Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

That was a fine performance by Senator Brandis. In the 20 minutes that he spoke, I may be wrong but I do not think that he mentioned the global recession. He did not talk about the global recession. In the world of Liberal senators, the global recession does not seem to exist. We do not seem to have a global recession. We do not seem to have the stock markets crashing or nine out of 10 of our trading partners all in recession. Over in fantasy land on the other side of the chamber, it is all the Labor government’s fault.

The senator did bring back some very fond recollections of Labor’s last campaign launch. It was a fine moment when the Prime Minister raised those statements about being an economic conservative and about the end of spending. It does seem a long time ago. It took me to a few issues about the global economy and some sad things that I have noticed over the past months. Watching one of the cable TV news programs, they showed what was happening in California, just outside the state capital in Sacramento, which to me really showed how bad the global recession is. Dozens of families who had been caught up with subprime loans were living on the outskirts of the suburbs in tents. These people were so ashamed of their circumstances and so ashamed of how they were existing. I remember one of the couples saying: ‘We are so ashamed of this we cannot tell our family. We cannot tell them that it has come to this.’ This is not the developing world, this is not in Africa, this is not in the poorer parts of Asia but in California, USA. I remember one of the local politicians came out but not to visit these families and provide assistance, not to provide money for them to exist on or to find them shelter but just to check on their welfare. This is the United States, the most modern and advanced country on the planet, and this is the depth that the global recession has forced upon all of us.

So, when Senator Brandis talks about 2007 and the campaign launch, I say to him that a lot has changed since then. Those on that side of the chamber can ignore the global recession. They can live in a fantasy world where the global recession does not exist, but for the countless millions of families and workers across the globe who are suffering it certainly does exist. Senator Brandis also ignored the effect that the global recession has had on our budget bottom line and the effect that it has had on revenue. Not once did he talk about the $210 billion that has been wiped from the budget and wiped from government revenue over four years. Not once did he mention that. Not once did he talk about the 30 banks globally that have either collapsed or been bailed out by governments. Nor did he talk about global stock markets that have lost half their value. He did not talk about economies like the United States in recession, the UK in recession, Germany in recession, Japan in recession and Singapore in recession. He did not talk about the 5.1 million jobs lost in the United States since the beginning of 2008. No, coalition senators and the Leader of the Opposition blame the government. Once again, they are playing the blame game and ignoring the global recession.

Tonight, we will get to see the Liberal Party’s alternative to what the government has been doing. While they can run a very good scare campaign on debt, tonight the facts will become apparent, because tonight the Leader of the Opposition will have to come clean on how he would fund his own spending and how he would deal with the shortfall in budget revenues. That is the question tonight.

There have been some interesting developments on this in the media. It has been hard to get to the bottom of it. I have been asking questions, and I know many Labor parliamentarians have been asking questions, of the Liberal Party: how will you meet the revenue collapse? I have to say there are some good interviews here. The first one I want to quote was from the Sunrise program, and it involved the shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey. This was a response to David Koch. Remember that they on the other side of the chamber are running a scare campaign about deficits and debt, saying that we are going to bankrupt the country. That is what they on the other side are claiming. So on that basis you would assume that they would actually deliver a surplus. If deficits are bad then tell us your surplus figure. This is what Joe Hockey had to say. David Koch said:

How much debt would you support and how big a deficit would you support?

The member for North Sydney said:

Our deficit would be smaller.

Then he went on:

I’ll give you a figure as a starting point: at least $25 billion smaller.

Twenty-five billion dollars smaller! We are not talking about the coalition being in surplus; your deficit is in the same ballpark as ours.

Let us move on. This is Chris Uhlmann talking to the Leader of the Opposition on the ABC on 13 May:

CHRIS UHLMANN: But just quickly, you would have engaged in some stimulus spending and there would have been a deficit?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, there is no doubt. Look, I don’t think there is, it is very hard to imagine a circumstance in which the Budget this year would not be in deficit but it may have been in deficit by a very small amount or it may have been in surplus by a small amount with different policies.

I really hope that tonight he can explain that, because there are some big questions tonight coming out of those quotes that we need answered. The Leader of the Opposition, if he is worth his weight in gold as those on the other side of the chamber think he is, needs to answer: what would the deficit be if a coalition government were in place? If the coalition claim to have a smaller deficit than the government, how are they going to do it? How will they make up for the revenue shortfall? What services and programs will they cut?