Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been following this debate very closely on the monitors, and you would almost think that this whole debt issue is a debt issue for the Liberal-National Party—the coalition, the current government. I want to ask the Assistant Treasurer: what has brought about the need to keep extending the limit of borrowing of the Commonwealth? As I recall, back in the days of the Howard government there was very little borrowing at all. There was not a great deal of need to extend any limits, because that was a government that lived within its means.

I confess to not being a great expert on the finer points of Commonwealth funding and management of government works, but it seems to me to be fairly clear—a matter of simple logic—that you borrow money only when you do not have enough money to pay for the things that the government needs to pay for. As I say, back in the Howard government's time the government lived within its means, yet we have had six years of profligate spending by a Labor Party government that was simply incapable of living within its means. Governments get a certain amount of money in. It is not government's money, of course; it is yours and mine, Mr Temporary Chairman. It is the taxpayers' money. Governments get in a certain amount of money, as in your household, and having got that money in you then spend it in the best interests of the household or the people that you are looking after—in this case, the people of Australia, and more often than not those less able to look after themselves, the socially disadvantaged—or for the essential things of government: defence, security, pensions and that sort of thing.

I want to ask the Assistant Treasurer: why are we in this situation? Is it something that your government has done, Minister, that has put us in this, or is it your government attempting to deal with the huge debt that was bequeathed to you by the previous Labor government after six years of profligate spending? I would be interested to hear your answer.

I have been listening to this debate. I heard you, Minister, say that there is no greater friend of my state of Queensland than this government, and I look forward to seeing the proof of that. Dare I say in passing that this government should be looking after Queensland because, if it were not for the electoral result in Queensland in 2010 and again in 2013, this government might not be here. It was a magnificent result from Queensland and it was an expression of the concern my constituents had about the six years of awful government we had under Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd—six years when nobody knew quite what was happening and when money was just being spent without any regard for financial responsibility whatsoever. The people of Queensland do not like that. The people of Queensland are hard workers. They put their shoulders to the wheel. They contribute enormously to the economy of Australia. I have often said—and I am sure people are sick of me saying it but I will say it again—that those of us who live above the Tropic of Capricorn represent only about five per cent of the Australian public and yet we are responsible for more than 50 per cent of Australia's export earnings. We do not see much of it coming back to the North, I might say. I would hope that, as Senator Sinodinos has assured me and assured the Senate, this government will be looking after the people of Queensland and—by extension, I take it—the north of Australia generally.

We have read and heard over the last few days a hell of a lot about the car industry in Victoria. I remind the minister and the government that there is another very significant industry in Australia that is on its knees at the present time: the northern beef cattle industry. I wonder what assistance the government is intending to give for that industry. That industry is in the situation it is in not through any mismanagement of the industry, not through any international car maker in Detroit making decisions about its Australian operations; it is in that predicament because of a criminally stupid decision of the previous government that destroyed the northern beef cattle industry and all the jobs and the small businesses that used to support that.

Fortunately, Minister, under your government there has been some progress made in dealings with Indonesia—with no help from the opposition, who seem determined to destroy any goodwill between us and the Indonesian people and government. But I am delighted, Minister, that your government has done something. But of course more is needed. People in that industry are in a desperate plight at the moment and desperately need urgent assistance—and not, I repeat, assistance for assistance's sake but assistance to compensate that industry for the criminally stupid decision that the Gillard-Rudd government made to destroy an industry and all the jobs and small businesses that went with it.

I have diverted myself from the question. The Committee of the Whole is an opportunity to ask questions, not to make speeches, as the previous speaker seems to have done. I want to get the minister to bring the debate back to what I understand it to be about. Is it a fact, Minister, that we have to continue borrowing this money because of debt incursions or debt commitments made by the previous government over the last six years to pay for expenditure that they did not have the money for so they borrowed it? I assume that just the change of government and the stopping of that ridiculous spending does not allow the debts to stop. I assume that a lot of the debts are locked in over a long period of time. But I would just like your confirmation of that, because, having heard the debate today, one would be confused, Minister, for thinking it was your government that has run up all these debts and required this. Perhaps you could clarify that for the Senate.