Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

So you understand me okay? Senator Fierravanti-Wells reminds me of a book that was very popular some years ago: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I do not know what planet you are on, but you are not on a planet that is anywhere near the reality of this planet. You are not on a planet that is anywhere near dealing with the needs of the Australian community.

What that speech demonstrated and encapsulated is the incompetence of the coalition. Here we are in a global economic crisis, and what do we have a New South Wales senator come and talk about? She talks about signage at schools in New South Wales—that is the level. That is the competence, or should I say incompetence, of Senator Fierravanti-Wells in her understanding of the economic challenges.

That speech was all about a diversion. It was a diversion from the trials and tribulations of the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull. That is what it was about. It was about trying to look elsewhere—anywhere other than at the working of the federal government and the needs of the community of Australia—in order to try and hide the incapacity and incompetence of the Leader of the Opposition. It was a diversion from the lack of policy that the opposition display day in, day out in the Senate. It was a diversion from the lack of leadership—no leadership on any of the big issues facing the Australian public. There was no leadership for a decade and we still do not get leadership from the opposition. It was a diversion from the splits and the disunity in the coalition.

You really do not have any capacity to come here and criticise a government that recognises the issues, takes on the challenges and deals with the problems that this community is facing in a decisive and effective way. So we get these diversions and these meanderings and this nonsense from Senator Fierravanti-Wells in her contribution. This really is a diversion from the coalition’s inability to understand the economic challenges facing Australia arising from the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Why don’t we hear the coalition talk about the international economy, about the challenges facing every government around the world? I will tell you why we do not hear about it: because the coalition is a rabble. The coalition is disunited. The coalition does not have any policies. The coalition has a weak and incapable leader. The Nationals are fighting with the Liberals. The Liberals do not like the Nationals. That is what we are faced with. The public look aghast at the lack of performance from the coalition. Senator Fierravanti-Wells encapsulated the incompetence, the lack of vision, the lack of economic understanding that the coalition perpetrates in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

What we have here is a coalition that are bitter. The coalition cannot accept that the Australian public had enough of them. The coalition are dispirited. They are squabbling with each other, fighting with each other—no vision, no plan, no strategy ever to lead this country. They are a coalition that are isolated from reality, never talking about the real issues that are affecting Australian working families and Australian communities. So the diversions flow continually. The diversions are there because you have no alternatives—no alternative leader, no alternative policies and no alternative to a decisive, effective Labor government. That is the problem that we face with the coalition in this country.

I want to go back to what I said earlier. When the coalition were in government we had a decade of lost opportunities. The money was flowing into the economy because of our terms of trade and our mineral exports. The terms of trade had never been better. It was like a government winning the biggest lotto in the world. And yet what did you do with it? You did nothing, absolutely nothing. You absolutely failed to build for the future. You absolutely failed in a range of the key economic issues that build the economy, and you left this economy ill-prepared for the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression. That decade of failure was a failure of investment. Less than two-thirds of profits ever went back into investment to provide the machinery, to provide the technology for new jobs in this country. That was your failure, a failure of investment.

It was a failure of innovation. We hear much about innovation and research and development, but where were we in the decade under the Howard government? The fourth-bottom of the OECD. That is where we were in terms of investment in research and development and innovation—1.7 per cent of GDP in research and development, the fourth-bottom of the OECD. Productivity, despite this Work Choices, despite Senator Minchin going to the HR Nicholls Society, prostrating himself and saying, ‘I’m sorry we didn’t do more; I’m sorry we didn’t take more workers’ rights away—we’ll do better next time. I really apologise to the HR Nicholls Society,’ productivity was below par in the OECD.

It was a failure of development: elaborately transformed manufactured exports declined under the Howard government. Don’t come here talking about economic credentials and bad economic decisions. It was a decade of incompetence from the Howard government. It was a failure in competitiveness: we were less competitive under the Howard government. It was a failure of balance: $30 billion went from wages to profits under the Howard government. Infrastructure development declined from six per cent of GDP to 3.9 per cent of GDP.

And the coalition failed on sustainability, the biggest challenge facing governments around the world. On dealing with global warming, dealing with climate change, they were a complete failure. The coalition continue to be a failure on climate change policy. At each others throats, divided, the deniers there do not want to do anything about global warming. They are an absolute rabble.

And that is just the decade of the Howard government. No wonder the Australian public had enough of you. No wonder the Australian public said, ‘We want better than this; we want a government that will take the decisions to take this country forward into the future.’ And that is what they got. When they elected the Rudd government the public got a government that was prepared to deal with the challenges of the global economic crisis, challenges that laid out a decline of $210 billion in taxation receipts; nine out of 10 of our trading partners in recession; the world economy contracting by 1½ per cent; advanced economies contracting by 3¾ per cent; unemployment around the world going up, to 10 per cent in some states of the USA; wealth destroyed around the world; confidence down around the world—and yet what do we get from Senator Fierravanti-Wells? ‘We don’t like the signs on the schools.’ I think the Australian public deserve better from the coalition. The sooner you change your leader, the sooner you have a leader who can actually provide some leadership, who can provide some direction for you, the better—because being an uncoordinated rabble without the capacity to develop policy leads to speeches like that of Senator Fierravanti-Wells, where you do not deal with the real issues, where you do not deal with unemployment for Australians, where you do not deal with communities facing the global economic crisis.

This is the problem; a dispirited, ineffectual, incompetent coalition. An example just wandered past me right now. This is the problem that we have, leaving this country ill-prepared for the global economic crisis. But the Labor government moved quickly and we moved decisively. What we have done is to stimulate demand to keep more than 210,000 Australians in work. What do we hear from the coalition, out there on Planet Zog somewhere, arguing about who is going to be the next leader? That is the biggest debate in the coalition: who is going to be the next leader.

Yet the ACCI came out and said basically do not withdraw the economic stimulus, that any sudden withdrawal of the stimulus would have a negative effect on the economy. The coalition do not hear this. You do not even listen to your former allies. You do not listen to business, you do not listen to the trade union movement, you do not listen to the Australian community. All you do is fight amongst yourselves, squabble and bicker. You cannot find a seat for Senator Joyce in the House of Representatives. He wants to go there. You want to fight about that. You want to fight about neo-liberalism. You want to defend neo-liberalism. You want to let the market rip, not worry about what it does to communities. Let us not learn the lessons of the global financial crisis; just let neo-liberalism rip. Do not let the government intervene in the interests of the economy. That is ready the basis of the problems with the coalition. They are a dispirited, disunited rabble with no policies, no leader, absolutely incompetent and not available to be an alternative government for this country.

What have the Labor Party done? We have looked after pensioners. We have put economic stimulus in place. We have looked at infrastructure. We will build the rail system of the future. We will build the road system of the future. We will build the schools of the future, the universities of the future, the things that a coalition government should have done during your 10 years of incompetence and inaction.

What did you say when we were facing the global financial crisis? ‘Let us wait and see what happens.’ Yet the IMF, the OECD, the Treasury, every economist of any standing was saying now is the time for government to intervene, to make sure that unemployment does not go through the roof, so that a depression does not come on, so that working families are not destroyed because of inaction of government. What did we get from the coalition? We got carping, inane criticism that has no resonance in the community. That is why the coalition will be a coalition in opposition for years to come, because you do not have any answers for the Australian public. You do not have a vision for the Australian public. You do not have any heart and you do not have any mind to deal with the problems and challenges that Australia faces. The Rudd government have delivered, the Rudd government will still deliver. We are not out of the woods yet. We have problems and we will deal with them. (Time expired)