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

His valedictory—that is right. I am so pleased he is interested in what I say because what I say is important in terms of the issues that face ordinary Australians. What the Labor Party says is absolutely fundamental to the living standards of all Australians. The problem for Senator McGauran, the problem for Senator Williams and the problem for Senator Fifield, who spoke previously, is that they do not go back to the origins of this debate. I am glad to go back to the origins of the debate, which are simply this: should governments around the world and should the Australian government take action to deal with carbon pollution? That is the fundamental issue. The reason the opposition go on is that they do not believe carbon pollution is real. They do not believe in climate change. Their leader absolutely believes that carbon pollution is crap, that climate change is crap—that is the Leader of the Opposition’s position. We must put everything we hear from the opposition in that perspective.

It is hypocritical of the opposition to pretend—that is what they are doing—that they care about the living standards of working people in this country. That is the greatest lot of codswallop I have ever heard. Watch them react in a minute when I press the Work Choices button. They are reacting already. A smile is on their face; a smile which says, ‘Please don’t mention Work Choices because you’ve got us pinged. You’ve exposed the hypocrisy of the coalition.’ Don’t talk to me about looking after working families. Don’t talk to me about rising costs of living when you can set out to take away the right of workers to negotiate with their employer to get a decent standard of living in this country.

What about the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott? He still believes that Work Choices should be there. Back on 1 December 2009 he was asked:

Is that that still part of your manifesto now?

He said:

Well, the phrase WorkChoices is dead. No-one will ever mention it again, but look, we have to have a free and flexible economy.

So you are never going to mention Work Choices, but in reality you want Work Choices back in. That will do more damage to workers’ standard of living in this country than any carbon price would ever do. Tony Abbott also said back in 2008:

The Howard government’s industrial legislation, it was good for wages, it was good for jobs and it was good for workers. And let’s never forget that.

I will tell you what we will never forget. We will never forget the impact of Work Choices on the standard of living of Australian families. We will never forget that because we know that you do not care. You come here arguing about the standard of living for ordinary working people and you really do not care. It is all a mass of hypocrisy. It oozes out of every pore of your body. What was the impact of Work Choices? Work Choices was devastating on Australian families’ standard of living—absolutely devastating. More than a million Australians on awards suffered a real pay cut of up to $97.75 a week, almost $100 a week, and you have the hide to come here and talk about the standard of living of workers. You have absolutely no idea about the needs of ordinary working people.

Hundreds of thousands of workers were pushed onto individual contracts. Seventy per cent of workers lost their shift loadings. You have got a responsibility to stand up and tell us how that squares off with protecting the standard of living of ordinary workers. Sixty-eight per cent lost their annual leave loading. Annual leave loadings went down the tube with the coalition. Sixty-five per cent lost their penalty rates. That is the history of the coalition and their so-called concern for workers’ standard of living. Forty-nine per cent lost their overtime loadings. That was your contribution to ordinary workers’ standard of living. Do not come here and lecture us about standards of living for working people. Do not come here with your hypocrisy oozing out every pore.

Twenty-five per cent lost their public holidays. That was your contribution to the standard of living of workers in this country. More than 3½ million Australians lost protection from unfair dismissal. That was how you cared for workers in this country. An unknown number of workers—they just could not be counted—were sacked or treated unfairly and had no recourse during the coalition push on Work Choices and the implementation of that legislation. So do not come here lecturing us about standards of living when you were the destroyers of workers’ standards of living under Work Choices.

Not only were you the destroyers of workers’ standards of living under Work Choices, you were absolute economic incompetents when you were in government. It is interesting to note that Senator Fifield, who has left the chamber, was an advisor to one of the worst treasurers this country has seen, Peter Costello. Peter Costello has built a myth around himself, yet what was Peter Costello? He was one of the weakest treasurers we have ever seen. When John Howard went to him and said, ‘We are going to squander the surplus; we are going to dole it all out in the budget,’ Peter Costello did not have the fortitude, the backbone or the guts to stand up to John Howard. Not only did he not have the guts to stand up to him in relation to economic policy, he did not have the guts to stand up to him when he was demanding the leadership of the Liberal Party. He just did not have it. So I am not one who comes in here and swoons about Peter Costello. I do not buy the rhetoric about Peter Costello. He had people like Senator Fifield advising him when they were lying back there watching the money roll in from the mining boom and doling it all out on tax cuts that were doing nothing to build this country for the future. You may understand that I am not a Peter Costello fan. I am not a fan of somebody who is weak. I am not a fan of somebody who does not look after the country well. I am not a fan of someone who delivered this.

This is what Peter Costello delivered: a failure of investment in this country under the coalition. Less than two-thirds of profits were ever reinvested in this country. So investment did not come in. There was a failure of innovation. We were amongst the lowest in research and development and innovation in the world. There was a failure of productivity. Our productivity growth was at the bottom of the OECD. There was a failure of development. Our transport manufacturers share fell from 23½ per cent to 17½ per cent. The things that you make, the things that are the knowledge industry, fell under the Howard government. There was a failure of competitiveness. There was a failure of balance because you ripped $30 billion out of the wage share in this country and you put it into the profits of big business through Work Choices. That is what you lot did, so do not come here with your hypocrisy and lecture us about cost-of-living issues.

The biggest problem that you had was a failure of sustainability. You know John Howard wanted to bring in a price on carbon. You know he wanted a trading scheme but he could never get it up because the extremists were there. Why did he want to get it up? At least Howard did recognise what the scientists were saying because he was getting the advice from the scientists. What were the scientists saying? They were saying: that there were surging greenhouse gas emissions around the world; that recent global temperatures demonstrate human induced warming; that there is an acceleration of the melting of the ice sheets, glaciers and ice caps; that there is rapid Arctic sea ice decline; that the current sea level rises are underestimated; that the sea levels predicted by 2010 are likely to rise twice as much as the projections; that if we delay action it will result in irreversible damage; and that the turning point must come soon.

Yet what do we see the coalition do about this? We see the Leader of the Opposition out there playing footsy with Pauline Hanson in front of the parliament today. That is the level of leadership you get from the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott—an absolute disgrace. He was out there misrepresenting the facts and misrepresenting the science on global warming. This guy is not fit to be the Leader of the Opposition and will never be fit to be the leader of this country. Yet what do we get from the coalition? They say, ‘We will put a plan in that is cheaper. We have got a direct action plan.’ I have to say to you that no-one accepts the direct action plan will work. There is no-one around, other than the shadow minister, Greg Hunt, who thinks that will work. He sat down one night and said, ‘We have got to get something to try to give us a buffer against the science and the reality of how the market works,’ and he came up with direct action.

As I said in a speech earlier today, the Liberal Party have basically rejected Menzies. Menzies was there arguing about dealing with facts and dealing with the market. What do the Liberals do now? They reject the market. The people who have been arguing about market forces for as long as I can remember have now walked away from the market. As I said today, the barbarians are at the gate of the Liberal Party; the barbarians are taking over the Liberals. They are out there holding hands with Pauline Hanson, out there with Chris Smith—the shock-jocks that are out there—pouring bile and animosity on migrants and on asylum seekers in this country. They are out there playing footsy with them.

The reality is, if you want an economy that does look after ordinary Australians, you must deal with the issue of climate change. The real issue that will make the difference between increases in the cost of living of a huge amount and reasonable increases in the cost of living is getting a carbon price in and making sure that our industry is at the forefront of innovation, making sure that our industry is creating the jobs of the future, building the wind turbines, building the tidal turbines and building the technology that is required to turn this economy around. If we fail to do that then costs will increase. Electricity prices will continue to spiral because there is no certainty in the electricity industry.

The problem for you in the coalition is that it is not an argument about economics from you; it is an argument about belief. You do not believe that the world is warming. You do not believe in carbon pollution. You do not believe in the market. You have lost your beliefs. You are an absolute rabble. Do not come here lecturing us about the cost of living when you are such a bunch of economic incompetents.