Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, wish to speak on this report from the Department of Climate Change. I follow on from Senator Marshall’s comments about the ministerial statement that the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, Mr Combet, presented in the House of Representatives yesterday, which was tabled in the Senate today. I would also like to take issue with some of the points made by senators opposite about this program. I note that Senator Barnett, who spoke before me, often likes to stand up in this place and pose as the champion of small business. In his small speech tonight, he contributed in a negative way to the rehabilitation of the home insulation industry. In the situation in which we find ourselves, it is incumbent upon all of us to cooperate in order to restore confidence in this very important industry in Australia and not continually throw hand grenades and incite fear and terror in the public. We need to work together to deal with the shonks in the industry who took advantage of the government’s program and caused all these problems. We need to work together to make sure that small business and those honourable businesspeople engaged in this industry and the people who work for them continue to work in this industry, which delivers great environmental benefits to Australia.

It is not helpful at all, Senator Barnett, to stand up there and spout these figures about costs that you take from the front page of newspapers—and no doubt you also supply them to the newspapers—which have no justification. But you are not really interested in the facts of the matter and, contrary to what you keep saying, you are not interested in business plans or planning. What about the ridiculous proposal for paid parental leave that was announced by the Leader of the Opposition with not only no consultation with his own party but also absolutely no costings involved? It is something that the Leader of the Opposition just shot from the mouth. It is a ridiculous proposal. Those of us who have thought about this may well see it as a deliberate intention to thwart the introduction of any kind of paid parental leave scheme in the Senate. After all, you are indicating that that is what you are going to do, because you know that your own ridiculous scheme, which even Senator Barnaby Joyce is gobsmacked about, will never get up in the Senate, and neither should it.

I return to the Home Insulation Program, the remediation of that and the introduction of the new program that is rightly now with the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, which is very capably led by Minister Wong, ably assisted by Minister Combet. In his ministerial statement yesterday, Minister Combet pointed out some things that we need to remember about the program. I take us back again to the Home Insulation Program, which was part of the government’s economic stimulus package and intended to prevent the worst effects of the global financial crisis, including massive job losses. You over there cannot stand the fact that our economic stimulus package was incredibly successful and that it saved hundreds of thousands of jobs for Australian workers.

You just cannot bear the fact that every time you go out in your electorates you can see the evidence of the success of our economic stimulus package. We are building the best possible schools in Australia. We are investing in education. We are investing in infrastructure such as the NBN that you have been so critical of. We are investing in hospitals. We are investing in the best healthcare services that we possibly can. We have to do it because you did not do it. You did nothing in your 12 years of government. You just let Australia’s infrastructure fall apart. You did nothing for our schools. You did nothing for our health sector. Lord knows how many internet plans there were! There were 18, I think, and all of them were complete failures. All you want to bring back are carrier pigeons and smoke signals! That is what you are after. With that, I conclude my remarks on this report. Is anybody else speaking on it?