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

As an accountant, and also having spent five years in banking, I know that, when people spin you a yarn about the marvellous things they are going to do, there is one way you can check the reality against what they have promised, and that is to have a look at the figures. So we can have a look at the figures to see exactly what this government has been like. When people are listening to this they think a deficit is all your debt and a surplus is all your profits. Deficit and surplus are like profit and loss in a government business—and debt is what happens when you keep on making a loss.

Back in 2008-09 this government basically said to the Australian people, 'In 2008-09 our business will make a profit of $21.7 billion.' What actually happened was that they made a loss, a deficit, of $27.1 billion. It was a loss; they went out the back door. And in 2009-10 they said, 'We'll make a profit of $19.7 billion.' But they actually made a net loss of $54.8 billion. Back in 2008 they said, 'In 2010-11 we'll make a profit of $19 billion.' But they actually made a loss of $47.7 billion. In 2008 they said, 'In 2011-12 we promise we'll make a profit of $18.9 billion.' When 2011-12 came along, guess what? They made a loss of $44.4 billion. What you can see here is obviously that what they promise is never what they deliver. They are so far out that you just cannot take them seriously.

The problem we have got lately is their debt. Back in 2008, Treasurer Wayne Maxwell Swan said that they would just need a temporary increase in the overdraft limit—because they are such good business people! He had a $75 billion overdraft limit, and he just wanted a temporary increase. He was going to have a bit of a day at the shops with his mates—a bit of a day at the track—and he said, 'Can you just bump my overdraft up from $75 billion to $200 billion?—but it's only temporary.' You can trust them; they are such good economic managers!

Then, what happened? The reason they said they wanted this increase in the overdraft is that China apparently was going to go into recession. But, as we all remember, it did not; it never missed a beat. And neither did the overdraft. The overdraft for our nation went up to $200 billion and just kept going up. The next thing, they're back: 'We want another extension in the overdraft. This time we want to extend the overdraft to a quarter of a trillion dollars—$250 billion—and then we can talk about our debt just like the Europeans do, in portions and fractions of trillions.'

So then we had a quarter of a trillion dollar overdraft. And that was as bad as it was going to get; it was never going to get any worse than that—but, of course, it did. The next thing, they are back, saying, 'We want another extension on the overdraft'—this time to $300 billion. And the latest we have heard is that their figures are out the door by, in forward projections, $120 billion.

What does this mean for our overdraft at the moment? They said they would never get close to a quarter of a trillion dollars. Well, the prediction is that the overdraft for our nation is now going to be, by 2020—even on the most conservative estimates—around about $370 billion. How are we going to pay this money back? Where is the money going to come from? Every time, for years, they would go to the doors and hear, 'It's out of control', and always we would get the same thing: 'Don't worry; trust us. It's all under control.'

They borrowed an extra $2 billion four weeks ago. The next week they borrowed an extra $2 billion. I'll grant you, last week they paid back one. These are the people who promise us they are going to have a surplus—that this year we will be in surplus. They try to trick you that they have delivered a surplus, but of course they have not; it is just another one of their promises.

And in the midst of this, what did we get, for all that money they borrowed? What did we get? Where is it? We could have bought a couple of Central African republics for that money. What did we get? We got ceiling insulation, and we got school halls. But you would expect that with that sort of money there would be inland rail, massive ports, massive new dams, freeways—but nothing; there is nothing there. They have just put it all up against the wall. And now they are panicking, having to freeze spending to regional Australia. And then Minister Crean comes out and says, 'It's not a freeze; it's a stocktake'—it is like they are running a corner store, and they are going to have a stocktake. But why do you need a stocktake? Don't you know what is in your budget? They say, 'We're trying to get some more transparency on it.' This stocktake sounds awfully like delay to me. It sounds awfully like you are not going to spend any money, to me. And of course it is because the panic is setting in. All of a sudden it has become apparent that they are running out of money, that they are getting towards their next overdraft limit. All of a sudden it really is starting to become a concern.

These people went out the back door when the prices of commodities were at a peak. When it was actually boom times, they went out the back door. How on earth are they going to manage the show when it is struggle time, when there is a peel off in commodity prices? And that is happening right now. How are they going to manage it? What they have done thus far has been an absolute circus, and the circus is never better reflected than in the carbon tax. These people cannot hit one target. If they were a credit paper, you would reject it. They have not been able to hit one target of one promise. They have not come within a bull's roar of delivering one promise—but they are, apparently, able to cool the planet. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan can cool the planet.

So we are going to get ourselves a carbon tax, because—you have to understand—it is morally right to be poor! It is morally right that we should make you poorer, that we should go to people and say: 'You know what? We don't think your power bills are dear enough; we're going to jack them up a bit, because we've got to look after the Greens'! They say: 'We don't believe that it's morally right that we should have a competitive price for power to keep manufacturing in Australia, because we've got to look after the Greens. We don't believe it's morally right that you should have the capacity to buy cheap fertiliser—something that has a high usage, and creation of it creates a higher usage of carbon emissions—we're going to make everything dearer.'

And as if it could not get any more insane than what it currently is, the way they are going to do it is to buy carbon permits—of course!—this fictitious market that we are going to indulge ourselves in. So, as you are getting poorer in Australia, you can live in the happiness—in that warm glow—that the money is going out of your wallet and to a trader who is collecting their commission and then sending it overseas to, I don't know, the east coast of Africa, or wherever it goes, so that you can know that you are poorer for the sake of a trader who is buying some fictitious permit from some place that you have never ever been to and will never ever go to! And of course, this all makes sense! In this Wayneonomics world, this all makes sense. It is just another promise that you can believe from the current Labor Party government. But the ultimate test: I do not think they are actually going to cool the planet. But I will tell you what is real: their debt is real. The fact is they are making people poorer: that is real. It is a real fact that they have created this debacle of an economy, when they were given so much. All they had to do was sit down and shut up and smile and they would have got somewhere.