John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a waste of taxpayers' money that sort of interjection and point of order is. It is crazy. I will get back to the point. I love it when the Labor Party brings up the issue of the budget—you lead with your chin every time. Look at your history. This is a free kick in front of goal, just like the Sydney Swans when they defeated Port Adelaide on the weekend. It was a great result.

We went through Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Then Mr Keating started the borrowing here, and in no time he had built up $96 billion of debt. Senator Dastyari is concerned about the budget, but it is as simple as this: you take a little bit of pain now or enormous torture later on. That is the fact of it. You talked about money and how we could be using money here, there and everywhere. Senator Dastyari, you probably have not been here long enough to remember the pink batts fiasco. What a terrible waste of money, and it had very serious issues—a couple of hundred houses burned down and, sadly, four men lost their lives. That was the sad part about it all.

Then there were the school buildings. What a great campaign: $16.5 billion worth. I thought the best thing—and Senator Nash would remember this—was when we launched the National Party election campaign in 2010 down at Wagga Wagga. We were there that day, and they had built this big covered outdoor learning area—and guess what? The day we launched the Nationals campaign, it fell over. It crashed to the ground. What a great investment of taxpayers' money that was—sorry, it was not taxpayers' money; it was money you borrowed. You borrowed so much money that, as of last Friday, the Australian taxpayers owe, on the whole, $328.5 billion. And you are wondering why we stopped this mess.

As I said, it is a matter of a bit of pain now or severe torture later on if we do not address the budget problems that we inherited from the mess you made, and that is how it has been all of my life. Half of Australian households receive a taxpayer funded payment. Over 70 per cent of Australians over 65 receive the age or service pension. This year, the Australian government will spend over $6,000 on average on welfare—Senator Dastyari, you need to listen to this; this is really important—for every man, woman and child in the country. Can this go on? No, it cannot go on. You cannot just keep borrowing money and spending it.

You talked about health. I want to say that there are some great points that my colleague Senator Nash—the Assistant Minister for Health—has brought forward. We have provided $238.4 million over five years to double the Practice Incentives Program teaching payments for general practices which provide teaching opportunities to medical students. We have provided $52.5 million over three years for a minimum of 175 grants for existing general practices in rural and regional settings to provide additional space for supervision, teaching and training of medical students and general-practice registered nurses. Now, I said rural and regional. I am sure that Senator Dastyari does not understand what 'rural and regional' means, because he is one of those senators who probably gets out to the limits of Sydney and, if he is not watching the GPS, will not know where he is going and will be afraid of getting lost. He would never have been out there.

You talked about the fuel excise indexation. We need our roads fixed. You said, 'The farmers are going to have to pay extra for the diesel in their tractors.' Senator Nash, what a joke! Senator Dastyari, you do not realise that all the excise is rebated to the farmers—and the fishermen and the miners—because farmers are not wearing the roads out when they are ploughing the paddocks. You might not be aware of that. You see, the tractors do not go around the roads all the time. They actually are on the other side of the fence, ploughing the paddocks. They are not on the road. You have got to learn this, Senator Dastyari: when a farmer is ploughing a paddock, they are not wearing out the roads—but they are competing against subsidised farmers all around the world. In Europe last year, there were $65 billion of subsidies to their farmers. In America, there were $25 billion of subsidies to their farmers. And, in China, there were a massive $127 billion of subsidies to their farmers. You need to understand that the diesel fuel rebate is so important so that our farmers can compete. If you can ever get past your GPS and get out into the rural areas a bit, I will gladly show you around the electorate of New South Wales one day. Come out, and we will show you how farming operates. We can show you the difference between a tractor and a header—