Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

That is exactly right, Senator Corman: they stuff up everything they touch. In fact, it is a fraud on the public purse. It is just a dead wrong. They need to come clean. The Prime Minister needs to come into the chamber, hang his head in shame and say: ‘Enough is enough. I’m sorry for all the waste and mismanagement under my government.’ That is what should be done.

I want to make a few comments with respect to cost of living. An excellent summary of this was set out in the Herald Sun on Thursday, 29 April. The headline is ‘Your bills soar as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd fails to keep costs down’, and the story says:

THE soaring cost of petrol, child care, housing, electricity and health is proof Kevin Rudd is failing to deliver on his election pledge to tackle the cost of living for working families.

The Prime Minister sought to make living costs a key election issue when he courted votes from “working families” and repeatedly attacked the Howard government for having “no solution”.

An analysis by the Herald Sun, based on the latest report card from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, reveals price increases in the past 12 months for utilities, child care and petrol alone have ripped $1000 from the yearly budget of a typical working family.

And the cost of housing (both rent and interest rates), hospital and medical charges, education and even haircuts eats up more of the budget than the cheaper price for clothing and computers. Grocery prices have been mixed.

In Victoria, as the story goes on to say, electricity has gone up 20 per cent; water and sewage, 17.6 per cent; gas, 7.5 per cent; petrol, 7.4 per cent; house purchase costs, 6.3 per cent; property rates and charges, 5.3 per cent—and the list goes on. In terms of the cost of living, this government has failed absolutely and abundantly. It is very sad.

In terms of the environment, the Green Loans Program has collapsed and has been cancelled, at a cost of $175 million. What has happened at the tax office? Senator Sherry is responsible for what happens at the tax office, and what happened was that tens of thousands of taxpayers were left out of pocket after tax assessment letters went out without cheques attached—that is, 140,000 letters will need to be resent, while the ATO continues to pay interest on overdue refunds. I commend shadow Assistant Treasurer Sussan Ley, who said:

After 3 months ignoring the problem this is yet another example of the Rudd Government’s delayed response in addressing problems that are affecting families and business across Australia.

In terms of the environment again, a small-town Victorian football club was recently given 17 new hot water units, one for each player—how absurd!—under the Labor government’s hot water rebate scheme, which was intended for households only. The energy efficiency minister, Greg Combet, has been unable to explain how a sporting club benefited from the program. Koondrook footy club president Rod Barrington summed up the Labor government’s mismanagement perfectly when he said:

They just didn’t do any research about where it was going. It is taxpayers that pay for it.

Too right they are paying for it! They are paying for it through the neck.

In terms of the pink batts fiasco, it has gone from bad to worse. It was confirmed in the budget that $1 billion of taxpayers’ money will be spent to remedy that program, to fix it up.