Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This is a Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit report on the role of the Auditor-General in scrutinising government advertising. If the Auditor-General ever needs a call to scrutinise anything, it should be the government advertising of the carbon tax bills. Australians are furious at the fact that they were lied to by our current Prime Minister when she said just before the last federal election, 'There shall be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Within a few months of being re-elected on the basis of that promise, the Prime Minister and her Labor Party and Greens partners changed policy completely and introduced a policy of having a carbon tax which every Australian knows will add to their cost of living. Even the government's own report shows that electricity costs will go up, and reports from the Western Australian and New South Wales treasuries confirm that electricity prices could go up by anything from 15 to 20 per cent. So the costs of living are going to go up for ordinary Australians, and Australians are furious about that. But they are more furious to find out now that this policy based on a lie, this legislation based on a lie, is being advertised with their taxpayers' dollars for the pure political benefit of the Australian Labor Party and the Greens. Over $25 million has been spent by Ms Gillard and her Greens alliance partners on advertising this tax that she promised would not happen. People are sick and tired of the saturation television advertising in support of what is in effect a political program by the Australian Labor Party and the Greens. They are sick and tired of getting all this advertising material in their letterboxes that is using their money on what is in effect a political campaign by the Australian Labor Party.

The Australian Labor Party and the Greens stand condemned not just for introducing this policy based on a lie, not just for legislating for a tax that Ms Gillard promised solemnly to all Australians she would never introduce, but also for using taxpayers' dollars to advertise this lie. Every taxpayer knows that they are going to pay more for their general costs of living and the least this government could do is start to save some of the taxpayers' money. By wasting upwards of $25 million on glossy brochure advertisements, newspaper adver­tisements and saturation television adver­tisements, and I assume radio adver­tisements, they are making Australians angrier and angrier.

As for Senator Cameron, very few people believe Ms Gillard at the moment. They do not believe her. It does not matter what she promises in the future. It does not matter what Senator Cameron says. People of Australia now understand that you cannot take the word of this Prime Minister. You cannot trust her. You cannot believe anything she says when she lied so badly to the Australian public just before the last election. Senator Cameron has the hide to come into this chamber and criticise Peter Costello, a Treasurer who paid off the $96 billion Labor debt that was run up by the profligate spending of previous Labor governments. It is in Labor's DNA to just spend and spend and spend money that is not theirs, that is taxpayers' money. Peter Costello paid off the $96 billion Labor debt. It took 10 years but he paid it all. He then returned the budget to surplus. In Peter Costello's last budget, Australia had a surplus of some $20 billion. Within three years, the Labor Party turned that $20 billion surplus into a $55 billion deficit.

Senator Cameron has the hide to come in here and say Mr Swan is a great Treasurer and Peter Costello was a bad Treasurer. That $96 billion debt that the Labor Party ran up last time and which we had to pay off has already been surpassed after a couple of short years of Labor administration and there is now a debt of $107 billion, and this government has no intention of ever paying it back. Australians will just pay interest on that debt, day after day. It is a daily interest bill that is being paid by all Australian taxpayers. It will continue to rise. Just recently Mr Swan sought the permission of the parliament to increase the public debt to $200 billion. That shows what the Labor Party think about the finances of the nation.

Our challenge, should we return to government, will be to pay off Labor's $200 billion debt. For Senator Cameron to lambaste Peter Costello is just a joke. No-one believes Senator Cameron. No-one believes his leader who deliberately lied to the Australian public. I do not want to hold up the Senate's time. I know other senators have other reports they want to speak on. But this report of the Auditor-General is an interesting one. The Auditor-General should carefully scrutinise this $25 million-plus advertising spree by the Australian Labor Party which is trying to encourage Australians to support something that they clearly rejected at the last election and will clearly reject at the next election.