Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just cannot thank Senator Moore enough for the opportunity to draw attention and put the spotlight on the absolutely impoverished government that was the Labor government of the last six years. The interesting thing to reflect upon is that there were three prime ministers in that time—Mr Rudd followed by Ms Gillard followed by Mr Rudd. Two of the prime ministers were actually gotten rid of by Labor's own caucus. They did not even give the Australian people the opportunity to get rid of them; they just waited until 2013 to do that—so hypocrisy writ large.

When you think of Kevin Rudd, what comes to mind? You think of pink batts and the terrible loss of four lives, and you think of billions of dollars. You think, of course, of the $900 and the $1, 200 cheques that were thrown around like confetti. When you think of Ms Gillard, you think immediately of failed memorial halls, many of which are falling down now—another $13 billion of taxpayers' money. Then you have the quinella—the Wayne Swan and Senator Penny Wong quinella, the worst Treasurer and finance minister combination in Australia's history who took a surplus of $22 billion and turned it into a massive debt who took an economy that had no net debt and created $200 billion of accumulated deficits who managed to put us in a position where we are borrowing a billion dollars a month. That is two new primary schools a day, seven days a week. What a wonderful opportunity Senator Moore has given us!

Let me go on. We now think of Mr Shorten. As Minister for Workplace Relations he destroyed Australian jobs and watched unemployment go up as a result of his bad industrial laws. We think of Senator Ludwig, who, with no compassion and no thought, trashed not just Australia's international reputation but the live cattle industry—from which we are yet to recover.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

And then—right on cue, thank you very much—comes Senator Conroy with his failed NBN scheme that of course did not need to go to tender! Certainly in many instances he did not bother going to tender. Then there was Australia's overseas media operation, which is a fair dinkum disgrace, incidentally—Bananas in Pyjamas! Senator Conroy, having set up a tender, interfered in the process. He reversed the tender result and gave it to the ABC—and we know what the end result was.

Why would Senator Moore give us this opportunity? Here we have a past Labor government that operated with the best terms of trade in Australia's history yet managed to run successive deficits. Spend, spend, spend—the whole time. Let me come to this question about the promises of this—