Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

It is quite evident that we are now in a twilight zone where we are once more sucked into believing the Labor Party, who told us, merely a couple of years ago, that today we would be experiencing a surplus of about $17 billion. Yet now we have before us a $57.1 billion deficit. That is what they have delivered. In raw terms, that is a record. We have never had a deficit bigger than that. The question that people rightly ask is: how did we get ourselves this problem? We have $140 billion in gross debt. Even the Labor Party admit we are heading towards $222 billion in gross debt. If we put on top of that the state debts, which are predominantly debts that the Labor governments have brought about, we are starting to get into real problems.

The Labor government make statements that they are going to hit a target, but when it comes to money they never do. They can never hit the target when it comes to money because they lack the acumen; they lack the capacity for cost control. Of course, one key example that all Australians are aware of is the ceiling insulation program. It was pathos. It was so hopeless, such a stuff-up, that it will go down in the annals of our nation’s history. To think that we could conduct a program that burnt down in excess of 120 houses; that has been responsible for the deaths of at least four people—and we suspect more; and that is going to cost in the vicinity of $1 billion to fix up! They only spent $1.5 billion of the money. It is an example of how the Labor government have no concept of the value of money or the capacity to control costs.

Then we had Building the Education Revolution. Where do these terms come from—these ‘revolutions’, these ‘wars’? They are emotive statements, but the government lack the acumen and the diligence to sit down and really control costs. That is not sexy but it is absolutely essential, and it has been missed.

We now have discretionary expenditure in excess of $90 billion. This is why Australia is so much in debt. And this massive problem is now forcing up interest rates and causing real problems out there in the general economy.

The Labor Party blow-outs just go on and on, even if we go down to the minutiae. Do you remember them talking about computers—the toolboxes of the 21st century—as they earnestly held them in their hands and said they were going to deliver that outcome? What do we have? They were going to provide a million of them. I think 220,000 of the million were delivered and the budget has blown out by a billion dollars. Everywhere you look you find examples where things are coming unstuck.

Now they tell us that, as we go forward, we are to be impressed by the fact that they will be borrowing only in excess of $700 million a week. That is supposed to be a good outcome. This cannot go on. As I have said all along, if we go on like this then something has to snap. A rational conversation with any person who has been dealing with money would tell you that things just cannot go on like this.

Let’s look at the opportunities we could have had. They have just talked about rail infrastructure. What sort of rail infrastructure do we have? They have announced a billion-dollar upgrade on rail, I acknowledge that, but what happened to inland rail? What happened to the capacity to really drive projects that would make the Australian people proud; that would actually take trucks, such as the 1,600 trucks that go through Moree each day, off the road? What happened to that vision? When it comes to infrastructure, this crowd are about as exciting as a jam sandwich. If it does not fall off the back of a truck, to be bolted together in a schoolyard, they just do not know how to do it. When it does happen like that, they end up paying three times the price. We have had the Labor Party blow-outs on GroceryWatch and on Fuelwatch—those voyeuristic endeavours—but what did those programs deliver? We get the bill but we never get the outcome.

Minister Wong is in charge of a department that has in excess of 400 staff, but they do not have a job. What goes on in there? They must have discussions about philosophy or issues for a higher intellect. What is going on in that department? What is its purpose? We have a health department with in excess of 5,000 employees and not one patient. These issues might not be sexy but they are the reason the Labor Party have got us into so much debt and created so many problems. These problems are going to become manifest and, as we go on, the Australian people are going to have to ask themselves a very serious question: can we afford to leave the Labor Party there for another three years? How will we get on top of this debt if we do not deal with the issues they have brought about? What on earth is the process for dealing with it?

In the budget papers, the Labor Party have put out the idea of nirvana. They would have it that there is a nirvana out there at a time when, to be honest, Mr Rudd will not even be the Prime Minister. He certainly will not be the leader of the Labor Party. They push their solutions to a point you cannot nail them down to, then they run—and they have been quite successful in getting the media to laud them—at a position that is not even imminent. Australia has to have a retrospective on the promises about delivery that they have made in the past and where we actually are now, and it must judge its client—being the Labor Party—on that basis: what they promised, what they delivered and how much we actually paid for it.

If you really want to look at it, let us look at the minutiae of some of these things. The other day, I went to Manilla Public School—$1.807 million for two demountables that were bolted together on the site. For $1.807 million, I imagine most Australians would expect a pretty fancy sort of house—we are talking tiles, we are talking a pool, we are talking a tennis court. What this school in regional New South Wales got was two demountables bolted together. Remember: they did not have to buy the land, the land was already there. They came off the back of a truck. They were constructed in a factory in Newcastle. This goes to show you where Australia is coming unstuck. We have to have this honest discussion with the Australian people about exactly what is happening to them. We know that one in 10 principals say that the projects they got they did not want or did not need or were overpriced. We have P&Cs saying, ‘If you had only given us the opportunity to have a greater say in what we got, then we would have got better value for money.’

After the brouhaha about the apparently miraculous $1 billion surplus three years out, I would put my left one on it that that is not going to happen. I have seen this line and I can assure you that that is just not going to happen. We could all talk about it and it could be a wonderful discussion piece, but can you honestly believe this crowd, which has not delivered a surplus since, I think, 1990—I stand to be corrected on that, but I think that was the last one they did?

The coalition, for all the problems people have—we were mean or we were this or we were that—delivered surpluses 10 out of 12 years. An accountant judging their clients would say: ‘This is the sort of client that I want to run the books. That is the client I just do not want anywhere near the chequebook because they have not got a clue.’ The Australian people are coming to terms with that. They are saying, ‘We really are starting to doubt where you are off to.’

The latest one—which just takes the cake—is the nationalisation of the mining industry. So help me! Where did that idea come from? How did that one manage to make it through? You are now going to basically take ownership of 40 per cent of the mining industry—taking up 40 per cent of the revenues and accepting 40 per cent of course of their costs. This is ‘Castro Kevin’ at his best. There is a peculiarity that has come into this.

Do you think for one moment that, now you have a 58 per cent tax rate on mining companies, you might have a slight problem with vertically integrated companies that work across nation boundaries? Do you think that a fully state-owned enterprise from overseas is not going to move its profits, even though it might operate here, back to a more sensible and favourable taxing regime? I expect to find in this budget a huge allocation for the Australian tax office, because they are going to be very busy boys and ladies chasing around the money that is going to go hell west and crooked but is never actually going to be nailed down—it is the blow-outs, it is the costs, it is the waste and it is the bill that is left for the Australian people. What we got from you guys is about as exciting as a jam sandwich.