Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) 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 make some comments about the answer given by Senator Sherry to my question. The most that can be said of Senator Sherry’s maiden voyage representing the Treasurer in question time is that his performance was a minuscule improvement on that of Senator Conroy, who, unsurprisingly, has been dumped from this very important role. But Senator Sherry’s attempts to explain the principles of causation were, quite frankly, embarrassing. His answers showed just how comprehensively the Rudd Labor government has lost control of the nation’s finances.

Australia’s largest home lender is putting up interest rates because of the increased cost of funds due in part to Mr Rudd’s massive spending spree and the need to borrow funds to fund the spending. Australian householders will face increased mortgage payments, in part because the government is out in the bond market borrowing around $3 billion per week. For Senator Sherry to claim that this has no impact on the cost of funds for home lenders is simply flying a kite. Australia, as we all know, is in deep debt, with the Rudd Labor government now admitting that debt will peak at $315 billion, and that is before we have the farcical broadband plan—another $43 billion—and Ruddbank, yet another $28 billion. This is all borrowed money, borrowed to fund poorly thought out policy choices, examples of which are now bubbling to the fore.

As if it is not enough that every man, woman and child is now in hock to the tune of $9,000 for Labor’s reckless spending, there is nothing concrete or permanent to show for the $95 billion ploughed into the so-called stimulus packages. Just take the farce that is the so-called education revolution, which the ministers failed to clear up this afternoon in question time. Not content to have computers sitting in boxes becoming obsolete, unused, no use to anyone, Ms Gillard’s latest botched job is to spray money at schools slated for demolition or slated for amalgamation. Media reports have identified 21 schools due for closure that have been allocated funds from the $14.2 billion Building the Education Revolution fund. As I say, the answers given in question time today as to where these funds have gone and whether or not there will be value for money for the allocation were very unconvincing. You certainly cannot put much faith in a program name that of course helps with photo shoots, hard hat opportunities and stunts but where, when it comes to the crunch, there is money going to schools that, so far as we know, are to be closed and money going to schools for buildings they do not need and have not asked for. This shambles is yet another example of a Labor government great at talking and absolutely hopeless at delivering anything.

These examples merely reinforce Labor’s incompetence, spending $40 million in stimulus cheques to 16,000 deceased estates and 27,000 people overseas. I think on any view, Mr Deputy President, you would have to admit that these people would be highly unlikely to be spending the money in Australia as intended. Obviously this denotes haste, it denotes panic and it denotes a government so desperate to react to what it perceives as a crisis that it could not take time to simply get it right. Australians have every right to question why Australia is now in deep debt—at least $315 billion—and why there is a need to pay interest of $12 billion per annum for such massive borrowings. What we see is reckless spending with nothing concrete to show for it, nothing permanent, millions and millions wasted. Eighteen months ago Australia had no debt and cash in the bank. Now Labor has plunged Australia back onto the debt treadmill. (Time expired)