Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

This is an appalling way to run the chamber and it is typical of the way the Labor Party run the government. They have simply got no idea. They could not run a marbles match. Just have a look at the state of the economy. You will remember at the budget 12 months ago the euphoria that was around. The budget came in at a $22 billion surplus. I might say it was a surplus left to the current government by Peter Costello. The books were handed over with $20 billion surplus. Here we are 12 short months later and we are now debating a budget with a deficit of some $58 billion. How could anyone, even anyone as incompetent as the Labor Party, turn that around in 12 short months? We now have ourselves facing a deficit of over $300 billion that will have to be paid off by our children and our grandchildren in the years ahead.

While Senator Sherry filibustered on that previous bill so that we would not get adequate speaking time, there was a group of children up in the gallery. I was hoping that we could get onto this bill so that they could listen to the debate about it, because those young children, who I would guess were between the ages of eight and 14, will be the ones who will have to pay for the profligacy of the Labor Party in this year’s budget.

This is not new to us. Look at the states. Every state managed by a Labor government has racked up debts to an incredible degree. My own state of Queensland has a debt approaching the $96 billion which the last federal Labor government had. That is incredible. How could a state government, my state government, the state government of Queensland, which has been the resource state and which has been recognised for 40 years as the best run, most financially responsible state, have a deficit of almost $90 billion? The answer is pretty simple: it has had a Labor government for 10 years or so. That is all you need to say.

I was in this chamber during the term of the last Labor government—the Hawke-Keating government. That government, in its last term of office, racked up a secret deficit —they did not tell anyone about it—in one year of some $10 billion. That was unheard of in those days. We came to government, opened up the books and found that the Australian public had been lied to by the last Labor government on the state of the books. We found a $10 billion deficit for that year. Then we added up all of the deficits that had been run up by the Labor Party and found that they totalled some $96 billion. That is what Labor governments do. That is what they did federally. It took us seven, eight or nine tough years to pay off the Labor Party’s $96 billion debt. That debt happened during the term of the last Labor government.

We left the incoming Labor government with a surplus of $22 billion. Thanks to Peter Costello, there was $22 billion in credit put away in different funds. But 12 months later we are now debating on these appropriation bills a deficit of almost $60 billion. How could anyone possibly do that? I know they talk about the global financial crisis, but it has been exacerbated by the inexperience and incompetence of Mr Rudd and Mr Swan in dealing with our economy. What concerns me and, I think, an increasing number of Australians is the understanding that someone has to pay off the debts that have been racked up by Kevin Rudd. Someone has to deal with Mr Rudd’s debts—and it will be the children of the future.

There are many issues that we could raise about the budget. Since the Labor government have come in, they have spent something like $225 million a day. Money just goes through their hands like sand through the hourglass. It is always so easy to spend someone else’s money. It is much more difficult when you have to pay for it yourself.

I am concerned about the impact of the Labor Party’s mismanagement in this budget on rural and regional Australia, particularly Northern Australia, which I represent in a portfolio way. I want to just for a couple of minutes deal with the people who predominantly live in Northern Australia, and that is our Indigenous citizens, the original citizens of Australia. I want to point out how the Labor Party in concert with the Greens has taken Indigenous welfare back about 100 years. I want to quote some material from various sources that have indicated how Indigenous people understand that the Labor Party is paternalistic, does not want them to make their own decisions and wants to keep them on the welfare drip, and that, in doing that, they are being supported by the Greens for political purposes.

You only have to look at the furore over the Labor Party’s plan to create a World Heritage area on Cape York Peninsula and to declare wild rivers. Indigenous leader after Indigenous leader has pointed out that by doing that you are condemning Indigenous people to a welfare existence. Indigenous people quite rightly say that these so-called environmental initiatives are only being undertaken to get Greens preferences in the leafy suburbs of Brisbane—the same sort of preference deals that the Greens did with the Labor Party in supporting Labor candidates who were pledged to construct the Traveston Crossing Dam. I will quote Mr Noel Pearson. He said:

All of that (economic growth) is precluded because the premier has made sleazy political deals in the course of the recent political campaign …

It’s an absolute kick in the guts to us.

He went on to say that it was all because the Labor Party needed preferences from the Greens to retain office. Of course, the Greens who go along and pretend that they are interested in Indigenous matters simply continue to support Labor governments, particularly the one in Queensland, who seem determined to condemn Indigenous people to welfare.