David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The truth is a stranger to those opposite. I remind the honourable senator opposite that the golden rule in politics is never argue with the bloke with the microphone! So, never mind that they did not raise the pension when they had the power to do so. Never mind the fact that the Howard cabinet, including Senator Minchin, Senator Abetz and Senator Coonan and the rest of the fabulous four over there, rejected Minister Mal Brough’s cabinet submission to raise pensions in the 2007 budget. They presumably rejected that submission at the time because Senator Minchin and others said we could not afford it. Notwithstanding that, the hypocrisy of those opposite, boundless as it is, meant that Dr Nelson went on to say, in the aftermath of all of these anti-budget measures, that this was a government that was itself putting the budget at risk. Next they demanded that the government cut fuel excise by 5c a litre, of course a desperate bid by a failing opposition leader to cash in on the dissatisfaction in the community about what was then a spike in world oil prices earlier this year.

If the government had acceded to the opposition’s various demands, absurd as they were, and allowed them to block our revenue measures in the Senate, the total cost would have been $5 billion a year—almost a quarter of the budget surplus announced in May this year. That is the critical context when contemplating the shambolic performance of those opposite in question time today, when they emerged as the new-found defenders of the budget surplus—just as effectively, I might say, as when they tried to come out as the defenders of pensioners earlier in the year. Mr President, there is a good saying in politics: ‘The mob always works you out.’ And let me tell you, those opposite do not have a scintilla of credibility on these critical issues.

Today Senator Abetz sought to lecture us on the importance of maintaining a surplus. But what did his colleagues say about the surplus earlier this year? Dr Nelson said that his populist demand to increase pensions could be ‘taken out of the more than $20 billion surplus.’ Tony Abbott said that ‘it was not economically necessary to have a surplus of $22 billion.’ And what did the Merchant of Venice say? Malcolm Turnbull, on ABC Radio on 13 October, said when considering the proposed pension rise:

Now in addition to the arguments of compassion … there is also the need for an economic stimulus—and this is one economic stimulus that could be delivered in the near term.

So, only last month, Mr Turnbull was in favour of spending a large chunk of the surplus, not only to achieve social policy ends but also to stimulate the economy. That was what Mr Turnbull said, and it was in line with government policy, because what did the Prime Minister announce the very next day? He announced a $10 billion economic stimulus package, including a $4.8 billion package that included benefits for pensioners, benefits for families and benefits for first home buyers.

In response to the global financial crisis which broke out in September of this year, the Rudd government decided to use half the surplus to stimulate the economy and thus safeguard the most vulnerable sectors of our community against the effects of that crisis—which is, as all concede, a foreign-born crisis. And what did Mr Turnbull say about that? He supported it. He said: ‘It has our bipartisan support. It gives justice to Australia’s aged pensioners, in particular, who have been doing it tough.’

What does all of this tell us? It tells us that, when those opposite meet every morning to plot their cunning strategies for question time, they would do well to have regard for the utterances of their leader, and they would do well to have regard for the comments of their frontbench.

That was six weeks ago, but it has been six long weeks for those opposite. Now Senator Abetz tells us that spending the surplus is wicked and irresponsible. In doing this he is not only apparently contradicting his own leader, and he is not only ignoring the opinions of every responsible economist in Australia, all of whom have supported the government’s actions, but he has forgotten his own best efforts earlier this year to destroy the surplus by blocking those key revenue measures in the budget.

Even more extraordinary was the speech of Senator Coonan immediately after question time, while taking note of answers to questions. Senator Coonan seems to be inhabiting a kind of parallel universe which even the Tardis would struggle to reach, a parallel universe in which the global financial crisis does not even exist. God bless Senator Coonan for inhabiting such a place, where there is not such a crisis. She told the Senate that the Rudd government ‘have pronounced it all too hard and declared that Australia is headed for a budget deficit and probably a recession’. She said:

If this sounds familiar to Australians … it is because it is, very familiar. The ghost of Labor governments and their extreme failure to run the economy competently is well and truly back with us.

That is Senator Coonan’s analysis of our current circumstances.

This is of course an opposition that is struggling to find its way, struggling to find a story to convince Australian voters that its own shambolic performance over 11 years should be vindicated. But let us not forget that in the context of a global financial crisis an economic stimulus package has been completely justified—and despite your very determined efforts to try and persuade the Australian people that the government is in the custody of a group of socialists— (Time expired)