Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

Labor has learnt nothing from the last four years of continual Labor government failures. Who can forget the $900 cash splash which, in many instances, was proven to be poured straight down the slot of a pokie machine? Who can remember the spectacular failure of the pink batts scheme? Who can remember the spectacular failure of the cash for clunkers scheme? The set-top boxes scheme? The list of Labor failures goes on and on and on. And what do we now have? Another cheap political trick by the Labor Party masquerading as the so-called schoolkids bonus.

The Labor Party have clearly underestimated the capacity of the Australian people to see right through their policy intent. The Australian people know that, despite the Australian Labor Party treating them as if they have no capacity to see through Labor's rhetoric, the bill we are debating today has nothing to do with education. It has nothing to do with the future generation of Australians and their educational needs and everything to do with those on the other side throwing as fast as they can—in fact, by 1.50 pm today—a wad of cash at the mums and dads of Australia who may qualify for this bonus. Labor know that the countdown is on and in but a few weeks those mums and dads are going to be hit with the greatest political lie of all time—the carbon tax.

It is incredible that, after four years of being in government, the Labor Party continues to believe that you can address the rising cost of living simply by giving the Australian people a cash handout. Anybody who has studied basic economics 101 will know that cost-of-living pressures only ever go down when costs of government go down. Based on Labor's record in that regard, it is going to be a very long time before we see the cost of the current government go down.

When considering the bill today we need to put it into context. Why has the government had to rush this particular budget measure through the other place and rush through the Senate in under two hours? Labor can rewrite history but it cannot rewrite the facts. The facts for the Australian people are this: the Gillard-Rudd-Swan Labor governments have delivered the four biggest deficits on record. That is right—the four biggest deficits in Australia's history. Contrast that with the former Howard government. In its last four budgets it delivered the four largest surpluses the Australian people had ever seen, including in its final year a record surplus of $19.7 billion. That was a surplus that was actually delivered, unlike those on the other side who currently claim to have delivered a surplus. They know full well that merely by saying on budget night that you anticipate a certain thing will happen does not mean that over the ensuing financial year it actually will.

The cold hard reality for the mums and dads of Australia is that the Labor Party continues to borrow an extra $100 million each and every day. The cold hard reality for the mums and dads of Australia is that the average Commonwealth budget balance was an $8.1 billion surplus over the Howard government years and under Labor it has managed a record average of a $41.7 billion deficit. The contrast could not be any clearer.

When it comes to budget deficits, this is a government that knows absolutely no bounds. Just look at what they told the Australian people in the lead-up to budget night. The budget deficit for 2011-12 was constantly revised upwards. The government told the people of Australia around 12 months ago that they were heading for a $12 billion deficit. They then realised that with their excessive spending they would need to revise that figure up, and revise it up they did. They revised it up to $23 billion. Again, it still was not enough. With their excessive spending, they had to re-revise the budget deficit up to $37 billion. Was that revision big enough to compensate for their waste and mismanagement? The answer is no.

We know the answer is no because on budget night just passed, the Treasurer, Mr Swan, advised the Australian people that the budget deficit had now exceeded $44 billion. As if that was not bad enough, the Australian people should be extremely alarmed that hidden in these budget bills was the government's announcement that it would seek to increase Australia's debt ceiling to a record $300 billion. Three hundred billion dollars is four times what the ceiling was in 2008. What does that mean? It means the Labor Party yet again is saying to the people of Australia, 'We have abused taxpayers' funds. We are well and truly over the limit on our credit card and yet again we have to sneak into the parliament—not make an announcement to the Australian people—an increase in the debt ceiling of Australia.' Does this government care? Of course it does not. That is why we are debating the bill that we have before us at the moment. What does it do? The government announces a quick political fix and it announces yet another cash splash. This policy measure is, without a doubt, one of the most blatant attempts by a fiscally incompetent government to cook this year's budget books in order to allow Labor to protect their artificial surplus for the next financial year. And why do we say that? Because the refund is going to be paid out before the end of this financial year, which is the sole reason that we commenced the debate at 12.30 today and we are being guillotined at 1.50 today, because Labor have manipulated the books to such an extent that they need to push a whole lot of cash through today to ensure that it is not reflected in next year's figures, to maintain their artificial surplus.

Labor's announcement that they are dumping the education tax rebate to instead give out handfuls of taxpayers' money is a desperate bid to improve their dying electoral chances. Like so many Australians, the coalition does not, and will not, support this improperly named 'schoolkids bonus' for very good reasons. The first is this: the money that is being handed over, that is being thrown at Australians, has absolutely nothing to do with education. Despite the Labor Party's denials of this—and deny it they have—we know this is true because, in the legislation we are currently debating, there is absolutely no requirement at all for the rebadged education tax rebate to actually be spent on a child's education. Under the education tax rebate, you had a rebate which had to be spent—you had to prove you spent the money on a child's education—and what do the Labor Party do? They abolish that and they say, 'If we call it a 'schoolkids bonus', hopefully the Australian public are silly enough to actually believe that in some way it relates to the schoolkids' education. Well, I have news for those on the other side: the Australian people are not mugs and they are not fooled by your rhetoric.

Instead of having a targeted payment, whereby all that parents needed to do was submit receipts that showed that they had expended funds on their children's education, and they would then get that money back, what we have is the Labor Party saying, 'We'll just give you the money; seriously, just take the money'—