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

The issue before us is an issue of trust and competence. I think, given the pathetic performance of this government since it took office, that the public do not trust you. That is the reality. They do not trust you to look after jobs in the manufacturing sector, they do not trust you to look after their health and they do not trust you to look after their education. No-one has ever seen such a fiasco so early in a government's life as the education fiasco that has beset the coalition, an absolutely terrible situation. I always wonder, when we keep hearing about where the coalition are heading and we keep coming back to Peter Costello—my least favourite treasurer—and also find it interesting to think through where the coalition got some of the arguments that they put to the public prior to the last election. The reality is they had a Tea Party tool kit in their back pocket.

How do we know that? We know that because Senator Mathias Cormann, the now Minister for Finance, had in his itinerary for a trip to the US, in January 2011, meetings with all of the right-wing ideologues in the US including FreedomWorks and the Tea Party. So he was not going there to be told about the role of government, he was not going there to be advised about what role government can play in terms of crisis; he was there to talk to the Tea Party, FreedomWorks, the Cato institute, the Heritage foundation, the Chicago Climate Exchange and the Heartland Institute. That institute is the mob who do not believe anything is happening with the climate, they do not believe the climate is a problem and they do not believe that smoking is a problem. They are financed by big business from the mining sector and financed by the tobacco sector. So here we have one of the senior frontbenchers in the coalition in 2011 out to get his tool kit from the Tea Party. They have got what is called the Patriot's Toolbox. Every time you hear Senator Cormann speak in this place, understand that a toolbox is coming out. It is the Patriot's Toolbox. It is the Tea Party's Toolbox and in it they have got all their approaches on a range of issues.

They have got 10 principles of healthcare policy, including that you should keep government out of health care and only those that can afford to have health care should engage in health care of a standard that is appropriate for their means. So if you are working class then you do not get health care but if you can afford to get health care then you get it. That is from the Patriot's Toolbox, which Senator Cormann brought back. There are 10 principles of energy policy, so just deny that there is anything happening in terms of climate change, just deny that the big polluters are polluting the atmosphere and just deny that the changes that are taking place as to climate are anything to do with the big business that fill the coffers of the Tea Party and the coalition here with money to fight elections. There are 10 principles of school choice. Quite clearly, that part of the Toolbox has come out as used by Senator Cormann and that part of the Toolbox is alive and well. It is basically about going back to a situation where it does not matter what are your needs as it is simply about whether you can afford to pay for a private education—and if so you will get it. So if you have got plenty of money your education is not a problem; if you are in the working class in this country then you will be set back a long way as you will not have access to the best and you will not have the equal opportunity that we hear so much about in this place. You can still stay in decaying schools, you will not have access to the best teachers and you will not have access to the tools that provide a decent education.

There are 10 principles of privatisation. I think all it says is 'Sell off' 10 times, so sell off anything that government is involved in. There are 10 principles of telecom policy, so put up a big fridge at the end of every street in the country, call that a node and say, 'We'll get to you your second-rate, second-class digital access in the future.' There are 10 principles of state fiscal policy. What it goes on to say there is that fiscal policy and state budgets across the country are bleeding ink with no end in sight and 'this booklet presents a pathway towards sound fiscal policy'. It says:

Above all else: Keep taxes low.

Protect state employees from politics.

It goes on with a whole load of nonsense. I think the situation is quite clear, that there is a role for the state and that when the market is failing there is a need for the state to be involved. I have been looking through some of my books over recent times including one by Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist. The book is called Freefall. What does he say about the big debate that is going to take place after the global financial crisis? Remember that this is the global financial crisis that the coalition pretend has never existed. They wiped it out of their memory banks. In fact, we had senators who are here arguing that it was not really a global financial crisis and that it was a North American financial crisis. How dopey can you get? They tried to argue that our businesses were not failing because they could not get investment, they tried to argue that banks were not in jeopardy, they tried to argue that what we had done in terms of a stimulus package really should not have been done—just when everyone else in the world was talking about the global financial crisis and I think in the United States they called it 'the great recession' with multimillions of people losing their jobs. Twenty million in China alone lost their jobs because of it—but supposedly it was only an American phenomenon! What Joe Stiglitz, one of the most eminent economists in the world, says is that we need to take on this argument that the government that governs best is the government that governs least. That is the argument we are getting over here: it is a fiscal policy that is about small government, no role for government, let the market rip.

What Joe Stiglitz points out is that the Republicans argue that tax cuts can cure any economic ill: the lower the tax rate, the higher the growth rate. Yet if you look at one of the most successful countries in the world, Sweden, it has one of the highest per capita incomes and broader measures of wellbeing; it outranks the United States by a considerable margin. Life expectancy in Sweden is 80.5 years, compared to 77 years in the US. Sweden understands that a country has to live within its means. Labor understands that the country has to live within its means. But I think it is becoming clear that the coalition do not see that they have to live within their means when they come here and ask, weeks after being elected, after railing against debt, for massive increases in debt. The hypocrisy is just huge.

Joe Stiglitz also says that if you want to have good health, education, roads and social protection, those public services have to be paid for and that the Swedish public sector has managed to spend its money well. America's private financial sector has done a dismal job if you compare the Swedish approach, the Scandinavian approach, to the US approach. Our shadow Treasurer is over there talking to the Tea Party and it is chalk and cheese. This small government, low tax issue is not the way forward.

Let us have a look at the Howard government when they were in government. We hear all of the arguments about what a great Treasurer Peter Costello was. In my view, he was probably the worst Treasurer we have ever seen. In the book The Australian Moment, by George Megalogenis, one of the most respected analysts in the country, he said:

Costello's first budget involved no lasting sacrifice. Labor had reduced the size of the national government from 27.3 per cent of GDP in 1984-85, to 22.7 per cent at the top of the previous boom in 1989-90. Half of those gains were lost in the session, and jobless recovery and federal spending were at 25.5 per cent of GDP by 1995-96. The coalition returned to the benchmark of 23.1 per cent of GDP by 1999-2000.

The coalition were not good economic managers. Megalogenis goes on to say:

Every voter that cried 'cost of living' was given a wad of cash to quieten them down.

So rather than be good economic managers, the coalition just handed money out—a wad of cash every time that somebody cried out. He then said:

Then the next voter wanted the same. The competition for handouts infected the government itself—

Senator Sinodinos was up to his neck in this, being a Howard staffer at the time—being pragmatic, I assume, Senator Sinodinos; taking pragmatic decisions to break the back of any opposition or any concerns people were raising about the government. He goes on to say:

The competition for handouts infected the government itself. Howard and Costello argued repeatedly over the quantity and content of the largess—

well we know who won that one. It was not jelly-back Peter Costello; it was the then Prime Minister—

but it was the Howard government, not the Howard-Costello government. The Prime Minister always prevailed, because the Treasurer did not want to take the fight to the public, even though, as Paul Keating demonstrated through the eighties, the deputy with the calculator can often pull rank on the leader with the chequebook.

So when you hear about the coalition saying that they are great economic managers, and 'Just give us all of this money and everything is going to be okay', well you want to be very careful about it. There is no trust in the coalition being able to handle the economy. There is a growing concern about their competence, and so there should be, because the Treasurer has demonstrated that he will capitulate to everyone who raises an issue—it is the Peter Costello-John Howard modus operandi writ large. There will be a capitulation. Whether you capitulate to the Nationals or you capitulate to the Greens, there will be a capitulation from the coalition, so no-one is trusting your capacity to deal with a massive increase in debt in this country.

So the issue that faces this Senate is this: if you are not trustworthy, if you are not competent, why should you be given the keys to the bank? We do not trust you; the public do not trust you. They have seen the chaos that has been this government from the start—the chaotic approaches. On the one hand you have the Greens in coalition with you and on the other hand you have the National Party in coalition with you. You have the right-wing ideologues such as Senator Cormann out there cuddling up with the Tea Party, running all of this small government agenda—this extremist agenda.

Your party room must be an absolute hoot. It must be an absolute hoot to be in your party room, listening to what is happening with Senator Cormann, listening to the arguments from your jelly back Treasurer—he just wants to give in and make sure everything is done, as you describe it Senator Sinodinos, in a pragmatic way. So it must be a real sight to be in your party room when all of these tensions and all of these divisions are writ large. No wonder Senator Macdonald is on to you. No wonder Senator Macdonald, on your own side, is describing some of the dysfunctionality in your government. Your government is dysfunctional; your government has been one of the worst governments ever to take over the Treasury benches. You cannot be trusted with the extra money that you are seeking; you cannot be trusted in looking after people who need jobs; you cannot be trusted in relation to your promises. It is what people think they were promised, according to the Prime Minister, not what you are going to do. This is a big challenge for the country. It is not a challenge for you people because you will continue your chaotic practices and demonstrate that you are unfit for government.