Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There goes the member for Warringah. I did not like what he stood for, but at least he stood for something.

Today we have just been through question time, and we have witnessed a Prime Minister who we have discovered, just before the election, got rolled in cabinet on key economic issues. He did not have the fortitude to fight then for what he knew to be right. He and his Treasurer, we have discovered, put forward reforms to reform negative gearing in the national interest. Then, after three or four speeches, they backed off and went to an election instead with the crass expediency of saying, 'We know the issue has got to be reformed, but we'd rather kick Labor with clean hands then deal with the national interest.' This nation desperately needs leadership, and we are not getting leadership from this government. I said during the election, in one of those debates—when I could pin the Prime Minister down to a debate—when he was running a scare campaign on boats, 'You should be ashamed of yourself,' but then I did not even know the half of it.

I am ashamed that in this election the Prime Minister of Australia, knowing what this nation needs to do to reform our balance sheet and to make fiscal repair that is fair—I am ashamed that we have a coward for a leader who would not tell the truth to the Australian people. There is no leadership in this government. There is a lot of weakness and a lot of cowardice and a lot of backbiting. This will be the government for the next three years, perhaps: have a policy, get rolled, give up and attack Labor instead. Unfortunately, after one day of parliament, we are back where we left off.

This is the summary of the government and the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is a man with no authority and no agenda. He only reacts to events—and, by the way, he has got a treasurer with no idea at all. And there is leadership vacuum in this country. But, of course, politics is like nature: it abhors a vacuum. And the hardliners are queueing up to replace the vacuum left by this Prime Minister who will not lead.

The other day the Prime Minister made a plea for the 'sensible centre'. You cannot be in the sensible centre when you take your marching orders from the right. You cannot be in the sensible centre when you are cutting Medicare, because Medicare is at the heart, at the centre of Australian life and, if you cut that, you are certainly nowhere near it.

This Prime Minister famously, in his first 10 months of stewardship, used to talk about: 'Isn't it the most exciting time to be alive in Australia.' But I tell you he does not say that so much. I had a look at the supporting cast of the 74 other members of the government. I have seen gloomier expressions, but I cannot think where. I was reminded of that series The Walking Dead. They look happier on that than they do in here. But, of course, I said 74. It is 73. There is one person for whom it has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian: Mr Abbott, the member for Warringah.

The problem is that this government are so accident prone in the last two months it is remarkable. In the Labor Party, if someone makes a mistake, the diligent media are all over us for weeks and weeks. But there is good news if you are in the coalition and you make a mistake: you just have to keep your head down for a few hours because there will be someone else coming to the rescue—that is if you cannot find a poor old ABS middle-level public servant to wheel out and take the blame. But the new good news in this government is the Prime Minister will always back you up, because when you make a mistake, trust me, the stopwatch is on and there is Malcolm Turnbull to the rescue with an even bigger mistake before you can say, 'Boo'. But, of course, in the last two months we have seen some of these examples. We have got the shocker on census night, followed up by the Prime Minister humiliating the foreign minister. The problem for Malcolm Turnbull is he thinks everyone is anintriguer like him. In the case of the foreign minister he might well be right, but the point about it is that he humiliated his foreign minister. Then we have got NBN: they will do anything not to report the facts on the NBN. We have got the bungling of the royal commission into juvenile justice in the Northern Territory. It was the right idea but the problem is: when you have got this mob in charge you know it will be poorly executed. And then we now have the great moral challenge of budget repair.

Negative gearing—we found out that the Prime Minister was running an empty scare campaign because he himself wanted to embark on changes. Did you notice the weasel words our Prime Minister used? He said, 'Labor's proposals are slipshod.' He did not say it was bad topic to tackle, did he? You just get the sense with our friend that he would be so good at doing his job he could run both sides of the argument. The thing about him is that he probably thinks that because he does not believe in anything. He could just as easily run the case to reform negative gearing as to oppose it.

The problem, though, is that when he ran his scare campaign I do not think that anyone expected him to come up with this alternative housing policy: telling young people locked out of the housing market to get on eBay and get yourself a rich parent. That is one of the great policies of all time. But we do know why they changed their policy on negative gearing, and we have discovered it from Mr Van Onselen's book: the real person running the economic strategy of the government, the shadowy figure who rolled the Treasurer and rolled the Prime Minister and who is affectionately known as 'he-who-must-not-be-defamed'—you've got it, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. He is doing a ventriloquist doll act for the member for Warringah. It is a remarkable thing; when Peter Dutton speaks you can hardly see Tony Abbott's lips move, but, believe me, they are. Monkey pod economics is now the economic strategy of the day.

The Prime Minister on superannuation said that his policy was ironclad. We saw the weasel worming of his lines on superannuation: 'Of course we mean what we say, but we're going to look at the detail.' That is code for backflip, retreat, back away and undermine the stability of our superannuation system. Every backbencher in the coalition is openly talking at Aussies about superannuation. Twelve government members have opposed it, two government ministers, one state government. What Mr Turnbull does not understand about all of these issues, just as he does not understand non-economic issues, is that when he gives into the bullies they do not go away and say, 'Thank you very much.' They come back for more. There is no clearer example than section 18C. Minutes after that moving, respectful welcome to country ceremony, powerbroker and indeed future representative of the United Nations in a true act of irony—I speak of Senator Bernardi—was collecting signatures for a plan to repeal section 18C. Some of those people were watching the Prime Minister speak and welcome to country, then had the next item on the agenda to sign the petition to undermine their boss.

Where is the Prime Minister? On section 18C, he does not have the luxury of just pretending that it is not happening around him; he has to make a clear decision. Is he on the side of multicultural Australia or is he in the grip of his right-wing fringe? The fact is on climate change, marriage equality, budget repair, superannuation and section 18C, he has no authority. He is the hollowest of hollow men. His commitment to his policy values is a mile wide and an inch deep. His only manoeuvre is retreat.

What we see now, though, is he gives us a lecture instead. He wants cooperation, bonhomie. He talks about the sensible centre, but he does not get it. Mr Turnbull, in his last answer, was critical of Labor. But what he does not understand is—he wants Labor just to capitulate. He wants us to accept that he is the boss and we should fall into line. Why should we do that when his own government will not even do it to him? To quote the famous wisdom of Darryl Kerrigan: 'Tell them he's dreaming.' We will stand up for our principles. We will not take lectures entitled 'Just do it my way'.

This Prime Minister is not strong enough to tell his powerful backbench what to do, so why should we when he verbally clapped three times, 'Stand up and say, "Where are we going."' He does not even know where he is going. His backbenchers do not listen to him. We will negotiate. We will compromise. We will work towards consensus. We will be cooperative. While he is introducing $50 billion tax cuts to the top end of town, while he is lowering the tax burden on the most well-off in society, whilst he has cutting Medicare—and he keeps pretending he is not cutting Medicare, and I do not mind if he is in a state of denial, frankly, because we will talk about Medicare every day to the next election—one way or the other, he will learn his lesson.

How can he talk about ordinary people tightening their belts when he will not do anything about the banks? We have seen his attitude on the banking royal commission, and what a dishonest camouflage it is. He told us all on 10 April, 'The regulator has sufficient power.' Then on 20 April, he backflipped for the first time. But then, again, after the election, he came up with a preposterous idea of setting up a parliamentary committee, which is even weaker than the regulators, to do the job he concedes the regulators are not doing. But, never mind, he has come up with his fourth policy position: he has sent out Kelly O'Dwyer to the rescue.

Opposition members interjecting—

Okay, nothing more needs to be said!

The truth of the matter is we are prepared to help. We are prepared to help him on superannuation. We are prepared to help him on negative gearing. We discovered that he would like us to help him. But we are sick and tired of his arrogant and meaningless lectures. He will learn the hard way, I suspect, that if you want to cooperate, you have got to cooperate in return. I say to him: back off Medicare before you start telling everyone else what to do on your agenda. (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the assistant minister, I realise this is a free-flowing debate, but members will refer to other members by their titles not by their names. If we keep to that, the debate will continue.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to have the opportunity here to talk about leadership. But I am somewhat surprised that those opposite want to focus on leadership. In fact, I could spend some time talking about the 10 minutes of whingeing we just heard and how that might equate to leadership—and clearly it does not. When I think of leadership, I go to the facts. The first set of facts we should look at is how those opposite governed prior to 2013: prior to the time we came into government. Those opposite do not like talking about that—they have got selective amnesia for anything prior to the last couple of years—but I think it is an important starting point as we talk about leadership. And, of course, what we saw there was their definition of leadership, which was a surplus converted to a totally unprecedented deficit; and they call that leadership. We saw 1,200 deaths at sea; and they call that leadership. We saw endless program failures with pink batts and school halls; and they call that leadership.

We could focus on that history for the next 10 minutes, but I will not, because I will focus on the more recent failures of leadership we are seeing from those opposite. The first of those is that we saw them commit to $6 billion of savings, which they are unprepared to commit to now that the election is over. They pretended, as they always do, to be fiscal conservatives. But where is the fiscal conservatism now? It has disappeared. It has disappeared now that the Australian people are not about to vote.

The second failure of leadership is around superannuation. We saw those opposite bank the savings that we committed on superannuation. Where is the policy? We have not seen the policy. Again, no policy—the fiscal conservatives without fiscally conservative policies. Third, they pretended, again, to be conservatives on border protection. They were going to lead on border protection, but 30 of them—many of them here; put your hands up if you like—refused to support their policy for offshore detention centres. Again, a failure of leadership.

Finally, they pretended that they wanted to lead on gay marriage. But when it came to the opportunity to have a plebiscite to resolve this issue, again, they were unprepared to support a very clear measure for which we have a mandate from the most recent election.

Now, in contrast, the Turnbull government will be defined by delivery through collaboration. It is the absolute heart of our Australian democracy that we negotiate better outcomes for all Australians. Australians are looking for leadership for the people. To that end, I am firmly convinced that the Senate will be a better one than the last one: not leadership driven by the partisan politics of those opposite.

Now, let me focus for a few minutes on the economy—this is where we need leadership and we are seeing leadership from this side of the House. We know the Australian economy is growing at about three per cent a year—that is a striking number; that is a good number, by world standards, amongst developed countries. Business conditions and consumer confidence are well above their long-term average and we need to ensure that the right foundations for a strong economy remain in the years ahead.

We are focused on a lower taxing, lower spending government. There is no equivalence between raising taxes and reducing spending. They are not the same thing. You cannot call a tax increase a save. But those opposite want to do it. Do you know the reason? It is very simple. When you raise taxes you slow the economy. Any economist will tell you that. Those opposite wanted taxes on housing. They wanted taxes on investment, on capital gains. As we have just heard about, they wanted taxes on electricity. All of this will slow the economy and it is not the sort of economic leadership Australia needs to be prosperous in the years to come.

This morning the Turnbull government introduced the Budget Savings (Omnibus) Bill into the parliament to give effect to $6 billion in budget savings—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Clearly those opposite do not want to commit to $6 billion worth of budget savings. What is your number—is it three, is it two? How much are you going to commit to? We do not know. What we do know is that they are wibbly wobbly; that is what we can be absolutely sure of. Anyway, this will give effect to $6 billion in budget savings that are necessary to assist in the critical task of arresting our debt and, just as importantly, protecting the economy against significant economic shocks. We live in a world where the prospect of economic shocks is significant. We do not know what the Chinese economy will do in the coming years. We do not know how the rest of the developed world will grow in the coming years. Those shocks, those speed humps, those potholes are absolutely the reason why the Australian people should be, and are, asking for the people in this place to be fiscal conservatives.

The government inherited $240 billion in accumulated deficits and a gross debt of $370 billion. But that is not the worst of it—we inherited locked-in programs with a growth rate in spending of seven per cent a year. There were landmines everywhere—because those opposite love to spend and they love to tax. And the Australian people know and understand that. As a result, Australian taxpayers are saddled with higher interest payments which are currently worth $16 billion, one of the largest line items in the federal budget. We are focused on preventing these scenarios that I have described and arresting our debt by making the necessary decisions to restore budget balance. That is exactly what we are seeing in the omnibus bill that we have put before the House today.

This bill is an opportunity for the new parliament to heed the challenge and promote this nation to a path of stronger growth and a stronger and more prosperous economy, and it is critical that those opposite come to the table and become the real fiscal conservatives that they pretended to be in the election campaign. The ratings agencies have warned us that, if we do not fix this problem, it is a very serious issue for this country. We will be faced with higher interest rates. We will be faced with a far more dangerous situation for important spending programs such as health, education and infrastructure. So this bill emphasises our commitment to future generations of Australians. This is a moral cause. This is a moral issue. Are the opposition going to leave future generations of younger Australians saddled with debt that they will have to repay for years to come because the opposition were not prepared to take the necessary steps to protect our economy, our kids, our grandkids and every future Australian from the fiscal disaster that they create every time they are in government? There was one exception—the Hawke-Keating era. But they are gone now. They are ghosts of the past.

There is a second, very important initiative that we have brought to the House today—the building and construction industry bill. We want to ensure that the rule of law prevails on building sites across the country. We want more roads, hospitals, schools and houses—because they do not cost what they should. Anyone who has been involved in the construction industry over the years knows that the lawlessness there, the lawlessness that we saw in the royal commission, is costing every Australian. Everyone who goes to school, who goes to hospital, who uses a road or who uses a railway is paying more than they should—and, most importantly, every Australian taxpayer is paying more than they should for these things because the opposition is not prepared to act on a very obvious measure that everyone knows is absolutely necessary to bring us to the cost levels that other countries see.

There is only one side of the House that will provide leadership in the coming years, and it is this side.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to second this motion and to follow the member for Hume. It is interesting that we heard today not much of a defence for the member for Wentworth. The member for Wentworth might be the current Prime Minister but he is certainly no leader. At every instance in recent months, since taking over from the member for Warringah, he has put his political interests ahead of the interests of this nation. And now what you see is a very nervous member for Warringah, a very nervous prime minister, because he has twigged to the fact that that 'empty chair' that almost rolled Tony Abbott the first time is doing the numbers again! The empty chair is on the march because the member for Wentworth is providing absolutely no leadership.

I have never seen a gloomier government than the mob opposite. You would think they had lost this election. They did only win by about 12,000 votes across the nation. It is something of a pyrrhic victory, isn't it, because we know that this is a government that is absolutely divided among itself. And we know that the people of Barton, Bass, Braddon, the new seat of Burt, Cowan, Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Herbert, Hindmarsh, Lindsay, Longman, Lyons, Macarthur, Macquarie, Paterson and Solomon all voted against the division, the dysfunction and the inequality that this government stands for. They voted for what Labor stands for—Bill Shorten's leadership, more than 250 positive policies, the unity and the discipline that we have shown on this side.

I will tell you something else, Mr Deputy Speaker: when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull took over from the member for Warringah, we had this CEO of Australia Inc. that was going to come in and get things back on the road. What have we seen instead? We have seen the David Brent of Australian politics. We have seen a man desperate to be liked by his colleagues; so desperate to be liked that he is prepared to give in on the plebiscite, he is prepared to give in on climate change, he is prepared to give in on all the 2014 budget cuts that were so unpopular with the Australian public. Now he is prepared to give in, no doubt, on section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act because, obviously, the most important thing that this parliament can do is make it easier for people to offend and humiliate fellow Australians—that is a priority worth being proud of!

We had the member for Warringah making a speech to the building industry last week—or whenever it was—warning the member for Wentworth, making it very clear that if there is any compromise on climate change or on any the other issues that the hard Right of the Liberal party hold dear, the member for Wentworth will be rolled. And there is one other quality that the member for Wentworth, the Prime Minister, shares with David Brent: he is desperate to be liked by his friends at work—or people he thinks of as friends—but he is basically incompetent. We see a man who stuffed up the republic referendum. He stuffed up the NBN: he doubled the cost, he doubled the roll-out time, and we have dropped from the 30th-fastest country for internet speeds to the 60th-fastest country for internet speeds.

He stuffed up the census: this is the worst rollout of the census—and you are responsible for this too—the worst rollout of the census in 100 years. We have a Prime Minister who says he is committed to constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians; I do not see him campaigning anywhere on this, I have to say. And instead what he wants to do is divert attention by backing the hard Right in their claim that we need to have a plebiscite on marriage equality. How can we run these two campaigns at the same time? What he wants is for the plebiscite to fail, so that he has no people management problems at Wernham-Hogg. He does not want the people management problems at Wernham-Hogg opposite here. And we have the Treasurer, who is the best tough guy sidekick since Gareth Keenan—the Treasurer, who talks about debt but has tripled the deficit. (Time expired)

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I can congratulate you on your election yesterday to the office of Deputy Speaker; I am sure you will be very good—and given that I seconded the motion, I am very confident about that.

I am going to reverse today's MPI, Mr Speaker, to make it much more relevant and much more real. I am going to change the MPI and talk about the Prime Minister's excellent leadership, the excellent leadership that he has now shown for close to a year. And I will go through some examples.

Let us start with a topic that is always very important to us in this federal parliament, and that is economics and our country's economy. The member for Hume very recently mentioned a lot of figures and a lot of facts about leadership and economic management, under both the previous Labor administration and this current administration, in both the last parliament and in this one. We are very, very clear on this side of the parliament that the way we manage this nation's economy, and how we leave the economy and where we leave it with things like deficits and net debt levels, is very important, not necessarily to us but—as we keep saying—to our children and grandchildren. We often hear from the other side the word 'sustainability'. The word sustainability comes out of their mouths a lot when they are talking about things like the environment, which is important, and about other things. Very rarely do you hear the word sustainability come out when they are talking about debt levels and the economics of this country, and that is a very important subject.

Another example is jobs: we talked a lot about jobs in the election, and it is a very important thing as well. We have good jobs growth in this country. We also announced at the election, through the Prime Minister, the jobs and investment package, which is about encouraging companies to move, especially to rural and regional areas, and also to this country. And that was a very popular and well thought-out package, and great leadership from the Prime Minister.

I think we need to look also at the character of people. The Prime Minister has said many times that we as a country, and many businesses, are facing great disruption. You do not have to go too far in any of your local electorates to run into businesspeople who are running into great disruption about how their businesses or how their industries are getting set. Now, who would I put my faith in—and indeed, who would I put my money on—to manage that? Would I put my money on an individual like our Prime Minister, who has started up his own companies and who was a successful businessman? Would I put my money or my faith in someone who has that track record, in someone who has the track record of a smart businessman and someone who has been able to manage companies from small companies to big companies? But would I have my faith in that person—a person who understands that—or would I have my faith in a person who is a union hack? I think it is a very easy decision to make. On unions, the Prime Minister again has shown great leadership with the ABCC Act, and with looking to stamp out union corruption—something that the other side do not seem to have a lot of interest in.

There are other things the Prime Minister has done: we have one of the biggest infrastructure spends that is happening in this country, with things like the Pacific Highway in my electorate, which are very important. He has shown great leadership in that. The defence white paper which we announced late last year; again, the Prime Minister led, and led very well. I cannot believe that the Labor Party talk about the NBN. The NBN designed by Senator Conroy was a debacle. Our current Prime Minister, when he was the Minister for Communications, cleaned up the NBN—and we now have more sign-ups to NBN in a month than they did in six years. I am always amazed that they bring that subject up.

But let's look at the alternative. The Leader of the Opposition talks about fear campaigns. Every member of the other side of this House should hang their head in shame because in election campaigns we should debate real things. Things like negative gearing? Yes, we should have debated that. Things like the company tax cut that we were proposing should be debated. The fact that you brought up the mediscare campaign and wanted to have a debate about a policy that did not even exist means that you should hang your heads in shame. This was a new low, a new low in Australian politics and a new low in federal campaigning that you ran on a policy that did not even exist. You should all hang your heads in shame on that.

As the Prime Minister has said—and this morning we laid on the table many things as well—this is going to be a term of delivery. We look forward to delivering a more stable economy, to more job growth and to a growing economy for the Australian public.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are, the first sitting day of the re-elected Turnbull government. It should be a day of celebration over there you would think, wouldn't you, Mr Deputy Speaker? You would think members opposite should be pleased that they are back, and yet on the first and we have a Prime Minister and a Treasurer exposed in national media as being completely bereft of political and moral authority. We know they are bereft of political authority because the Prime Minister and the Treasurer could not even convince their own cabinet of an important policy matter. It is the first time it has happened since 1974. It is the first time the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of the day have gone into the cabinet and said, 'Here's something we want to do,' and the cabinet said: 'Not on your life, Prime Minister and Treasurer. We are not going to let you.' They have no political authority.

It is not unusual for a Prime Minister to grow into the job. It is a hard job. It takes time to adjust. This Prime Minister is shrinking before our eyes at question time, shrinking into the job every single day because he has no political authority within his government. And you know what? He has no moral authority either. We saw him during the election campaign run a scare campaign about negative gearing. We thought: 'This isn't going too well. Maybe it's just because he just isn't up to a scare campaign like the member for Warringah was.' The member for Warringah knew how to run a scare campaign. We will give him that! He was good at that. But it turns out there was more than that. The Prime Minister's heart was not in it because he agreed that negative gearing needed to be reformed. He knew when he said to the Australian people 'this will smash your housing prices' and 'this will wreck the economy' that they were not the arguments he was using behind closed doors in the cabinet room when he was asking his colleagues to agree with him. He was saying one thing to the Australian people and another thing to his cabinet colleagues, and that is why this Prime Minister completely lacks moral authority as well as political authority.

There is a pattern that we see very clearly. The Prime Minister believes in this House dealing with marriage equality but he cannot convince his cabinet and he misleads the Australian people about what he thinks. This is a Prime Minister who used to say that he would never lead a political party that was not as committed to real action on climate change as he is. That was the member for Wentworth. Now he leads a party that has a joke for a climate action policy, which he used to call a fig leaf, and that he claims to the Australian people that he believes in. Yet, we know that he does not. This is a Prime Minister who knows that it is in the Australia's national interest, for the first time in our modern history, to have a serious candidate for one of the most important decisions in the world: Secretary-General of the United Nations. But, no, the right wing of his cabinet will not let him do it. This is a Prime Minister who knows that an effects test is very poor policy but his cabinet and his National Party insist that he implements it. He has a right wing in his cabinet that says: 'Don't you act in the national interest, Prime Minister. You act in our political interest.' And this Prime Minister jumps to their orders. This Prime Minister says, 'That's what we are going to do.' That is why he lacks moral authority.

He comes in here and says that there is a moral challenge about debt. This is a Prime Minister who rejects our offer to fix his superannuation mess. This is a Prime Minister who cannot get his own superannuation policy, which he took to the election, through his party room, let alone his cabinet. The Leader of the Opposition extended a hand and said: 'We will help you fix the mess. We will help you avoid a retrospective policy, which is very bad policy, and we have done the policy work and developed a plan which actually raises more money for the government.' And this Prime Minister said, 'There is a moral challenge about debt, and I'm not taking your offer, because I just want to play politics.' This is a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who bring in a bill and say that we must pass it. Sight unseen, we must agree to pass it, and 'don't you dare even look at it'. The member for Rankin and I have a look at it and we find a $100 million error which the Treasurer appeared to be unaware of, and they say: 'How dare you not pass our error. How dare you not pass our mistake.' The bill has a black hole. No wonder this Treasurer is clearly being regarded as not up to the job. This is a Treasurer and a Prime Minister who are not prepared to lead. This is a Prime Minister who on the matter of housing affordability lectures the Australian people that rich parents should pay for their children's houses when all along he knew there was a better answer. All along he knew there was a better policy to deal with the crisis of housing affordability but he had no authority to implement it. I say this: the Prime Minister and the Treasurer should make way for a Prime Minister and a Treasurer who are prepared to lead the economic policy debate in this country and who led during the election campaign on issues that have been in the too-hard basket for 30 years. This Leader of the Opposition was prepared to say to the Australian people, 'This policy of negative gearing is not fair or sustainable and we will fix it.' We went to the election seeking a mandate for economic reform. This Prime Minister went to the election with an excuse and a slogan, and he should recognise that his leadership is over. (Time expired)

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and congratulations on your elevation. To the shadow Treasurer: your stocks have dropped massively. Why are you still on the opposition benches? Because you did not outline an economic vision for this country. You outlined a vision for higher taxes and for bigger government, and that was it. You were a failed Treasurer the first time and now you are a failed shadow Treasurer.

This government has one central goal in this term of parliament: to get our budget back under control. That is the main game in town, the main game for this economy and the main game for this government. The main game for every government around this country at a state and obviously at a federal level is to get our house in order. Everything the Labor Party does is to increase the debt and the deficit. We all know that when the Labor Party came into office in 2007 they inherited about $80 billion in assets. They squandered that very, very quickly and we ended up with a trajectory of $667 billion of debt.

We hear of black holes from the shadow Treasurer. We all know the infamous Bowen black hole of well over $18 billion between the time of the 2013 election and the budget—$18 billion! What did the shadow Treasurer do at the last election? He outlined a vision for $16 billion in higher deficits over the forward estimates—$16 billion! How is that addressing the key economic issue facing this country that government can control: reining in our own spending? There is no interest group, no constituency, that the Labor Party do not think they can buy off with more taxpayer dollars. That is the issue facing this country, and until the Labor Party face up to the facts they will continue to sit on the opposition benches.

They look very happy. The shadow Treasurer in his big, shouty voice gets up looking very triumphant. His stocks have dropped, I can tell you right now, because they are on the opposition benches because of the shadow Treasurer's failure to outline any vision. The Australian people do not trust the Labor Party with the economy, so the fact that they would raise this in the MPI today is quite extraordinary.

We have a huge agenda this week. Industrial relations reform, bringing back the ABCC, the registered organisations bill—these things are not particularly sexy but they provide productivity benefits for our economy in one of the largest sectors. In the construction industry we employ over a million Australians. Every single Australian who uses a bridge, a road, a hospital—something that is constructed through this industry—will benefit from the increased productivity that the ABCC will deliver. These are things that government can do. These are economic reforms.

What would the Labor Party do? They would go through this faux process of looking into the ABCC, but we know that John Setka and all of the others in the union movement will never let them support the ABCC. They will never let them support anything that removes the perks and lurks for the union movement. And who pays for it? The average Australian pays for it. Our economy pays for it.

Our economy is growing at above three per cent at the moment—above-trend growth. On the most important measure of our economy, GDP growth, we are growing above trend. That is something we have arrested from the point at which Labor left office, when there was below-trend growth and it was dropping. Now we are above three per cent. We are seeking to address the main challenge that faces our government and every government around this country, which is getting our own house in order. I know that for the next three years—hopefully it will be for a lot longer—the Labor Party will block us every single step of the way, because there is no dollar that they do not want to spend, there is no interest group that they will not say no to, and, as I said at the beginning, there is no constituency that they will not seek to buy off with taxpayer dollars because—guess what!—they will not be the ones held accountable. We will be the ones who have to pick up the pieces and pay off the debt.

There is a truism in Australian politics, which is this: you must elect a coalition government if you want to get the fiscal house of the federal government in order. That is what this government will do. That is the leadership that our Prime Minister is showing, and I am standing squarely behind our Prime Minister in achieving that goal.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, can I congratulate you on the role. It is good to have you there in the chair.

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

I have to say, if I were a minister I would not care to be just hanging around, shouting at the opposition the whole time. Most ministers are in charge of something, but I guess the Minister for Urban Infrastructure at the table is in the same position as every other member of the government: what you actually think has nothing to do with what you end up doing. You may as well come in, shout a few barbs across the table and entertain yourself because you do not get a chance to do anything you believe in. At least he is in a better position than the poor old bloke beside him at the table, who was responsible for the census. Sometimes—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Minister for Small Business on a point of order?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member was getting to his feet to debate this—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have not taken points of order on yours. Just sit down. There is a protocol during MPIs.

We have heard before about governments that are driven by opinion polls. Never before have we had a government that could not run an opinion poll, and he is the one who was put in charge of it.

But it is not fair, I guess, for me to say that they do not get to do anything they believe in at all, because the Prime Minister has not been rolled on every issue. There is one issue where he has managed to prevail: the banks. The one issue where the Prime Minister has been able to make sure that the detractors within his own party do not win is when it comes to defending the banks. I love that the committee that is going to be tough and teach the banks a lesson is chaired by the member for Banks! It is meant to be an area, not a constituency that you are actually backing! It is Joseph Banks!

What could have been more demeaning than to listen to the member for Dawson—the person who had made statements quite specifically saying he would be strident in the new parliament in standing up—

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four months ago.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

this was back in April—and pushing for there to be a royal commission, who gets offered the job of party whip and at that moment, all of a sudden, not only are all the objections and all fight that was in him not enough for him to cross the floor; he is personally moving an amendment to take the call for the royal commission out of the motion.

You would think someone on that side would be allowed to believe in the policies they took to their constituents. The policy we keep hearing from those opposite—we have heard it a few times during this MPI—is a claim that you have to trust their side of politics to be getting debt down, getting the deficit down. If that is the case, why have they tripled the deficit? If that is the case, why have they added $100 billion to net debt? If your belief is that those on your side of politics are the ones who are going to get debt down then the starting point is that you do not keep making debt bigger—because when you are making debt bigger, and the deficit is tripling, that means debt is not getting less.

I know these numbers are complex and, given where the Treasurer has been at today, numbers are a really tough thing. He was asked a question today about page 5 of the explanatory memorandum of the omnibus bill. This is a bill that we were meant to support without even seeing. The reason we had to support it was that there were 21 measures in it totalling $6.5 billion. Then, in the last 48 hours, we have found out that there are not 21 measures but 24 measures and that, instead of their adding up to $6.5 billion, they now add up to $6.1 billion. But by their own numbers it does not add up even to that. I will do the addition of the numbers on page 5. When you learn maths, addition is one of the early things you are normally taught, but for the Treasurer 146 plus 92 plus 58 equals 405. You can write it down, Member for Barker, while you are at it, that is good—146 plus 92 plus 58 equals 405. You would think that if there was a portfolio on the front bench they would not give to someone who had a basic problem with addition it would be the job of Treasurer. You would think that across the different candidates who might be available, a starting point for that particular job might be someone who could add up. But what we have is a Treasurer who not only cannot do the addition required by his job he also cannot carry an economic argument in the cabinet. (Time expired)

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker Coulton, and I congratulate you on your election to your office. It is tremendous to have the opportunity to speak on this MPI, which allows for a very clear contrast between the clear, focused economic agenda of this government and the extraordinary lack of an economic agenda of those opposite. As was observed in the last election campaign, what the opposition said about an economic plan for the nation was precisely zero. There were a whole lot of things said about how to tax more, there were a range of things about how to spend more and there were a range of things about how to redistribute income, but there was no economic plan for the nation. That is a major problem, because ultimately our capacity in this place to do the things that we want to do for the nation, to help the nation to grow, ultimately hinge on the driver of the of the economy—economic growth. It is the engine that drives us forward. All of the wonderful intentions and great ideas about what people might like to do become virtually impossible to implement without the engine moving forward, and that ultimately is what government is about.

What we see opposite are stunts, sideshows and theatrics, but government is not a carnival attraction. Government is a serious business of doing the business of the people and ensuring that the economy moves forward. One of the most important ways to ensure that we have the capacity to move forward is ensuring that we do not spend more money than we take in. If we as a nation continue to spend more in the medium term than we take in we will suffer very serious long-term economic consequences. Some may wave that away and say there are some nations that have more debt than us, and that is true, but the vast majority of those nations are in a very poor overall economic position, and we must never, ever let ourselves go there. That is what the Prime Minister and this government are committed to—living within our means, tackling the deficit and focusing on the growth of the economy.

You do not grow the economy by doing what those opposite want to do, which is smash the economy with taxes. You don't say, 'Let's put more tax on the people who are investing in the economy,' and increase capital gains tax. You don't say, 'Let's go and punish people who are investing in property and contributing to so much activity in the property sector,' and get rid of negative gearing, which has existed for just 100 years or so. You don't do that if you want to drive the economy. You don't increase tax and the tax burden on the community.

If you want to get the economy moving you make sure that sectors like construction can get to work and get the job done. At the moment, as we know, the issues in the union sector are constricting the construction sector and holding back economic growth. That is a very large part of our GDP, with more than one million Australians employed in the sector. That is why this government is committed to the ABCC bill and the registered organisations bill, to get those sectors moving again and to take out the malfeasance and bad behaviour that we see in that sector. It is also why it is so important to support the start-up sector and the innovation sector. We talked a lot about this prior to the election. This government is committed to making it more attractive for people to invest in start-up companies through the changes to tax arrangements on capital gains tax and income tax for people who invest in start-ups. We actually care about the growth of the economy. Our primary lens, through which we look at problems, is how we make the economy stronger, because when you make the economy stronger all Australians benefit. Those opposite look at the economy and ask how they redistribute what happens to exist, but they do not actually look at it and say, 'How do we make it bigger, better and stronger?' What was their economic plan at the last election? They had no economic plan. Remarkably, they said, 'We will bank the superannuation savings of the government,' without telling us what their superannuation policy is. It is quite extraordinary and will be remembered for years to come. It is a very poor reflection on the shadow Treasurer, as the member for Deakin so eloquently said moments ago. This is a government with a strong economic agenda. Economic growth is central to everything we do and those opposite have absolutely no economic plan.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker Coulton, and can I commend you on your elevation to the chair. I am very pleased to speak on this debate about the Prime Minister's lack of leadership. One of the starkest examples of the Prime Minister's failure of leadership is of course his failure when it comes to Medicare. Just days after the election, panicked by the message that was sent to him by the electorate, the Prime Minister said, 'We have to do more to reaffirm the faith the Australian people in our commitment to health and to Medicare.' I note particularly his use of the term 'do more', not 'say more and more and more'—we already know that he gets a gold star for that—but 'do more'.

Two months after the election, what have we seen? Absolutely nothing. There has been no change in policy, no change in direction. He is all over the shop when it comes to dealing with the absolute mess they have made of health. As we saw in question time, it does not look as though that is going to end any time soon.

The Prime Minister said after the election that he has learnt his lesson on what people expect of his government when it comes to Medicare. Well if you believe that, there is a bridge over Sydney Harbour that I have got for sale. I mean, really? You saw in question time his complete inability to actually say any one of the cuts to Medicare that he is reversing.

The Prime Minister, like his health minister, wants to blame everyone else for the problems that they have created—for the fertile ground they have created when it comes to people's distrust of them when it comes to health. Far from being nimble and agile they have bound themselves to the same policies and the same tired old Liberal Party rhetoric. We saw the ridiculousness during the election campaign of the health minister saying that she did not support the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule but that Treasury and Finance made her do it. Well now we have almost got the Prime Minister saying exactly the same.

This Prime Minister is all talk and no action. He knows that he has got a problem when it comes to the continuation of the freeze on Medicare but is incapable, or it would appear simply unwilling, to actually do anything about it. The problem is that many Australians seeking to access their GP or their specialist cannot afford to wait for this Prime Minister's dithering. They cannot afford more cuts in health to pay for your mistake. As is being highlighted this week with Michael Marmot's Boyer lectures, we have growing health inequality in this country and everything this government and this Prime Minister have done is making it worse. There is growing health inequality and every single one of the policies introduced by this government is making inequality in health worse.

Far from learning the lessons on Medicare, this government is committed to freezing the Medicare Benefits Schedule for six years until 2020, after the next election. That is not a freeze; as rural doctors have said, that is an ice age. It is a GP tax by stealth and it is doing exactly what the government wanted to do and have been trying to do since the 2014—put a price signal on visits to your doctor and to your specialist, leading to poorer quality and less affordable access to health care.

They want to increase the cost of prescription medicines for everyone, including concession card holders. We already know from pharmacists across the country that compliance is a major issue when it comes to medicines, and you want to make this worse. They want to cut bulk-billing incentives for pathology on 1 October, which will leave no incentive or mechanism to enable bulk-billing for vital blood tests to continue to be available; cut bulk-billing incentives for diagnostic imaging on 1 January 2017, which again will provide no mechanism to ensure that these vital scans are affordable; maintain public hospital cuts at a level that is simply not sustainable for our public hospitals; abandon funding and targets for emergency department waiting times and elective surgery; and cut the Medicare safety net—a mechanism that tries to provide some easing of the costs of health care for people who because of the nature of their illness and circumstances have higher healthcare needs. Those are the policies that you have tied yourself to—every single one of them.

The Prime Minister was unable in question time today to say which of those cuts they were reversing. Which one is it? If they have learnt their lesson when it comes to health care, they will be reversing those cuts. There is a test for this Prime Minister. Unfreeze the Medicare Benefits Schedule, properly fund our public hospitals, do not proceed with the cuts to bulk-billing incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging, do not slash the Medicare safety net and stop pretending—you did actually want to privatise the Medicare payment system—and actually tell us how you are going to make sure that the public sector can continue to deliver it.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Coulton, I congratulate you, as others have, on your election to that office. I could speak here about the failure to provide leadership—and I will in terms of leadership for the opposition—and I could speak to the national interest in terms of the economic issues which beleaguer this nation but the members for Deakin and Hume have done such a good job, so I thought I might speak to a peculiar symptom of the Australian Labor Party. It is a symptom that, unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition suffers from, and that is the failure to stand up to the union movement. I can give two pretty salient examples of that failure—and in my view this is the reason why you are sitting over there and not here, so listen up.

The first one is the failure to stand up to the Transport Workers Union, which delivered the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. I am grateful that the Minister for Small Business is in the chamber because he knows that that tribunal was set to send 30,000 small business operators on a trajectory to bankruptcy. I do not reckon you got too many of those votes. Where was the leadership from the Leader of the Opposition? He should have stood up to the TWU. That is a case in point.

Here is the second case. What about the CFMEU? This is John Setka et al. If the Leader of the Opposition had stood up to the thugs in the CFMEU and said, 'No, we need to reintroduce the rule of law to the Australian commercial building sector,' then I am pretty certain you would have got a little bit closer to this side of the chamber. Standing up to union bosses is difficult—I understand it; they pull all of your strings—but I would have thought it would have been a little easier to stand up to the party apparatchiks, but he could not do that either. Reference the Mediscare campaign. What if a party apparatchik had come into my office and I happened to be the Leader of the Opposition and said: 'What we are going to do is scare the bejesus out of the pensioners of Australia. We are not just going to tell a small lie; we are going to tell a really big fat one. And we are not just going to put it on billboards and corflutes and run ads; we are going to get volunteers to pick up the phone and ring pensioners in the middle of the night.' That is not leadership; that is lying to the people of Australia.

While we are speaking about this can I talk about the disgusting ads I have seen that have been run by the union movement around safety on building sites. As someone who lost a brother in a work accident, I find those ads absolutely abhorrent.

But I hope that I can set a challenge for the Leader of the Opposition which will enable him to show his inner leader, which I think he is so desperate to show. In fact, I think he thinks he won the election. Note to those that are new in the chamber: if you sit over there, you lost the election; if you sit over here, you won the election and you are in government. Here is my challenge to the Leader of the Opposition: if he wants to show the kind of leadership that he pretends he possesses—that inner quality; that Howard-esque, Keating or Hawke quality—what he should do is invite Senator Dastyari for a cup of tea this afternoon, and what he needs to say to Senator Dastyari is: 'Senator, I'm sorry, but your actions over this issue mean that you are simply unfit to be the Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate.' Now, that is a test for the Leader of the Opposition: you talk a good game on leadership; this is an opportunity for you to show that you possess that inner quality. He has all of today. It is not a long walk from the Senate to the Leader of the Opposition's suite. Invite Senator Dastyari into the room, sit down, pour him an Earl Grey, maybe offer him a biscuit and say, 'Mate, I have to do this because leadership qualities demand that I do it.' If the Leader of the Opposition does not do that, quite frankly he is all sausage and no sizzle. It is easy to talk a good game on leadership. Let's see him deliver it. Sadly, I do not think he will.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has now concluded.