Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

Where to begin? If only eight minutes were enough. It is not going to be, but I am sure my colleague Senator Back will follow it up. I will move onto what we have just heard soon. What we see from the Labor Party is an attempt at all costs to avoid a discussion of their own record. Let me just go over a few of Labor’s broken promises. There are many; I do not have time to cover them all. In February 2008 the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said, ‘The private heath insurance rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.’ That did not last the year as the government walked back on that promise and sought to means test the private health insurance rebate. I would like to point out, Senator Hurley, that it was a promise in writing from the shadow minister for health to the Australian Health Insurance Association. But it was not a promise which the government kept.

In November 2007 at the Labor Party campaign launch—you cannot think of another time where there was probably more national attention on the then Leader of the Opposition—the then Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, said, ‘We have no plans to make any other changes to the way the baby bonus is structured either in terms of eligibility or payment methods.’ Yet again, that did not last the first budget. Six months later the then Prime Minister and the then Treasurer stood up and tried to confect an excuse to break that explicit promise again. They are just two of the meaningful promises.

Then we move to the ridiculous: the ridiculous promise for a citizens assembly, the national focus group on climate change organised by Mark Arbib and probably moderated by Karl Bitar. Most people thought they were going through an election at the time to actually elect what we call a citizens assembly, our national parliament; but no, that ridiculous promise by the then Prime Minister—