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

I am delighted to rise to speak to this particular matter of public importance. In fact, it is very much the same as the one on 28 October 2014. As Senator Kim Carr demonstrated today in question time, the question time committee have run out of ideas and, obviously, so have the MPI committee. But I will accept the fact that Mr Abbott did make one mistake leading up to the 2013 election. Mr Abbott believed the then Treasurer, Mr Swan, that the deficit in 2013-14 was going to be $18 billion. That was Mr Abbott's mistake. I will tell you why it was a mistake: because the deficit was not $18 billion. It was not even $20 billion or $30 billion or $40 billion, but, of course, as Mr Abbott should have predicted, based on the previous performances of Mr Swan and the various prime ministers of the Labor government during the six years, it was a $48 billion deficit.

For those of us on this side who are used to running businesses and used to running governments and used to turning around the debt of past Labor governments, the simple reality is that when you inherit a $48 billion deficit you have got to show some leadership and you have got to do something about it. You cannot let it keep going the way it did. What we inherited as we came into government was a scenario in which this country was spending $100 million a day, seven days a week, more than it was earning as revenue. And what have we actually seen since the coalition came into government? As my good colleague Senator Smith well knows from our producing state of Western Australia, we have had a further $90 billion write-down in our revenues. So if Labor was in government, where would we be now? We would be running much higher deficits, much higher debts.

Those in the gallery might like to know that when Labor came into government in 2007, as a result of the legacy of Howard and Costello there was no debt. We had cash in the bank. We had a significant surplus. And where did we find ourselves in September 2013? We had cumulative deficits of $200 billion and the debt was running towards $670 billion—and Senator Moore invites us to comment on some form of failure of a government that has got hold of the failures of its predecessors and indeed is reversing those failures for the long-term benefit of the Australian community! Peter Costello inherited a $96 billion debt and he created a surplus. He established a saving of $6 billion a year in interest. That reminds me of the fact that we are actually paying $1 billion a month—not on repaying the debt, just on repaying the interest. That is a primary school that we are giving up every 12 hours, seven days a week, because we are borrowing overseas to repay the interest on Labor's debt.

So what level of responsibility do we have this evening from a leader of a party who should be hanging his head so deeply in shame? I quote from one of the newspaper articles: 'Comrade Bill Shorten says "nyet" to budget'—without reading it! This is the man who said: 'I support what Prime Minister Gillard has said, although I do not know what she said.' And here today, before he even knows what's in the budget, he is saying: 'No, we're going to oppose it.' On the ABC this morning he said: 'The truth is it is a budget for the rubbish bin'—before he has even read it! What level of responsibility is the alternative Prime Minister of this country showing to the people of this country when he comes out with those sorts of statements!

In her condolence speech a few moments ago Senator Wong spoke about the efforts of the late Senator Peter Walsh, who came from a fine Western Australian wheat-growing family that is only about 40 miles from my own family in the wheat belt of WA. She said Senator Walsh had inherited a $5 billion deficit from the outgoing Fraser government and turned it into a $2 billion surplus. But we are not talking about $2 billion; we are talking about a $200 billion deficit moving towards $670 billion of debt. Contrary to what we have just heard from Senator Polley, let us talk about where we are. In the first three months of this year alone, 73,000 new jobs—most of them, I understand, full-time—have been created. In the 18 months since this government was elected in September 2013, some 247,000 new jobs have been created—70 per cent more than in the last 18 months of the Labor government. Job advertisements are up, retail trading numbers are up—and this is a very hard circumstance.

So the people of Australia have really got a right to ask: what is the Labor opposition doing to work with the government and with the Australian people to overcome these issues? It is not so much that they have opposed initiatives in this place; it is the fact that the Labor Party, in opposition, have opposed some $5 billion of savings that were their own savings—and that is an act of bastardry in which they left the country with some $200 billion worth of deficit.

The economic recovery of this country has started, and we will see further evidence of it this evening. Export volumes are up some 70 per cent through this year. Bankruptcies have fallen. Residential building approvals, in a fine sign of confidence in the economy, are 24 per cent higher than they were a year ago and at record levels. These are all signs of people's confidence in the government. Has it taken some time? Yes, it has—because people remember that we are still paying off $1 billion a month in interest. And imagine what that figure of $1 billion in interest would be if interest rates were to rise from their current two per cent to four or six per cent! So we are seeing recovery economically.

Senator Moore, in presenting today's MPI, spoke of the situation with education. Let me focus on education for a few minutes. Labor, along with the Greens, said very proudly about education: 'We give a Gonski!' The one thing the Labor Party did not do was put any money into it. In the final year of the Labor government—in case there are those who either do not know or have forgotten—they actually carved $1.2 billion out of the education budget. It required an incoming coalition government to put that $1.2 billion back. So it is a little bit rich for the now opposition to jump up and down about education expenditure when it is this government that has returned it. There has been an increase in education expenditure of some $3.7 billion, bringing Western Australia and the Northern Territory back into a circumstance where there would be a return to fairness.

Over the last decade, for governments of both persuasions, there has been an increase of some 40 per cent in education expenditure. But it has been left to this government, a government which sees value in more than just throwing money at a situation, to put funding into education. We are putting money into better teacher quality; into better support for new teachers; into engagement with parents, who we all know are so vital; into increasing the opportunities for school autonomy so that school principals, their boards and the parents can have a greater say; and, of course, into the curriculum itself. There are many fine areas in which this coalition government is assisting education.

Senator Polley spoke of the risk, now, to university campuses in northern Tasmania. She can sheet that home exactly to herself and to the Labor Party in opposition, who have opposed the higher education initiatives of this government. Those in opposition can answer the 80,000 students who would have been getting HECS or HELP assistance and the 20,000 apprentices who now may not have the opportunity of that excellent funding—the opportunity for the universities to capitalise on international students. I, for one, remain very proud of what this government is doing. I eagerly look forward to the outcome of the budget this evening to further strengthen Australia's economy.