David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens and commentators like Ross Gittins dismiss concerns about rising government debt by saying that government is borrowing to invest in real assets that will provide benefits for decades to come. It is amazing that they can say this with a straight face, as the last time Australian governments borrowed simply to invest was in 2008. In every year since, the governments of Australia have borrowed big and have used most of this borrowing to supplement spending rather than to invest. Look at last year: governments across Australia borrowed $60 billion but only used $27 billion of this to invest, while $33 billion of the $60 billion was used to spend. That is more than $1,000 of borrowing to spend for every Australian, and there is no asset to show for it.

It seems that, no matter how large the tax-take is, our governments feel the need to spend more than the tax-take. It seems the desire to spend on the wages of bureaucrats and on handouts to individuals and businesses knows no bounds. The figures I quote are for the entire public sector across the nation, but there is no shifting the blame to the states—when it comes to borrowing to spend, the Commonwealth government is the main culprit. Supporting this reckless borrowing is the height of irresponsibility. But, still, the Greens and apologists for them, like Ross Gittins, pretend that their position is the caring one. For the sake of our children, voters must remove all Greens from our parliaments before it is too late.

This week, I introduced a bill to remove requirements to pay weekend penalty rates in hospitality businesses. This would help cafes and shops that currently struggle to stay open on weekends. This is good for workers. It would also lead cafes and shops to open more on weekends and to hire more staff. This is similarly good for workers. The idea that this change would hurt workers is fanciful. The idea relies on the fantasy that huge numbers of workers currently get as many hours of weekend work as they want in cashed-up cafes and shops, but that these cashed-up cafes and shops would slash wages the split second they were allowed to.

In reality, this change would mostly hurt unions, whose business model revolves around charging workers for their expertise in lobbying for complicated workplace regulations. Removing the requirement to pay penalty rates in hospitality will help the proprietors of our cafes and shops. These small business owners receive next to no public sympathy but work extremely long hours at low rates of pay. I am unapologetic that removing the penalty rate requirement would sometimes serve to boost the pay and conditions of these people, because that is exactly what they deserve.

Finally, removing the requirement to pay penalty rates in hospitality will help our community. Lively shopping, cafe and entertainment districts draw us out of our homes and promote weekend catch-ups and activities with families and friends. Defenders of penalty rate requirements are doing the work of the fun police. They hate small business, they are the enemy of our young workers and they are in the pocket of the unions. The time to break their callous hold on our weekends is now.

This week I reintroduced a bill to allow the territories to legalise assisted suicide, which is sometimes referred to as voluntary euthanasia. The bill is further evidence that you do not have to be a leftie to support increased freedom on social matters. The Liberal Democrats support older Australians by supporting the legalisation of assisted suicide—just like the Left. But, unlike the Left, the Liberal Democrats also support older Australians by opposing tax increases on superannuation savings, and we support tax cuts on other retirement savings. Government should not tell older Australians how they can and cannot die, and government should not tell older Australians that they need to give up more of their hard-earned money so that it can be wasted.

The Liberal Democrats support the right of people to smoke marijuana—just like the Left. But, unlike the Left, the Liberal Democrats support the right of people to smoke tobacco, too. The Liberal Democrats support the right of same-sex couples to marry—just like the Left. But, unlike the Left, the Liberal Democrats support the right of opponents of same-sex marriage to have nothing to do with such marriages—whether they are marriage celebrants, photographers or florists. The Liberal Democrats oppose the rise of the police state—just like the Left. But, unlike the Left, the Liberal Democrats also oppose the rise of the nanny state. The police state and the nanny state are one and the same. They both reflect the view that we should rely on government to keep us safe at all costs.

We Liberal Democrats are the consistent ones. Supporters of assisted suicide, drug law reform, same-sex marriage and civil liberties have a choice. They no longer need to swallow high taxes and excessive government just to get a little social progress.

Debate adjourned.