Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Peter Slipper is definitely the Speaker of the House. I agree. Mr Peter Slipper, the member for Fisher, is definitely the Speaker of the House and he was most definitely nominated and put there by the Australian Labor Party, whose Prime Minister is Ms Julia Gillard. What a marvellous decision that was by her!

If you are going to believe any person in accountancy or finance the only thing you can judge them by is their track record and their capacity for accuracy—how much of what they say becomes fact. Two years ago the government said that this year we would have a deficit and that we would be out the back door by $13 billion. That was a very bad outcome, so we were worried about that. But they told us about the sunny out plans of fiscal rectitude. They told us better days were ahead. They told us that after they put in place the carbon tax and had taken Jerusalem things would get better. But the next year things got worse. The next year they said that this year it would get much worse, that we would be out the back door by $22 billion. So they basically got close to doubling the figure in their previous statement. They were almost 100 per cent wrong. But we have had some consistency because the next year—this year—we find they are out the back door by $44.4 billion. So there is a consistency here. They are generally 100 per cent wrong one year out. So whatever they have said about the surplus next year, if they follow the trend—and the Treasurer talks about things following trends; he is a very trendy guy—they will be 100 per cent wrong next year as well.

I will take bets with any person who wants to tell me that they will have a $1.5 billion surplus even after they have cooked the books, because they are so totally incompetent that the only thing you can rely on is them being wrong. If this was a credit paper, it would get kicked out the door. You would get absolutely assassinated by the credit bureau. If you worked for them, they would say to you, 'You will lose your job if you keep presenting rubbish like this.' I remember an old boss of mine, Mr Muntz. He would have written all over it what an absurd proposition has been brought up.

Now we have these other mad things. We have all these things wandering off in the capital account, wandering off the balance sheet. The NBN is the classic one. Pray tell: do you honestly believe it is worth what you are borrowing for it? If it is not, shouldn't you be booking a provision for the loss? Do you think you can flog this white elephant off for the $50 billion we are going to borrow to build it? There is not a chance. If it is such a good deal, why aren't you just issuing NBN bonds? NBN would stand for 'next budget nightmare'. NBN bonds are what you should be issuing. If it is such a great proposition the market would love them and go and buy them. But it is not. No-one who is sane would buy an NBN bond, so it is coming through Australian government securities. The reason they would not buy one is that it would not be worth it. Our debt is going through the roof and, as Bill Mortley, my first boss in accounting, told me about this, if you did not laugh you would cry because it is so totally and utterly out of control. But we have to pay it back— (Time expired)