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

It has to be a better lecture than that, Senator Humphries. You see, you have abandoned your values, you have abandoned your beliefs and you have abandoned your mates. Do not come in here lecturing the Labor party about what we should do when you have abandoned your values and beliefs and then left a couple of senators in here to stand up for the values you know you should stand up for—and that is to do something constructive and real about climate change. That is the biggest economic challenge that this country faces. It is the biggest challenge in terms of putting pressure on ordinary working families. Yet what do you do? You backflip. You backflip with Senator Birmingham—‘Backflip’ Birmingham and ‘No heart’ Humphries. We see that as your position.

And do not come in here lecturing the Labor party about how good you were when you were in government and about what you would do now. We have seen what you would do: you would abandon your mates and not stand up for anything. You did not stand up for workers during the Work Choices campaign. You did not stand up for your own mates against the crazies in your party. So do not come in here lecturing the Labor party about what should be done on anything.

The coalition has abandoned any pretence of having good economic credentials or good economic management. You did not have it in the first place. You pretended that it was there. During all the time of Howard and Costello in government, what we saw was lazy, incompetent and ineffectual economic management. History shows us what you did. It was absolutely pathetic. No voice was raised then by Senator Humphries about workers and their living standards. No argument was raised then when you were ripping rights away.

It is no surprise that the coalition are looking for any opportunity to promote a scare campaign, because they have not got much else left. All they have is scare campaigns. They are on to their fourth leader since Labor came to power. We have a temporary leader in their current leader. When you talk about a Liberal leader, you have to talk about the current leader because you do not know who is going to be their next leader or when that will occur. The Liberals hate the Nationals, the Nationals hate the Liberals and the Liberals hate each other. That is the reality. You are an absolute rabble. You were a rabble before Christmas and you are a rabble after Christmas—new leader, same rabble. That is the reality for the coalition.

Do not pretend that you have any credentials when it comes to economic credibility, because the coalition’s only credential is in running scare campaigns. You are the geniuses of scare campaigns. You ran scare campaigns on asylum seekers. They are people who need help, people who need assistance, people who need asylum, yet what does this coalition do? It vilifies them. It uses them in a scare campaign. That is the type of action we get from the coalition. You ran fear campaigns on interest rates, yet your record on interest rates was pathetic. You ran fear campaigns on terrorism. You ran fear campaigns on anything to try and scare the community into supporting the Howard government. You ran a scare campaign on the union movement. It was the union movement who stood up for workers rights against the attacks of the coalition, yet you have the hide to come in here and talk about living standards and pressures on ordinary workers. The hypocrisy just drips from every one of you. It drips from every orifice of the coalition. It is everywhere, pouring out of you. It is pathetic.

You have had some success in one fear campaign. You have instilled absolute fear and loathing in the business community. Business are petrified at the thought of Senator Joyce ever ending up as finance minister. Business are petrified that the Nationals will be given the purse strings of the nation. Imagine giving the Nationals the purse strings of the nation. Imagine giving the National Party, the supreme pork-barrellers, the funds of this country—and they talk about economic credibility. I will tell you about economic credibility: giving the Nationals and giving Senator Joyce the purse strings of the nation demonstrates that you have got absolutely no economic credibility. The appointment of Senator Joyce as the shadow finance minister rips away any pretence of economic credibility that the coalition claim to have. Let me tell you: it is a claim; it is not a fact.

Barnaby Joyce’s first major address as shadow minister was at the National Press Club, and how was it described in the Australian today? Let me tell you that Senator Joyce, the man who could have the purse strings of the nation, gave an address that was described as ‘gaffes, goofs and gibberish’. You have only got to see Senator Joyce in action to know that that is a very good description of how he operates. Senator Joyce’s appointment was about trying to paper over the divisions in the coalition. It was about trying to give some veneer of substance to the false argument that they are together. They are not together; they are split apart. That is the reality. We cannot afford to have Senator Joyce and the National Party in charge of the purse strings.

Senator Coonan, who was ditched to put Senator Joyce in as the spokesperson on finance, must have had a wry smile on her face when she watched Senator Joyce on Lateline and at the Press Club. She must have said, ‘I’m glad it’s him and not me,’ because putting the National Party in charge of the purse strings of this country was an absolutely pathetic example of the economic irresponsibility of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. This is Senator Joyce, who does not believe in climate change, who does not believe in the market and who wants to hand over money based on greed. His argument is that the coalition environmental policy will work because business will be greedy and they will want the money. I for one have had enough of big-business greed. I for one have had enough of the nonsense that is being perpetrated on the opposite side as economic policy. Arguing that greed will drive your environmental policy after the global financial crisis is absolutely ridiculous. What an absolute fraud of a coalition you lot are. What an absolute disgrace—no economic credibility at all.

Do not talk about workers, do not talk about interest rates and do not talk about pressure on workers until you get rid of Senator Joyce. I will tell you what is going to happen: the Liberal Party will demand that Senator Joyce goes anyway, because it is unsustainable for Senator Joyce to continue the gaffes, the goofs and the gibberish between now and the election. You know that and you know that will have to change.

We cannot afford an economic policy based on an environmental policy—and I use the word loosely when it comes to the coalition—that puts pressure on ordinary working families, and that is what your policy does. Your policy takes the money out of the public purse. It is unfunded. You claim you will find the money, but we know where you think the money is going to come from. In my view, it will come from ordinary working families. You know that is what is going to happen. We cannot afford a coalition government that increases the cost of living for all Australians through its con job of an environmental policy. What a con job it is. You bow at the knee to big business every day in the Senate. You say to them that they can continue to rip away at the profitability of this country. Executive salaries can go through the roof and there is not a murmur from the coalition, not a murmur about massive executive salaries and not a murmur about ripping profits and wealth out of shareholders and the community and putting it back into the executives’ pockets. Your economic credibility is not there. When you start raising that issue of the rip-offs against shareholders by executives in this country, you might start having some economic credibility. You have let big business and those executives off the hook. The polluters will pay nothing under your policy. Under your economic policy and your environmental policy, it is business as usual, and you hope that greed will mean that the environmental policy will work. What a pathetic lot you are.

You cannot really be an alternative government when you have no economic policy of any substance and when you have no environmental policy of any substance either. You have a responsibility as an alternative government to explain where the money will come from for your pathetic environmental policy. You call it ‘direct action’. I have heard that name before. Direct action will be a direct hit on working families in this country because they will have to pay for your policy. Also, to pay for your policy there will have to be service cuts. What services will you cut to fund your pathetic environmental policy?

You have to tell Australians which cuts will be made to the health system, the education system, the welfare system and infrastructure spending. We know that the shadow Treasurer, Mr Hockey, wants to cut support for the car industry. This is typical of the coalition: attack workers in industries where they have high skills, decent wages and unionised employment. You hate unions so you go for the jugular. And Mr Hockey can do that quite easily because there are not many car workers in the northern suburbs of Sydney. There are not many car workers on the northern beaches of Sydney, so he can say: ‘We don’t care what happens to working-class people in Geelong, in Albury-Wodonga and in other areas around the country. It doesn’t matter because I’m in the leafy suburbs of North Sydney. I can nip up to the northern beaches. I don’t have to worry because I’m okay. I’m in a safe electorate. We can discard car workers, we can discard industry policy and we can rely on being a quarry, a farm and a tourist destination.’ That is the Liberals’ approach to policy. It has never worked in the past and it will not work in the future. It is typical—attack working people.

You talk about the increased cost of living. It is about time the coalition understood that, simply by ripping away support for our key industries, the cost of living and the stress on the workers who lose their jobs is massive. They are not workers who can move easily into another job. They are not workers who can easily pick up their commitments. They are workers who live week to week, but you do not understand about workers living week to week. You do not care about them because that is what Work Choices was all about. You do not care one iota about ordinary workers. Having introduced Work Choices, your hypocrisy in coming here and talking about the pressure on workers is absolutely mind boggling.

There is another thing I want to say. Apart from your uncaring, unthinking policies and the devastation that they would bring to ordinary working families, I abhor the dismissive attitude that the coalition has to employment in the Commonwealth public sector. Since I have come to Canberra—it has not been that long—I have met people in Canberra, hardworking public servants who are putting in the hours day in, day out for this nation and day in, day out for this parliament. They are highly competent professional public servants. I would not include Godwin Grech in that description but I certainly would describe the majority of public servants as highly competent, good Australians who are doing their best. Yet what do we see from the coalition to fund this mickey mouse con job of a policy? They are going to cut back on the Public Service. When you cut back on the Public Service you cut back on services to the public. This lot do not care because they are still leaderless. You could not call the current Leader of the Opposition a leader, because he was never good enough to have a leadership position in the Howard government. He was never in cabinet. He was never a leader.