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

There are certain things that, in the dying days of a chaotic government, personify exactly where this nation is off to, and this is a classic example. The Banking Amendment (Unclaimed Money) Bill 2013 should be called our Cyprus bill, because it is basically the theft of money from individuals. That is the clearest way to see it. People who have money in their bank accounts and superannuation funds, who believed that that money was safe in those accounts, who believed that their life insurance money could be claimed, are now to be divested of that money and see it invested in the state because of the Green-Labor-Independent alliance. Responsibility for the loss of these funds by the individual, to be invested in the state—their private savings in their private bank—lies with Mr Windsor, Mr Oakeshott, the Greens and the Labor Party, and they must accept that this is where our nation has got to.

This is why, when they say, 'Don't worry about us being $257.3 billion in gross debt today, don't worry about the fact that we have a $19.8 billion deficit this year, don't worry about the $43 billion deficit last year, don't worry about the $48 billion deficit the year before that, don't worry about the $54 billion deficit the year before that or the $27 billion deficit the year before that. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about the fact that we are going to be $370 billion in gross debt. No, don't worry about that,' you had better start worrying, because they are coming for your money. That is absolutely and utterly the case. They are doing this because they are trying to scrape together some money. What cash can this save them? They look forward and they think, 'This'll get us close to a billion dollars.' I think it was $900 million over the four-year period to 2015-16. That is where they are off to. So where are they going to get it?

So that people driving their cars along the highways today clearly understand, what the government will do now is go to your bank accounts sooner. In the past, if you had not touched them for seven years, they would go to the government. Now the government are saying that after three years they will come into your bank account. The government will go into your bank account and they will take your money.

But let us look at what happens to most people's super. If you have been out shearing somewhere, you get a little super fund and you forget all about it; then you go to another manual job, you have another little super fund and you forget about that. Then you do another job, you get another little super fund and you forget about that one, as has happened to most people. The government are saying that, after 12 months, they will take it. They will take it off you. They will even take unclaimed life insurance moneys. They will not even leave the dead alone!

This is what is happening to this nation. This is how chaotic it has got. And out there we have this crazy soap opera between Kevin, Mr Kevin Rudd—is that the proper title?—the member for Griffith and the Prime Minister, apparently, of Australia—but who knows; what time is it? Whilst that chaotic soap opera is going on in the foreground, in the background they are flogging your dough. We have to try to understand exactly where this nation has got to. This bill, like other bills, will be guillotined. Debate on it will be shut down because the Australian Greens, who were supposed to be the archangel Gabriel of transparency and democracy in this chamber, will vote for that. They will vote to shut this down so that the Australian people will not know that their money is being stolen.

This is pathetic. It is pathetic that this is now happening in our nation. We have got ourselves into this because of the massive debt. The Greens, the Independents and the government that Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott put into place with the Labor Party concocted the most bizarre amalgamation of nutty ideas and bad management. It has been the worst financial management this nation has ever had, and now it is coming to this tawdry end. This government is the thief that breaks through car windows and steals the coins out of the ashtray. They are going anywhere to find the money. They are going to pick up anything that is not nailed down. You will see that in the last couple of days there are 56 bills that we are not going to get to debate. They are going to shut down the debate. This is the sign of the chaos that surrounds this chamber and the chaos that surrounds this building. The Australian people deserve better than this. The Australian people deserve better than having their money stolen. The Australian people deserve better. When people are doing it tough doing the many little jobs they have to do, they may come back to find that their money is gone because the government has stolen it.

The government has stolen it to prop up the ceiling insulation debacle. The government has stolen it to prop up the $900 cheques. The government has stolen it to prop up the NBN. The government has stolen it to prop up their millions of nutty ideas. The government has stolen it to prop up the climate change department. The government has stolen it to prop up the mad Green ideas that have infected Labor Party policy. There is no point standing back and saying, 'You're so emotive over there.' When you go through the figures, this government is the worst by far.

How on earth did we get our nation into this position? Last time the Labor government left office we were about $105 billion in gross debt and $96 million in net debt. It took 10 years to pay it off. We got $45 billion of that from the sale of Telstra, so it took about 10 years to pay off $50 billion. Now these clowns, by their own figures, are going to leave us about $370 billion in debt. You know what they say? They say that it is not a problem because we are not as bad as Greece. They say that we are not as bad as Spain or Ireland and so it is all right. That is like walking around the global financial graveyard and saying, 'That person is less dead than that person.' It does not matter; we have arrived there. You arrive there when bills such as these turn up. In simple terms it is this: they are coming to steal your money. They are coming to take your privately earned funds. They are going into your bank accounts. They are going into your superannuation accounts. They are going into your life insurance policies. That is what is happening in our nation right now.

I would welcome finding out from the Greens what the explanation is for this. I would welcome finding out from Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott. Maybe they can explain it to the shearers in New England and horticultural workers who are working in the fields doing those little jobs and who have little superannuation accounts. Maybe they can explain to those workers why their superannuation is now under threat. I welcome them explaining it to pensioners who have a quiet bank account that they have never touched, that they have just left there for a rainy day, just in case. Now, even though they have left it there, we have the government sitting over the top of it and, after three years, they will say: 'Bang! That's it.' This is yet another example.

The Greens and the Labor Party have decided that we are not even allowed to debate these things anymore because this is not a democracy. We are not allowed to debate anymore. I am not quite sure whether Senator Boyce wishes to say something about this. I am happy to let my position go for Senator Boyce to speak.