Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

In particular, I would like to take note of the response by Senator Minchin to my question about the negligent way in which he has been performing his duties.

In the Financial Review today is a list of programs that the government has announced since the budget, which is totalling the better part of $8 billion. We have seen that the government is now outspending Labor by a figure of almost three to one. What we have seen, of course, much to the government’s chagrin as shown by the Crosby Textor reports that have been presented by some helpful soul from the government to the Murdoch press, is that this desperate spending binge has not made any serious impact on the government’s popularity, simply because the Australian people are awake to the clever politics that this Prime Minister thought that he had perfected over his long period of time in office.

However, what we have seen is the extraordinary running-down of the standards of professional conduct within the government itself. In May, this minister told us that he saw his role as being the custodian of taxpayers’ money, whose job it was to make sure that the money was spent wisely. But when it came to the spending of $10 billion, costings were presented to the public which basically reflected a ‘back of the envelope’ approach that had been taken. We saw a similar case in regard to the Northern Territory intervention program, where the program had grown from some tens of millions of dollars to $587 million a year. And, again, no serious action was taken by the Department of Finance and Administration to cost those initiatives.

Now we are seeing a proposal for a takeover of the Mersey hospital in Tasmania of some hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It has been stated here on a number of occasions this afternoon, even from the government’s own backbencher, Senator Parry, who has said that this would be a disaster. He has reflected the attitude, as I understand it, of many in the local community. If Senator Parry doubts that what I am saying is the case, he has the opportunity, and I would urge Senator Parry, to make a personal explanation. If he says that this is not what his attitude is, if that is not what he is saying, then he can make a personal explanation and correct the record. It has been put in this chamber that that is what you are saying, Senator Parry. So this is your chance. Correct the record. If you have not been saying that this is a disaster—