Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am not quite sure where that fairytale of Senator Bishop's comes from. I was much interested to hear him talking about all those shops that have 'help wanted' signs in them. My immediate response to that was: well, those are the ones that are open. There are far more shops right now with signs that say 'for lease' than there are with signs saying 'help wanted' in them. The effect of this government on the economy of Australia has been appalling. Senator Bishop was at least right about one thing, in that there was best practice economic management in this country for many, many years; he just forgot which years they were—and it has definitely stopped since 2007.

I find it quite bemusing that somehow Senator Bishop would suggest that because we are not a complete basket case of an economy we should thank the government for that. Why would not being a basket case be something to thank the government for? Wow, thank you, Ms Gillard and co.; we don't have a government debt of 150 per cent of GDP! Unfortunately, the way this government is going, if indeed—God help us—this government gets to stay there long enough, that is where it will take us. Its management of the economy and its attempts at fiscal reform have been appalling. It talks and talks and talks about it but it does not do anything about it. It keeps talking and talking and talking but not doing anything. We had the lovely spectacle the week before last of the government finally working out, apparently, that all the cries from manufacturing for at least six to 12 months about their situation were true. It was only when a big company with a big union attached to it like BlueScope announced that it was going to get rid of 1,000 positions that this government finally noticed that there were problems in the manufacturing industry and had been for a very long time.

So what was the government's strategy for assisting the manufacturing industry? For a start, we had the wonderful pink batts solution. That was a great solution! That really helped the manufacturing industry and the service industries of Australia! Company after company was left with a million dollars or more worth of stock that was in fact worthless because when this government finally worked out how appalling its implementation had been it simply turned off the tap. Manufacturers had quite reasonably, under a program that this government had set up, bought batts and other insulation products—but, no, the government just turned the tap off. The attempts of these manufacturers and service providers to find out what assistance they could get from this government fell on deaf ears. In fact, half the time they did not even get a response from the government about what they were to do with these products.

Then we have the wonderful current example of the immense governance of superclinics. I think the Redcliffe superclinic is a great example. The government promised this would be opened midyear. They told me that 'midyear' actually meant the end of August, but I was prepared to live with that timetable. Is it open? No. Is work going on? No. Is the whole project in complete disarray? Yes. The state health minister has actually called for an audit of that project. That is how responsible they are in using their funds to help build Australia.

But let us go back to what they say and what they do. The biggest problem is that I do not think they have quite worked out yet that it is private enterprise that keeps the economy functioning. You do need to talk to them. Giving money to unions and working out ways to increase the bureaucracy is not going to strengthen Australia or Australia's economy. They talk about mental health reform, but when you look at their figures their sleight of hand means that instead of making an increase of about 30 per cent they have made an increase of about of six per cent and have just continued on what was already being done.

Let us look at disability reform, another classic example. It is a reform that is supposed to increase the number of jobs in the area—a very worthwhile idea. But you have to have employers ready to take on people with disabilities. How much money has the government put into that? And what has it done to the current disability employment service providers? It has called for a retender of the whole situation. Just to make them feel confident that this government cares about their future, it has said: 'Everyone can retender now. Just in the middle of a change, we will make another change. We will make you retender for the work you have had.' Mr Acting Deputy President, I am sure you know how much confidence that would instil in an organisation about its future and its ability to continue to service this sector and to create jobs.

The problem is that the government is so incompetent at fiscal management that it cannot work out where the taxpayers' money is. Certainly one place it is not, as Senator Wong and the Treasurer, Mr Swan, have revealed recently, is in the Future Fund. They are having a little raid of the Future Fund. They are taking that money, which was to be used for paying the superannuation of public servants. They are just taking a little $250 million out—hardly anything! Just $250 million is coming out. But that was meant to be there to pay superannuation commitments. It is another classic example of how this government manages money. If it were the local school tuckshop, you would have shut them down and called in the administrators ages ago—except, of course, the tuckshops that they build are too small to fit the administrators in. This is a classic example of their bungling under the Building the Education Revolution program.

Let us go back again to the imple­mentation of e-health. How much money has been wasted there? Let us look at who this government has used to do this work. A contract was let recently to IBM. Did local medical software suppliers get a chance to put their tenders in for this? No, not really—because the way it was written by people who did not understand the industry properly meant that there was virtually no opportunity for local tenderers to apply. The government seems intent in so many areas on destroying small, private, innovative, entrepreneurial manufacturing and service industries in Australia and replacing them with overseas bureaucracies and organisations that have an agreement to do whatever the union says. That seems to be where we are heading with all of this.

The other one that you can add now to the pink batts situation is the complete mess in the solar cells area with renewable energy certificates. That is another one to add to the list—renewable energy certificates, the money for which has not been passed back to the solar installers, who are left holding the bills. Once again, this is a government that does not understand how private enterprise works. Why would we be surprised that they do not understand that they need to generate good private enterprise to keep this country going? Virtually none of them have ever come near private enterprise and they do not know anything about it. One of the best examples of why this government does not have the confidence of Australians and why Australians are keeping their money in the bank because they do not trust this government is the live cattle export debacle, which this government managed to produce all by itself. Senator Ludwig and others had no help in creating the most bizarre outcome. I was in Mount Isa, Boulia and Cloncurry recently and the people there are often quite angry about government policy. These people were not angry about government policy. These people were not angry about the live cattle export situation. They were past angry; they were in absolute despair. They said: 'We can cope with floods. We can cope with droughts'—and they have coped with both in the last 12 months; that is how serious their position has been—'But things were finally starting to look up and then this came completely out of the blue.' Senator Ludwig just turned off the tap for live exports—a complete overreaction to a television program. Did Senator Ludwig know the implications of what he was doing? I would hope not because it would have been criminal if he had behaved as he did and knew what was going to happen. There are people out there who have had to put all their staff off. There are people out there who are looking at shooting stock. There are people out there who are expecting the bank to foreclose on them any minute. And not just that, but there are the knock-on effects of this on transport and on jobs in local towns. The consequences are horrific and are leading to despair.

No wonder the savings in this country continue to rise, and it has nothing to do with Senator Bishop's idea that everyone has so much extra cash to splash around. That is not the case. He glossed over quite a few things in his speech—for example, capital expen­diture increasing. Yes, it is. I interjected—and I know I should not have done that, Mr Acting Deputy President—'Tell us about how much of that is going into the non-mining industry.' It will only be through building confidence in the private sector that this government can ever hope to have a sound fiscal strategy. They are not going to get it by the way they are behaving right now. The cycle says that people are not spending money because they do not trust this government to manage the economy. They do not trust that they will have a job next week, so they do not spend money. Far from shops full of 'help wanted' signs, there are shops full of 'for lease' signs. As private businesses close down, what happens next? Jobs will go, and we start the cycle again. It is the lack of confidence in this government's ability to run an economy and to keep things flowing that is holding Australians back from spending at the present time.

Let us look, for example, at the proposal for the carbon tax. In amongst that there are some moneys going to small businesses with incomes of less than $2 million. They will get a net amount of $1,500. I think the alleged grant is about $6,000—but that is a re-announcement of other things—but they will get a net benefit of $1,500. What level will the help to households cut out at? It will cut out at an income of $80,000. Anyone who is running a company with an annual turnover of more than $2 million who is paying themselves up to $80,000 will get nothing at all from this government to help with increases due to the carbon tax.

Unlike the GST, the carbon tax is a cascading tax. Everything you buy, everything you use, everything that has ever been on a truck and everything that includes any steel, aluminium, cement or electricity will go up in price. So there is the perfect example of how this government is setting out to drive people out of business. There will be no help for companies if they have a turnover of more than $2 million, irrespective of their profits. When you look at how few of them are just holding on and keeping their heads above water right now, you will find that not many of them would be making significant profits. And there is nothing to help individuals, so they cannot use any of those funds to try to keep their businesses and their jobs going.

One other area I would like to talk about is the Gillardbank—an example of the way this government is taking money from Peter, splashing it all over the place and putting half of it back into Paul's account. The great new bureaucracy, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, or the Gillardbank, will get a $10 billion budget. I think we can imagine what will happen there. It will not be permitted to invest in carbon capture and storage projects, because that would be suggesting that there was something positive about coalition policy in that area. It will not be allowed to invest in exactly the sorts of things that would assist in the development of Australia.

I would also like to point out that in his budget speech the Treasurer managed to finally realise that there is a patchwork economy. What is being done about it? Nothing. Ms Gillard managed to have a meeting a couple of weeks ago with some of the manufacturers and the unions and to give them the impression that perhaps there was going to be an inquiry to see what we could do about it; but, no, she has changed her mind on that one too. There will not be an inquiry, and I guess in some ways that is good because at least now business knows that this government cannot fix it. It is not that they will not but simply that they cannot fix the problems that they have created.

The manufacturing figures since this government has been around, and since the GFC, are appalling, and I have no idea how Senator Carr manages to keep his portfolio, let alone hold his head up. Manufacturing right now is the worst it has been in 20 years, with under a million people employed in manufacturing. It is 20 years since the figures have been that low. And, despite Senator Bishop's view on employment, job losses are spreading out of manufacturing now and into the retail and service sectors for the reasons I mentioned. People are saving but not because they have so much cash to splash around.

Retail sales last financial year were the weakest in 20 years. Business failures in the retail sales sector have gone up by 40 per cent in the June quarter from what they were the previous year. I hope it is not going to take Myer suggesting it is going to have serious job losses for this government to notice that the retail sector is having problems too. Hello, government? Let us wave our hands! The small to medium sized side of the industry and the private enterprise side can only expect further complete mismanagement and a complete lack of understanding from this government. In no way can this lead to the sort of fiscal responsibility that would improve the economy to the extent that people were game to once again begin spending and begin thinking that they had the ability to hold onto their jobs. Without that, you can waste all the money you like on every project that it has been wasted on, but you must re-instil in the Australian people some level of confidence that you know what you are doing.

I cannot believe that this can happen. As I said, it is not that the government will not understand; it is just that they cannot understand. Senator Carr, who continually tells us about the joys of manufacturing—having destroyed a lot of very satisfactory programs established by our government—is one of the chief architects of the destruction of the manufacturing sector. (Time expired)