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

Mr Deputy President, I join my fellow speakers in congratulating you. I can say that as a mentor to newer senators like me—I have only been here for three years—and as a former housemate, you will indeed be missed. I wish you all the best.

I do not know where to start following Senator Polley's contribution, in the most liberal use of the word. I will have to limit myself to only a few issues raised in question time today. This government, its ministers, its senators and its members all stand condemned. There are various reasons for it, including their profound mismanagement of the nation's finances—which, in a vain attempt to defend, Senator Polley could not even bring herself to mention the numbers that are involved in Australia's record debt for which this government only has a defence that our neighbours are worse off. The government's only defence of the amount of money it has borrowed in a record ramp-up of debt is simply, 'The guy over the road owes a lot more.' The people of Australia deserve better than comparisons to the fiscal disaster zone that is Europe and that is the United States. This government could have ensured Australia did not have the level of debt that people like David Murray and economic commentators right around Australia are saying has exposed us to economic risk that was completely unnecessary.

This government stands condemned for its sheer incompetence in managing the resources and programs of government. I cannot believe that Senator Polley decided to refer to the government's so-called investments in infrastructure as a badge of honour. We could refer to the billions of dollars wasted in home insulation, the billions of dollars wasted in school halls—both of which those opposite were warned, before the money was spent, before the money was appropriated and while it was being spent, were leading to record waste. If this side of the chamber had been in office, I can only dream of the wailing that would have occurred from those opposite, the champions of the workplace and of workplace safety, when people died on the watch of the programs that they appropriated money for. That just goes to show how this government has no credibility.

We come to the most important issue of all—and that is the issue of trust. We all know circumstances change. We all know the world is an evolving place, whether it is security, whether it is the international economy, but on the issue of the carbon tax there was no doubt: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Those are the words of the Prime Minister, no matter what the contrived or confected excuse, including the allegation that we cannot be left behind the world. The Productivity Commission has punctured the myth that the world is acting and that Australia will be left behind. In a reflection of the diseased state Labor parties from which so many members of this government have been drawn, they changed tack, they reverse course and they hope that people will forget by the time of the next election. Well, the Australian people have seen that and it has been rejected right around Australia at the state level—whether it is Bob Carr promising to get rid of tolls on Sydney's toll roads or Steve Bracks prom­ising there will be no tolls on the Scoresby Freeway, there have been numerous promises made by the state Labor governments to be elected and then reversed. This goes to show that this government simply cannot be trusted. Like a person on a winter's day, the government hides under the doona of reform, shivering from the people and claiming that the word 'reform' will cover them. But you cannot hide from the bitter cold of a people who are aggrieved by the breach of trust. The people will hold this government accountable. The truth is that this proposed carbon tax has nothing to do with economic reform; it has nothing to do with the reform agenda of the eighties.

In the eighties and nineties we removed trade barriers, we removed embedded costs on the Australian economy and we made our tax system, labour market and financial systems more competitive—all of which will be reversed by a carbon tax. This carbon tax dramatically increases the scope of govern­ment activity in our economy, and the truth is that that is the reason they want it. They want a carbon tax because they want to be able to hand out favours—whether it is in the form of free permits or welfare payments—to their favourite groups. As the Prime Minister said, you want to remake Australia. Well, the opposition will not only fight you but will do so proudly and make sure this Labor government, this pale reflection of a once great Australian political party, is rejected by the people at the next election.

Question agreed to.