Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am on a hat-trick. I have come back three times to resume my remarks. The member for Tangney will not have to put up with that. I was commenting earlier on the mess this budget has found itself in and the way that the government has been impacted on as a result. In all the trouble that they experience in recent times, you may recall that the coalition said, 'We need to change our ways; we need to bring the public with us more.' They have been saying it quite a lot now. I need to have a clicker to actually count the number of times they have said it.

They said, 'We need to bring the public with us, we need to explain our reforms better and we need to be more bipartisan.' This is what I was hearing. Hearing them is bipartisan is truly a revelation and makes one stop mid thought. Then you actually match the word against deed. There was speaker after speaker on their side. I actually remember an extraordinary contribution by the member for Banks, who spent his entire speech talking about what happened in the past and attacking Labor. These were the people that said they would look to the future, they would have argument to sustain the reform process and they would want to be bipartisan; but, given the inability to sell this budget, they dedicate their time to continually attacking Labor. Some way to get bipartisanship!

When you then go further and when you press them on this, the response that we are getting more and more these days from those opposite is, 'What's your plan?' This government that has found itself, as a result of its first budget, in such a mess has been breaking records: the first record is that they have the worst level of support of a first-term government that has been experienced in modern history, the second record is that it has been one of the fastest times in which there has been an attempt to get rid of the Prime Minister and the third record is that they are attempting to break is to get an opposition before we even get the halfway point to actually handover policy.

When the coalition was in opposition, they had the answers for everything. They had the answers; they had the policies. Actually, as I said earlier, they made promises in opposition and broke them in opposition before they even got to government. They promised a surplus. They then broke that promise and said they could not do it. Then they have gotten into government said, 'We can wait for ages.' But they want us to come up with the ideas to get them out of their mess. They create the quicksand and start sinking in it, and they want us to throw them the rope through the ideas that they expect us to develop. I do not think it is the time for us. It is not right. It is time for those opposite—they told us before that they knew all the answers and they had the policies there—not the opposition to frame a budget fairly—they are in government—and to do the things that are required—as we knew. When we said we had a revenue problem, those opposite said: 'No, this is a revenue forecasting problem.' Now, all of a sudden, the Treasurer is pointing to the fact that commodity prices are a problem, and terms of trade are a problem. These are all things that we knew. These were not forecasting problems. This was reality. This was not a forecast. This was actually the present.

Those opposite continued to say that these were not problems back when they were in opposition. They said they would fix them up, that there would be a surge of confidence when they got elected, and that everything would sort itself out. Now they are in a morass, and they want us to fix that up for them by giving them ideas.

This is not about them fixing ideas. This is not a genuine request to be bipartisan. All they want, when you look at their form, is to be able to attack. All they want do is be able to criticise. What they want out of the opposition is a platform to continue to attack Labor. They do not have a platform for the future or policies that can actually get them out of their own mess. What they are inviting us to do is to put forward ideas so that they can divert attention from their own problems by spending all the time in the parliament attacking Labor.

This is not good government. Good government should be that you have the policies and the wherewithal to address what the nation needs to have fixed. The opposition should not be putting any policy forward. We will do it at the time that is right, and we will do it better than those opposite, who failed to deliver even on key economic policy until the final week of the election campaign, who have now turned their backs on PEFO, and who have now turned their backs on the Charter of Budget Honesty. We are not here to aid and abet their mission to break their promises. We will hold them to account and we will make sure that they do what they said they would. We are not going to engage in the political point-scoring that they seem obsessed with.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and cognate bills. There has been a public acknowledgement by the Prime Minister that our government has had a communication problem. I know that actions are more important than words and deeds more than intentions—and goal number one is fixing Labor's mess. Nonetheless, communication is important in getting people onside and for understanding the scale of the task at hand. Put simply, our country, had it been a business, was making a loss, and a substantial loss, every year since the Howard government left office. These accumulated losses have built up into a debt mountain. Unless we have a profit again, our country will never be able to reduce or pay down that debt mountain.

As a Liberal, I know I can trust in the Australian people and speak up and not down to the person in the street. What the Labor party does not get is that there is wisdom in the crowd. Labor is lost in a crowd. It has its head in the clouds and is hopeless when it comes to economic management. Our mandate is to fix that mess, and I am excited about the task. I know that even though the challenges are great the opportunities are even greater. It has never been cheaper to borrow to invest. There has never been a better time to have a go, to invest, to take a risk on a dream.

The coalition is building the digital and physical infrastructure of the 21st century. In my electorate, the Perth Freight Link is a hugely important project that will not only make money for the federal and state governments, but, significantly, this community-requested road will reduce air and noise pollution, decrease average journey times and reduce fatalities on Leech highway by taking large vehicles off Leech Highway altogether. This will be achieved through inventive and innovative new tracking and identification technologies.

We need our fellow countrymen and countrywomen to be excited about the potential of Australia—as excited as those early settlers and as excited as the men who dreamed up the Snowy hydro scheme. As a country we need to get back to doing great and big things. Australia has always been about big things and big ideas. It is said that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste—so let's not.

Now it is a time to look afresh at government support for investment in residential housing stock, through negative gearing and other tax incentives. Government monies need to be directed at sustainable investments that create long-term, local, high-value, high-skill jobs. It is reassuring to know that the coalition is the only administration capable and committed to securing Australia's high-paying, high-value-added manufacturing goods and services.

The quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get the economy growing is to cut red tape. The coalition has already had two very successful red tape repeal days, throwing to the dustbin of history 50,000 pages of outdated and obsolete legislation. Egregious examples of red tape remain, and much work can and will be done.

It is the job of the Prime Minister of the day to be the optimist-in-chief of the country. Australia, with our rich immigrant tapestry of the past and today, has a lot to learn from best practice elsewhere. We should not be afraid to look overseas for ideas. To be truly strong, we first must know our weaknesses. A big, bold idea such as the development of Northern Australia is one thing to do. Why not incentivise investment in science and small business, and especially small tech businesses?

There is no shortage of money in Australia. The high cash savings rate of 10 per cent of weekly income is testament to this. There is no shortage of money in superannuation funds. Compulsory superannuation, itself a big idea and bold move, now encompasses billions and billions of dollars. It also has never been a better time to borrow money internationally. The real cost of borrowing is negligible to negative. We should be targeting returns of five-plus per cent. This target is very low for the normal rate of return associated with investments in research and tech spin-off companies. Indeed, five per cent is low compared with the return that the Future Fund presently enjoys of approximately 13 per cent.

Debate interrupted.