around things like cuts to the age pension. The Prime Minister has been asked repeatedly to rule that out. He has refused to do it. The chairman of the commission, Tony Shepherd, has made a point of saying repeatedly, 'Everything is on the table.' They are looking at everything; they have made recommendations—we think—on many things. We have also heard speculation about retirees facing a crackdown on eligibility for the Seniors Health Card that will potentially impact on the cost of medicines and cash payments. There is a lot there and it ought to be out in the open.

One of the previous speakers, the member for Kooyong—my friend Mr Frydenberg—said that on that side of the House they like to quote Ronald Reagan. He noted a particular quote, which is in the Hansard. I will give a couple of more, which I think have more to do with this government. As Reagan said, 'It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?' and, 'I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.' At the Republican convention in 1988, he said, 'Facts are stupid things.' One that I think is very much in line with the actions this government has taken on climate change is, 'Trees cause more pollution than automobiles.' The thing about Reagan, which I think is indicative of the way this government looks like it is going to operate, is that there are some facts about Reagan which need to be remembered as against the legend. Reagan was a serial tax raiser. As President, he raised taxes in seven of his eight years in office. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. Unemployment soared after his tax cuts in 1981. It jumped to 10.8 per cent. And Reagan as President grew the size of the federal government tremendously. I happen to think that Reagan made a number of significant achievements. The funny thing is: there is what he said and there is what he did. There are the issues he faced and there are the things that he talked about. Frankly, modern conservatives seem to remember what he said he would do rather than what he actually did.

My message to the voters of Western Australia is: have a look at what this government is not telling you about what they intend to do after you have voted. Let's remember that there is a need to have checks and balances within our political system, and one of the biggest checks and balances is the circumstances within the Senate, and they have an absolute role in determining that in only a few days. Let's remember that a government that is only doing what it said it would do is also now doing a range of other things, including giving knighthoods and other imperial honours as a step down a track to a 'back to the future' that makes John Howard look like a forward-thinking revolutionary, and even a republican, such as the minister at the table, Mr Turnbull— (Time expired)

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

It is good to follow the member for Bruce, who just gave us some quotes from Ronald Reagan, one of which was 'Facts are stupid'. That is what the Labor Party think as well, because they hate the facts. Every time you bring up the facts in an argument they just turn away. They are very good with motherhood statements and being nice and all that sort of thing, but when you quote facts to them that is when they back off. The member for Bruce also talked about looking not at what Reagan achieved but what he actually said. That is what the Labor Party do as well. They seem to have forgotten what they did in the last six years. They have a very poor memory, because it was 'promise the world'—but I will go into some of those quotes later. I see the member for Bruce is now exiting the chamber; he does not want to hear the end of this.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this MPI put forward by the member for Perth. It is the second one she has done in three weeks, and it is all about focusing on the Western Australian Senate election. Last time her MPI was based on infrastructure, and members on this side of the chamber quoted to her all the infrastructure promises that were made to Western Australia and that failed. So I can understand why in today's MPI she did not mention infrastructure at all. One of the things we mentioned during the infrastructure MPI was the fact that in 2007 Kevin Rudd promised the Western Australian people an infrastructure fund of $100 million per annum while he was in government. Did we ever see that $100 million per annum? Never. Not at all.

The Labor government promised a lot of other things as well. I see the Minister for Communications is in the chamber. I know he loves Western Australia. He has a sense of entrepreneurship that he shares with most West Australians. I know that when he has been to Western Australia and particularly to my electorate of Swan we have been aghast about what was supposed to have been said and delivered with the NBN into my electorate of Swan. We did a hunt for those promises and outcomes and what did we find? I can see the Minister for Communications shaking his head. We found nothing. We were promised the world by the Labor Party. They seem to have a memory loss when it comes to situations like this. They have been out of government for only six months now and they have conveniently wiped what happened the previous six years and they are now saying that we have got our priorities wrong. Our priorities are correct, and I think that in the time we have left we need to say that the government has a plan to repair the budget. It has a plan to boost growth and create jobs. The next instalment of our budget repair plan will come in the May budget, when we will outline our comprehensive budget strategy to fix Labor's mess—and what a mess it is.

We are committed to ensuring that spending is directed to the highest priority areas, particularly to productive infrastructure that will boost growth and create jobs. We can see that in the plans of the Minister for Communications for the NBN, prioritising where the money needs to be spent in the areas of need, which is something that the Labor government failed to do. As we have heard repeatedly in this chamber from the Minister for Communications, in the world of Conrovia it was more about promises and wearing red underpants on their heads than it was about delivering the real outcomes for people in Western Australia.

We already have around $20 billion of savings sitting before the parliament as a down payment on the full budget repair plan. Legislation to abolish both the carbon tax and the mining tax has passed the House of Representatives and now sits in front of the Senate waiting for the Labor senators to stop standing in the way of the coalition implementing the will of the Australian people from the last election.

I would just like to give some quotes to Western Australians about the member for Perth as well, so that they know where she actually stands on the mining tax. As we know, the mining tax is an anti-Western-Australian tax, and 100 per cent, I would say, of the mining tax that has been raised has come out of Western Australia. In regard to that, Western Australians need to know of this. This is a quote from Alannah MacTiernan. Alannah MacTiernan has failed WA. Less than 24 hours after her appointment to her new position, she reiterated her support for the mining tax, saying that she stood by the principle of the mining tax and that 'there are strong arguments in favour of a profit based tax'. She said:

… the idea of a profits based tax is a sound one.

On 23 March, in a television interview, she stated: 'Certainly I support the mining tax.'

When they are in Western Australia they say one thing, but when they are in Canberra they say a different thing. So what I need to say to the people of Western Australia is: vote for the coalition in the coming Senate elections, or tell your Labor people that they need to go to the other chamber and tell their senators to scrap the mining tax and scrap the carbon tax.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 4.24 pm, the discussion has concluded.