Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We always welcome a debate with the Labor Party on financial management and, yet again, Senator Conroy, that was another entertaining performance from you. I would remind Senator Conroy that this is the same Labor Party that under Paul Keating gave us the ‘recession we had to have’, 17 per cent interest rates for homeowners and 22 per cent for business, and record unemployment. That is the record of the Labor Party in government. Labor’s idea of financial management was to leave a budget deficit of $10 billion and a whopping $96 billion net government debt. Sobriety, Senator Conroy? Labor spent like drunken sailors and you have the temerity to come in here and castigate us for a lack of sobriety.

I could go on—high inflation, 0.2 per cent real wages growth, downgrading of credit rating, twice; that is the appalling record of Labor in government. So do not come in here and criticise us. Look at your own dismal failure. It was the coalition that had to fix the appalling mess that the Labor Party left, and then those opposite proceeded to oppose every substantial measure to return the budget to surplus and reduce debt. Now that we have returned the budget to surplus and eliminated Labor’s debt, the Labor Party come along here wanting to claim the current strong financial position as their starting point.

But let’s look at Labor’s actions rather than their words. This is a party whose leader has so edifyingly set out his economic views in an essay entitled ‘Howard’s brutopia’. This is the Labor Party whose members seek inspiration from none other than the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. His ALP admirers in Australia have written an open letter to him, inviting him to come to Australia, which says:

We have watched developments in Venezuela with great interest. We have been impressed by the great effort that your government has taken to improve the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans.

…            …            …

Although we are on the opposite side of the globe we feel that our shared ideals of social justice and democracy bring us close together.

The Leader of the Opposition may be a Christian socialist by his own admission, but many of his backbench are Bolivarian socialists. What sort of influence will they have over economic policy in a future Labor government? The Treasurer was absolutely right when he told members in the other place:

We are entitled to know where this motley, ragtag left-wing crew would take this country if they ever got their hands on the levers of power and brought the Bolivarian dictator’s ideas for inspiration to Australia.

This motion accuses the government of weak financial discipline. This is sheer hypocrisy from the Labor Party. Senator Mason has given us examples of multimillion-dollar promises that the Leader of the Opposition has made wherever he goes. This is a man who indeed wants to be all things to all people. Wherever Mr Rudd goes, he tries to buy popularity by showering the local community with promises worth hundreds of millions of dollars—no details, no specifics. Talk about cobbled together! Senator Sherry accused us of cobbling policies together; well, this is cobbling in its best form. And those opposite have the temerity to criticise one of the most economically successful governments of our time.

If we want evidence of how Labor would manage federal finances, we need only look at the state Labor governments. The facts are these: while the federal government is running a $10 billion cash surplus this year, the states will run a combined cash deficit of $3 billion. This is despite the almost $40 billion of GST revenue—$40 billion that the states will get in 2006-2007—and this is expected to grow to almost $47 billion by 2009-10. While the federal government is running an $11 billion fiscal surplus, the states are running a combined fiscal deficit of $6 billion. When you add in state government businesses like water and power utilities—