John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

‘And we have,’ I hear. I do not know where the senator on the other side of the chamber shops, but where I shop they certainly have not gone down. So what method did the government take to put downward pressure on grocery prices? It brought in GroceryWatch. The first time I went to the website, I saw some grocery prices for Tamworth and Grafton in northern New South Wales. Is that not great for the people who live in Inverell, Armidale, Glen Innes or Tenterfield? Are they expected to drive down to Tamworth to save 5c on a packet of biscuits because it said it on the website? It was a waste of $10 million. It was thrown in the bin—and thank goodness for that. But that was the Prime Minister’s way of putting downward pressure on grocery prices.

Then what was the next step? Mr Rudd said to the Australian people, ‘In government we will put downward pressure on fuel prices.’ Thank goodness we did not blow another $10 million on Fuelwatch. You can imagine the same scenario: there is the fuel price in Tamworth and the fuel price in Grafton. Someone lives in Inverell, about 250 kilometres away, and petrol is 2c a litre cheaper in Grafton and Tamworth and they say: ‘I’ll drive to Grafton. By the time I get there I’ll run out of petrol anyway to save 2c a litre.’ How ridiculous! Thank goodness it never got wings.

I will go back to the promises the government made. All the computers we were going to have in our schools for year 9 students are still on their way. Then we had the magnificent successful 2020 Summit. It brought everyone down here and what a great talkfest it was. What was derived out of that summit? Nothing at all. So the promises of Mr Rudd to the Australian people go on with how we are going to put downward pressure on the cost of living. Let us have a look at childcare costs. If you are going to cut the cost of living for working families, the best place to start would be child care. We have just found out that childcare fees will rise by up to $200 per week. The Rudd government changes to the childcare standard will see parents slugged up to $40 a day extra, with 42 per cent of metropolitan centres and 79 per cent of regional childcare centres admitting they will be forced to increase their charges. Let us get it straight: we have not had any downward pressure on groceries or fuel and childcare costs are going in only one direction.

The big issue here is that the Prime Minister is saying we must improve productivity in our nation by 2050—he plans a long way ahead. How can we improve productivity when we have the classic situation of mum wanting to go back to work but not being able to afford child care? So what does she do? She is forced to stay at home. It is not worth going to work because all the money she earns is paid to childcare facilities. Let us go a bit further. The electricity bill is there every three months. On 1 July last year, in New South Wales there was a 21 per cent increase in the cost of electricity. That was the state government of New South Wales, of course. Obviously, Mr Rudd’s downward pressure on the cost of living never flowed through COAG.; it was just a case of jamming the price up.

So what is the next solution? The emissions trading scheme. This is a farce. Let me give you a few figures. For a $114 billion tax on our nation the proposed emissions trading scheme is going to reduce Australia’s emissions by 30 million tonnes a year by 2020. We expel around 550 million tonnes a year now, and we are going to reduce that to 520 million tonnes. That will save the globe for sure! But hang on, will it? By 2020, China and India combined will be expelling an extra five billion—‘b’ for billion—tonnes of greenhouse gases. The government says that if we reduce emissions by 30 million tonnes—which is a drop in the ocean compared to five billion—we are going to cool the globe and stop the seas from rising. They use all these sorts of scare campaigns. Senator Cameron referred to the coalition’s fear campaign on this issue. This is outrageous. There is a $114 cost to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 million tonnes when the rest of the world has done nothing. They had a talkfest at Copenhagen that achieved nothing, but the government still want to take Australia down this road of destruction. Our industries will shift overseas. The cement industry will be the first to go. Senator Cameron was talking about jobs in Australia. It will be goodbye to 1,870 jobs in the cement industry in regional Australia because, under the emissions trading scheme, by 2014 those 14 factories will have to pay an extra $20 million a year. They will not survive; they cannot survive. This is how the government intend to keep downward pressure on the cost of living. It is simply farcical.

I want to move on to another area that is a huge threat, as far as costs go in this nation, as a direct result of the Rudd Labor government. I refer to our aged-care facilities and the aged-care industry. We have just seen a splash of some $15 billion into Building the Education Revolution in our schools. We have heard of some of the classics. Abbotsford Primary School, in Sydney, got $4 million to pull down four perfectly good classrooms and replace them with four new classrooms. Is that spending the nation’s money wisely? We have a $15 billion splash around the nation on building in schools—which is the responsibility of the state governments because they run the schools. But aged care is a federal responsibility. How much of the $42 billion stimulus package went into aged-care facilities to help that industry? The answer is: not a cent. We have facilities like St Anne’s out at Broken Hill. Senator Cameron might be interested in this. Broken Hill is a mining town that has wound down its mining compared to many years ago, and the average age there is much higher than for most of Australia. But they cannot afford to expand their aged-care facility because they do not have the funds. The Grace Munro aged-care facility at Bundarra, just south of Inverell, is being threatened with closure because the providers, McLean retirement village, were simply losing too much money. They have lost up to $600,000 to keep the small facility open. But what did the government do to help the aged-care industry? The answer is: nothing. The government are worried about the percentage of the population that is going to need aged care in years to come, but they have neglected aged care and simply borrowed and wasted so much money.

Senator Cameron asks us how we are going to get $3.2 billion over four years for our environmental plan. We can find it easily—just through the waste of this government. That money over four years is less than this government has spent on pink batts in ceilings. It is as simple as that. It is less than the money you committed to pay people to put pink batts in the ceiling. Over four years the coalition will spend $3.2 billion on an environmental package to look after our soil—the very soil that grows the food that keeps us all alive—but the Labor Party will be spending $40 billion and inflicting $40 billion of debt on the nation. That is the forecast for the first four years of your emissions trading scheme: $40 billion, compared to the coalition’s $3.2 billion. That is a big difference, and those are the facts of the budgets.

The government has not put any downward pressure on the cost of living at all. It was all talk. It was all political statements to gain support for the election in November 2007. They have now tried to cut costs by halving the rebate to ophthalmologists for carrying out cataract surgery. Thank goodness there has been some common sense brought about there. How can someone in a regional area travel long distances, employ staff, rent facilities and remove cataracts for $300? A vet quotes $3½ thousand to remove a cataract from your pet dog! It is crazy. As far as the cost of living goes, under this government nothing has gone down.

When we look back on the coalition’s history—as Senator Cameron leaves the chamber—we see a real increase in wages of 20 per cent over the time of the Howard government, but, when we go to the government before that, there was a reduction in real wages. When it comes to cutting costs, when it comes to cutting interest rates over the long term, when it comes to the future of our nation and controlling debt and paying off debt and simply not building debt, there is one side of politics that you can trust.

The cost of living has not come down. Mr Rudd made promises. We know that many of the promises he made prior to the 2007 election—for example, the downward pressure on grocery prices—were a farce. Even the staunchest on the other side would have been embarrassed about the GroceryWatch website. Fuelwatch never eventuated, thank goodness. The cost of transport is going up. I could go on more about the cost of insurance and what is happening in New South Wales with an increase in fire levies and stamp duty et cetera, compounding on the ordinary household—(Time expired)