Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We now have the third of the three Gs: we have had the GST under the Howard government, we have had the GFC and of course now we have the GBP, the government of broken promises. You will recall, Madam Acting Deputy President, that this is the government that came in on the promise of honesty, transparency and, as Senator Collins knows, accountability. Do you remember Prime Minister Gillard saying, 'Let the sun shine in'? Well, it is the fact that it has been a very short summer here on the east coast and a very short summer of honesty, transparency and accountability. This is the government about whom the former Prime Minister, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and now backbencher, Kevin Rudd, said recently:

… Julia has lost the trust of the Australian people and … if we don't change, the Labor Party is going to end up in Opposition.

This is also the government about whom the former Attorney-General Robert McClelland only recently said:

I don't think we have captured the attention or the support of the broader Australian community, and obviously if we want to win an election, they have to listen to us, they have to trust us, they have to have empathy with us …

This is not my side of the chamber saying this; this is the government side. Only last week I was at the Wagin Woolorama in the Great Southern region of WA. I overheard a mother scolding her daughter for telling porkies, and the little girl looked up and said, 'Why can't I? The Prime Minister can and the Prime Minister does.' She looked at me and I had no answer, of course.

But what day is it today? Is it carbon tax day? Of course, no; that was last week. But I will remind you of the words of this Prime Minister: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' Her Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister said at the same time—amazingly enough, just before an election in 2010:

Well, certainly what we rejected is this hysterical allegation somehow that we are moving towards a carbon tax from the Liberals and their advertising. We certainly reject that.

So it is not carbon tax day. Is it audit compliance day? No, that was Wednesday. That was the day, if you remember, when we had the Australian National Audit Office undertaking an audit of none other than Ms Gillard as Minister for Education and reporting to the parliament that on more than three occasions Ms Gillard approved grants to schools in defiance of the recommendations of her department and also failed to undertake the requirement of the then Prime Minister to report her decision to the then Minister for Finance and Deregulation. What a great group of four it must have been. How wonderful to have sat around the table and listened to them agreeing with each other. But it does not stop with the Prime Minister, as is often the case, because most organisations learn from the top. News filters downhill more quickly than it does uphill. In that same audit report from the ANAO we learnt that there were no less than 33 cases where ministers failed to alert the finance minister to the fact that they had made grants in their own electorates—11 of those 33 instances against the advice of their own department.

But it is not carbon tax day; it is not audit compliance day; it is Thursday—it must be private health insurance broken promise day. Let me go back to then shadow minister Ms Julia Gillard writing in the Courier Mail:

YOUR correspondent Russell McGregor … should have no concern that Labor will "erode" or abolish the 30 per cent government rebate for private health insurance. Labor is committed—

said Ms Gillard—

to the maintenance of this rebate and I have given an ironclad guarantee of that on a number of occasions.

Is it any wonder that the little girl in Wagin, reflecting the rest of Australia, has lost all patience with this government and its credibility? Again, Ms Gillard, complaining in a newspaper, the Weekend Australian, in October 2005:

The truth is—

she wrote—

that I never had a secret plan to scrap the private health insurance rebate, and contrary … do not support such a claim.

We go from Ms Gillard to then shadow health minister Roxon—again, prior to an election—in 2007. This is what she said at the annual conference of the Australian Health Insurance Association: 'This is why we have committed to the current system of private health insurance incentives,' she said, 'including the package of rebates, the lifetime health cover, the surcharge. Labor understands that people with private health insurance, now around nine million Australians, have factored the rebate into their budgets, and we will not support taking it away.' She went further in September: 'We have committed to it. We have committed to the 30 per cent.' The journalist must have had some understanding of the future because she was asked again, 'So you will not wind back the 30 per cent private health rebate, despite the fact,' the journalist asked, 'that Labor has been ideologically opposed to it in the past?' And guess what her answer was? 'No we won't.' She went on to say: 'For many occasions for many months we have made it crystal clear we are committed to retaining all of the private existing health insurance rebates.' She went on to say: 'The Liberals continue to scare people'—doesn't this remind you of Mr Wayne Swan's comments about the carbon tax?—'into thinking that Labor will take away the rebates.' This, according to Ms Roxon, is absolutely untrue.

We then go to the leader of the then opposition, Mr Rudd, speaking to the same organisation, the Health Insurance Association, prior to the 2007 election. This is what he said: 'Both my shadow minister for health, Nicola Roxon, and I have made clear on many occasions this year, that federal Labor is committed to retaining the existing private health insurance rebates.' And in February 2008, after becoming Prime Minister, he said:

The Private Health Insurance Rebate policy remains unchanged and—

by way of emphasis—

will remain unchanged.

How much longer do we have to listen to these statements which we now know to have never been the intention of the government?

Just yesterday, we had the gross misfortune of listening to a tirade by Labor Senator Cameron, trying to vilify the then coalition government in terms of its expenditure and its commitment to health. Let me place these figures on record. It is an area, of course, in which you, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, have a particular and keen interest. Health and aged care spending: 1995-96, $19½ billion dollars spent by the Commonwealth government, increasing to $52 billion by 2007-08. Public hospital spending: 1995-96, $5.2 billion; 2007-08, more than double, to $12 billion. Funding to the states to support their health initiatives: 1993 to 1998, $23 billion; 1998 to 2003, a leap to $31 billion, and, in 2003 to 2008, $42 billion. And we continue to hear stupidity and nonsense from intelligent and otherwise honourable senators of the other side talking about the apparent billion dollars of Mr Tony Abbott when he was health minister. There never was $1 billion taken out of the health budget. It simply was a forward estimate in the forward papers of that era. There never was a $1 billion black hole by Mr Abbott.

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

There never was, Senator Collins.