Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I am interested to see that Senator Sinodinos is now in pragmatic mode. I just wonder how this pragmatic mode actually fits with the 'modest members' of the coalition. For those who might be listening, the modest members are those right-wing members of the coalition who say that government should not be involved in anything but defence and policing. That is the role for government. Unfortunately, it is unbelievable that these days we still have politicians classifying themselves as modest members and saying that there should be very little role for government, especially after the global financial crisis. That has really been a case of mass amnesia on the behalf of the coalition. They have completely forgotten that there was a global financial crisis. They have completely forgotten that there was a situation where business just stopped investing, where our banks were under huge pressure, where government had to take action and increase debt to keep the economy moving.

So this mass amnesia, combined with pragmatism, has now got us to this situation where debt is an open-ended cheque book for the coalition and debt is okay, provided it is coalition debt. If you do any arrangement with the Greens under Labor, it is the end of the economy, it is this terrible situation where the lunatics on the Left are determining government policy. But when the coalition enter an agreement with the Greens—when you submit to the Greens' demands—it is not lunacy; it is pragmatism. I think any analysis on this would show that the hypocrisy of the coalition is absolutely huge.

The coalition have railed against debt—debt that kept people in jobs, debt that helped refurbish our education infrastructure in this country and debt that kept industries going. They railed against that. But, as soon as they are in power, they want to be pragmatic. Pragmatism is what is driving the coalition. I would love to hear the debates in the coalition party room on this new found pragmatism. I can just imagine the modest members saying that the only thing they want government to do is to keep paying their salary, keep sending them off to weddings and keep sending them off to all these little rorts that they so love. What is the debate like in the party room against the pragmatists, which I think really means the 'jelly-backs' in the coalition—those with no spine in the Costello tradition, who are not prepared to stand up for what is right for the nation. They are not prepared to stand up for what they think is right but continually capitulate to the PM. It is even worse under Mr Hockey, the current Treasurer. He is capitulating to the National Party and to the Greens to such an extent that he said: 'Come in. Let's form this coalition: the Liberal-National-Greens coalition, and we'll be pragmatists.' I must say: what does this mean? I can only assume that it does not mean much good for the economy and that it does not mean much good for the society.

What is the first thing that the Treasurer demanded? It was a 67 per cent increase in debt, after railing against debt as being bad. Every debate in this chamber on economic policy focused on debt and how bad debt was. What is the first thing the coalition do? You say, 'Give us a 67 per cent increase in debt.' The public are onto the coalition. They know what the coalition is about. You have only got to talk to people out there and they say: 'We didn't think that they would be like this. They told us they were good economic managers, and yet they're going to allow the manufacturing industry to go to the wall; they're going to allow Qantas to go to the wall; they're going to allow jobs to disappear.' It is all about this economic rationalist approach, which we are now hearing described as 'pragmatism'.

I remember in the lead-up to the election campaign a document from the coalition called Our Action Contract. I wonder whether Senator Sinodinos even remembers the coalition's Our Action Contract. It was one of those thousands of blurbs that came out full of spin and full of broad based nonsense about the coalition and what they were going to do. The action contract said that the nation was at a crossroad. What was the crossroad? It was that we were in too much debt; this is what Our Action Contract said.

So, after this line of 'too much debt', the first thing they do when they come into government is become pragmatic, enter into a coalition with the Nationals and the Greens and massively increase debt. They now seek an open cheque book on debt when they had said that our living costs were a problem, our interest rates were a problem, there would be no new taxes and there would be 'modest prudent commitments'. Remember, this is what the coalition said: that they would make 'modest, prudent commitments' and that these commitments were 'achievable'. What were they? That they would end the waste. What does that mean? It is another piece of political nonsense: 'We will end the waste.' But they said it was going to be achievable. We have not seen that being done. Then they said that the modest, achievable commitment that they would make would be to pay back the debt. That was your achievable and modest commitment to the Australian public.

The hypocrisy just oozes out of every orifice in the coalition's body. The hypocrisy just rolls out of you guys everywhere. You tell people that you will stop the debt and pay back the debt, and what is the first thing you do? You massively increase the debt for the nation. You say you will help families; that was another modest achievement. I wonder if the families who are employed in the car industry in Victoria, in South Australia and in my state, New South Wales, feel as if they are being helped by the coalition in this hands-off, 'let the market rip' approach to the car industry. Jobs are being sacrificed on the altar of ideology in the coalition party room.

I would love to see this debate. I would love to be in the coalition party room now and again having a look at what is going on in that party room, because it must be absolutely fascinating: all the right-wing ideologues saying, 'We want the market to rip,' and then the National Party saying, 'What's the market? We don't even know how to spell it.' You have huge divisions in the coalition—huge breaches of this papered-over approach that they took to the election, where there was this united party. The problem, as I said, is that you have, in the tradition of coalition treasurers, a weak, vacillating Treasurer who simply caves in whenever a pressure point is placed on him. Coalition treasurers cave in. They cave in to the National Party and the Greens. Not only do they cave in; they say, 'Well, let's have a little economic alliance with the Greens.' So lecturing us about economics—lecturing the Labor Party after we have delivered three AAA ratings and delivered this country through the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression—is a bit rich coming from the jelly-backs in the coalition.

They go on to say, 'We'll help families,' as I have said. Not if you are a Qantas worker; your family is not going to get helped. Not if you are a car worker; your family is not going to get helped. They said they will stand up for real action. Everyone is sitting waiting for this real action from the coalition. Where is the real action from the coalition? All the action is in the coalition party room, where they are clawing each other to death. They said they wanted a grown-up government. What is the first thing they do? Talk about a nanny state! They have a nanny government. They have the leader, the Prime Minister, telling senior ministers that they cannot even make a decision on who should be in their employment. How crazy is it that you have the Prime Minister's office telling senior ministers that they cannot employ a chief of staff who has worked for them for years? No wonder Senator Macdonald has gone ballistic and is after you lot. No wonder Senator Macdonald cannot understand what this is about. It seems to me that Senator Macdonald has also seen the disintegration of any capacity for the coalition to run a decent economic argument and look after people when they are in need. So the pragmatic approach is in full flight.

I come back to the Our Action Contract. They said there would be modest, prudent commitments that would be achievable. Let me tell you what one of the first modest, prudent, achievable commitments was in their rhetoric to the electorate—that they would restore a budget surplus within three years and start paying Labor's debt. Well, where is that going? That has disappeared down the tube. So much for Our Action Contract! All the action is in the party room. All the action is cuddling up to the Greens. All the action is caving in to the National Party. That is where the action is. The Treasurer is like an Indian rubber man—no spine, no backbone—and is not capable of leading this country. He is submitting and caving in to everyone who puts any pressure on the Treasury.

When you look at what this government promised before the election and you see their inaction now, their lack of capability, their lack of vision and their lack of economic credibility then I think the public are entitled to be worried. The public are on to the coalition. They know that prior to the election they had no policies. They had no real economic policies. That is the reality. They had all these action contracts. As soon as they became a government the contracts were ripped up and thrown away. There is absolutely no contract there. It is absolute nonsense from the coalition in relation to taking this nation forward. They have got no plan. They have no modest, prudent commitments that are achievable.

They are in absolute chaos. You wonder what these party room meetings are like where you have the coalition members from South Australia watching the state get carved up, when the Victorian coalition gets carved up and when the Blue Mountains are denied decent access to rights. This is a bad government and bad economics. (Time expired)