Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

And I will also take the interjection from my good colleague Senator Williams. They know how to spend and they know how to borrow. It is a downward cycle. I am sure that, when people on the ground are looking at this piece of legislation, they will be saying, 'What on earth are the government doing?' Hardworking everyday Australians are out there in their homes, balancing their budgets, making ends meet. Quite a lot of them are giving up things so that they can do other things. Contrast that with the Labor government, which is in this shambles of borrow and spend, as my good colleagues here have just indicated through their interjections. It is no wonder that the Australian people are tearing their hair out, saying, 'Please, will you give us an election so we can have some grownups run the country, who can make some sensible decisions in the national interest?' But it is simply not happening under this government.

I found it quite extraordinary when I realised that, on 2 March, 2012 there was a National Tourism Alliance meeting and out of that came the communique from the Minister for Tourism's roundtable. I want to quote to you from the section on passenger facilitation: 'Industry raised concerns regarding the cutting of the passenger facilitation budget in the context of increasing passenger movement charge collection over recent years.' Again, I quote:

The Minister informed the meeting—

that is, Minister Ferguson, the Minister for Tourism—

that he had heard of no proposals to raise the passenger movement charge in the upcoming budget.

On 2 March the minister had heard of nothing to increase this passenger movement charge. He is either completely inept or he was not being completely honest with those at the roundtable. It has to be one of those two things. Because, surely, as the minister responsible in March, he would have known that this passenger movement charge increase was on the table. If he did not, it just shows (a) that he was completely inept or (b) that it was policy on the run, which we see so often from this hopeless Labor government. The alternative, (c), is that he was being less than honest with the people at the roundtable. Any way you look at it, it is simply unacceptable.

Here we have the minister saying, on 2 March, that he had not heard of any proposals to raise the passenger movement charge. What do we see in the budget? An increase of $8, from $47 to $55. This has a familiar ring to it: before the budget we were told that there will be no passenger movement charge increase. After the budget, what did we get? A passenger movement increase of $8. It sounds familiar. I wonder what it is tweaking my memory about. Let me see. It may well be the carbon tax. Before the last election, the Prime Minister said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' After the election, what did we get? A carbon tax. In a few very short days, on 1 July, we are going to have a carbon tax.

This is a common thread in the government. Whether it is the Prime Minister saying, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead' and giving us a carbon tax or whether it is the Minister for Tourism just a few months ago saying, 'I haven't heard of any proposals to increase the passenger movement charge,' they are true to form. What do we see in the budget? An increase in the passenger movement charge. The Australian people no longer trust the Labor government under any leader. Who knows who the next leader will be? Mr Kevin Rudd might be having a few chats at the moment. It does not matter who is leading the Labor Party; they simply are not trusted anymore by the Australian people. Is it any wonder that the Australian people have no trust when they are constantly being told one thing by the Labor government and by the current Prime Minister—'current' in capital letters—Ms Julia Gillard, and then doing completely another? They are sick of it. This might just seem like a piece of legislation with an $8 tax increase, but this is about the heart and soul of Labor and their inability to be honest with the Australian people. This is about them not being straight with the Australian people. This is about their complete inability to formulate any decent sort of policy that is in the best interests of the Australian people. They simply cannot do it.

It is no wonder the Australian people are completely fed up. The ineptitude of this government—again shown through the Prime Minister—is absolutely gobsmacking. I will quote the Prime Minister on ABC Brisbane on 14 June when she was asked about the passenger movement charge and the increase. The Prime Minister said:

… first and foremost, we are not taxing Australian tourism through the increases in the Passenger Movement Charge. People will pay that increased Passenger Movement Charge if they are going to an airport to fly out of the country to take their money overseas and go and spend it in some overseas tourism destination, you know, anywhere round the world that people might want to go to …