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

There he goes, the apologist for West Australian big business is in there again, intervening in the debate. I think the public are not interested in the position that you are adopting. The public want Queensland rebuilt, they want northern New South Wales rebuilt, they want Victoria rebuilt—they want recovery from these disasters—and they want Western Australia rebuilt from the fires that are in that state. As Senator Cormann has said, a government that has its finances under control does not need a levy. Let me have a look at some of the levies that the Howard government put on.

The stevedoring levy: obviously no finances were under control by the Howard government when the stevedoring levy went on in 1998. The dairy levy: obviously you did not have your finances under control when you implemented the dairy levy in 2001. You had a surplus of $3.9 billion in 1998-99 when you put a levy on. You had a surplus in 2001 when you put a levy on. No wonder, Senator Cormann, you are walking out of the Senate, because you cannot accept that the reality of what you have just said exposes the nonsense that you have been putting forward in relation to your arguments. You put on an airport levy at a time when there was a surplus of $5.9 billion. You put on a sugar levy when there was a surplus of $7.4 billion. Peter Costello was lying back in his hammock, rocking away watching the money flooding in and John Howard was thrown out every budget on bribes to the public—that is the nature of the so-called fiscal responsibility of the Howard government.

Senator Cormann leaves the chamber because he just does not want to hear the reality of what the Howard government did. They had a superannuation surcharge levy, a gun buyback levy, a stevedoring levy, a milk levy, a sugar levy, an Ansett Airlines levy. They were proposing an East Timor levy. They were proposing a cleaner fuels levy. Yet they have got the gall to come in here and argue with us when we are proposing a one-off 12-month levy to rebuild this country after one of the biggest natural disasters we have ever seen. What a performance it has been from Senators Macdonald, Cormann and Bernardi. What a performance! Senator Macdonald in his usual petty, narrow minded, bitter way was trying to turn a natural disaster into an attack on a government that is determined to rebuild Queensland.

Senator Cormann, as I have said, is the Senate apologist for big business, the Senate apologist for big mining and the Senate apologist for big health. He was in here saying that we should not put a levy on—a modest levy to rebuild this country, to rebuild Queensland, northern New South Wales and Victoria. You see, Senator Cormann has been clear in his position. As long as Western Australia is doing all right, it does not matter about anywhere else. He is simply focused on Western Australia and on sucking up to the big mining lobby in Western Australia so that the Liberal Party of Western Australia can still maintain the money coming in so that it can maintain control within the Liberal Party of Australia. That is what Senator Cormann is about. Let’s not make any bones about what he is about. He is about big business and he is about the Liberal Party—the same as the Leader of the Opposition.