John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My apologies. I will certainly do that. There is a very important thing in the interest rate decision today. Remember Melbourne Cup Day last year when interest rates went up by 0.25 per cent and the banks, like the Commonwealth Bank, raised them 0.45 per cent? I think NAB was 0.35 per cent. Let us see if the banks reduce interest rates for home loans; we know they will not do it for businesses. We look at the huge reduction in interest rates during the global financial crisis—some four per cent reduction in official rates—and businesses and farmers got just a 1.5 per cent reduction in their rates. I am sure the banks are scared, because Treasurer Swan, the Deputy Prime Minister, has warned them that if interest rates go down today the banks must follow. The Treasurer has said that some 50 times before and the banks have not paid any attention to what he was saying.

But I ask the question: why did the rates go up in the first place? This is the point. The nation is wallowing in debt brought about by the huge spending of this government. They raised their debt limit first of all from $75 billion to $200 billion and then just recently from $200 billion to $250 billion—remember that sneaky little piece in the budget last May that was brought into the House of Representatives late at night to be passed through, so no-one knew of the hidden way of extending the credit card debt for all Australians.

Ask where there money went. There were the school buildings: the $600,000 kiosk as the Tottenham school, where you cannot swing a cat it is that small. I could take you to the Kingstown school, north of Tamworth where $330,000 was spent for a building about eight metres by four metres. An amount of $300,000 would build you a huge solid brick home with four or five bedrooms, but they get a room eight metes by three or four metres for $330,000. We could go on with the waste. That is why the Labor Party are polling a 29 per cent primary vote. The Labor Party knows that to win an election they need a four in front of their primary vote. The Australian people are not fools. They have seen the debt building and the waste and they have judged them. Let us look at the issue of asylum seekers and the cost of that to our nation, let alone the cost in lives. They say that some four per cent may lose their lives coming here on leaky, dangerous boats. It is an industry that has been cranked up because of the actions of this government. The budget had the cost of asylum seekers to the Australian people at $1.2 billion—a huge amount of money. But that figure blew out by $1.1 billion, making a total $3.2 billion of borrowed or taxpayers' money for the cost of asylum seekers to this nation last year. Before the election, it was the East Timor solution and then it was the Malaysian solution, which the High Court rightly ruled out. On Perth radio last year, the Prime Minister said, 'I will not send asylum seekers to countries that are not signatories to the refugee convention.' But then she went in the opposite direction and pursued her policy to send them to Malaysia—not a signatory to the refugee convention. She went back on her word. That is no surprise.

We know the carbon tax promise that was made before the election. That will hound Prime Minister Gillard to her political death. She will be remembered for that broken promise. That was stimulated by the Greens and the Independents—Mr Tony Windsor and Mr Rob Oakeshott, who played a major role and were complicit in the Prime Minister and the Treasurer breaking their word to the Australian people. Make no mistake about it, those others were complicit in the failure of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to keep their commitment made to the Australian people prior to the election.

Let us look at live cattle exports. I watched that Four Corners and I was disgusted with the treatment of those cattle. As I have said before in this chamber, I am no stranger to a butcher's knife. For many, many years, my brother and I slaughtered our own cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry. I thought the behaviour I saw on that program was disgusting. Why didn't Minister Ludwig the very next day just get a copy of that Four Corners program, get on an aeroplane and go straight to Indonesia and meet their agriculture minister, and say, 'We have a problem and it is unacceptable to see animals treated like this'? But, no, all the emails came in and the government, being poll driven, put a suspension on the whole industry. We have the situation now with the export of live cattle to Indonesia where a cow must not exceed 350 kilograms and we have cattle being carted from the top of Western Australia to Inverell in northern New South Wales at $200 a head for freight. That is the legacy of this disgraceful decision by this government.

We could go on about so many other things regarding this government's performance. There was the cash-for-clunkers scheme. What happened with that policy? It was announced before the election. It has been put aside, like so many other things. There was the promise by this government to put downward pressure on fuel prices with the Fuelwatch scheme. What a waste of money. Then we had GROCERYchoice. I remember looking at the website for northern NSW and it had some grocery prices in Tamworth and some in Grafton. It is a long way from Tamworth to Grafton. This was supposed to put downward pressure on grocery prices!

The government lurch from fiasco to fiasco. But the Australian people now know that they cannot trust this government to spend taxpayers' money wisely, to protect our borders and to even keep our aircraft flying with some sort of regularity. Let us look at what happened there. Qantas management were pushed to the extreme in taking the action that they did. It caused a fiasco for the travelling population both here and abroad, because the government failed to see the situation and it failed to act.

I want to go back to interest rates. We had seven interest rises under this government, because of their wasteful spending to stimulate the economy, while the Reserve Bank was pulling on the handbrake. The government have their foot flat out on the accelerator and the Reserve Bank pulled on the handbrake seven times. If the government had not borrowed so much and if they had not wasted so much, interest rates would have stayed lower and, importantly, the exchange rate would have stayed lower as well. The cost to rural Australia has been huge as a result of the Australian dollar being above parity, with the consequent loss in the value of our exports.

To top it off, what are we now going to get? A carbon tax—a tax that is going to create so many jobs! If it is going to be so good for our nation, why don't they double it to $46 a tonne? Of course they will not do that. This tax will adversely impact many of our exporting industries. Take the cement industry, where we have lost two factories—Rockhampton and Kandos. Those jobs have been lost and the industry has had to shut down because they could not afford greater costs. This government think that a carbon tax is going to save the world and build all these jobs. It will do none of that; it will simply add to the cost of living and to the costs for industry. It is tax on business—the sector of the economy that derives our nation's wealth. This government hate business, hate them employing people and hate them making a profit. And what do the government intend to do? They intend to strangle business. This is why they have been a most disgraceful government.