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

I spent a good deal of my professional career in the horseracing industry. Do you know what I see when I look opposite at the Labor senators and others? I see owners who could not buy a horse but could win a race, trainers who cannot train a vine up a toilet wall and jockeys who do not know where the finishing line is. The fact of the matter is that this mob over here cannot win. They resent bitterly the fact that they cannot win. They resent the fact that we are a winning team on a winning horse that is kicking on over the next three years, the three years after that and, following that, the three years after that. We will have all of that victory. That is where the coalition finds itself.

I can tell you: we will continue to whip home the winners, so let me get started. The omnibus bill saves $6 billion, with support from the Labor Party, I must admit. But just remember: Mr Ken Henry, the then secretary of the Treasury, now the head of the National Bank, said, 'Don't get too proud of yourselves, boys, because you've actually got $350 billion to wind back.' And whose debt was it that we are winding back, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to Senator Williams? You know, Senator Williams; you know, Senator Paterson. It is the $350 billion that Labor squandered in raising debt in this country.

Only today—talk about success; I need nine hours, not nine minutes—have we made a major tax saving for 3.1 million taxpayers in Australia by changing the rate at which they get to the maximum tax rate. There are 3.1 million people better off today as a result of the hundred days of this government. We go then to Medicare. I will not today explain in any great detail what a losing jockey does when he is that far behind the field in getting towards the finishing line. He comes up with every scare campaign he can. In the case of the election, it was called 'Mediscare'. And, of course, with 'Mediscare' we were going to end up selling Medicare. There was going to be no financial support for the aged people of Australia. How that party over there could have got to the finishing line, well behind, of course, as they were, and then go to chairman of stewards and say to him, 'We were honest in this campaign'! They should have been rubbed out for five years.

Speaking of Senator Carr going on about how we did, Senator Carr did not tell you, in the gallery, through you, Acting Deputy President, that the Labor Party had its second-lowest performance in its history in the 2016 election. So do not get too worried about the performance of the Turnbull government. But let's talk a little bit about Medicare and bulk-billing. Under this government, led by Mr Abbott and now Mr Turnbull—the last hundred days we are talking about in detail—85 per cent of bulk-billing is undertaken. What was the figure under Labor—the mob who reckoned that we were engaging in 'Mediscare'? Seventy-nine per cent. Isn't it amazing? Less than 85 per cent. More importantly, under this government, with the confidence that we have of being owned and trained and ridden by our excellent leadership, we have 17 million more people using bulk-billing. Isn't that an incredible thing for what is apparently called 'Mediscare'?

Pharmaceutical benefits—what have we done with the excellent minister, Minister Susan Ley? We have more than three times the number of pharmaceuticals now registered in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. If that is failure, I will own it. I will own that failure every time. As of 1 October 2016—I think that fits within the hundred-day envelope, doesn't it, Senator Paterson, through you, Acting Deputy President; I think 1 October fits in—another 2,000 medicines have been included in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, reducing the cost by millions of dollars to the Australian taxpayers, who I hope are listening to this presentation this afternoon.

Our defence industry plan brings defence manufacturing back to Australia. Excellent work will go on in Western Australia. And, if ever the South Australians get rid of their Labor government, get rid of their nonsensical attitude to their renewable energy electricity, which sends their state into darkness, they will have some chance of spending $50 billion on new submarines. Most likely, they will end up being built also in Western Australia. I could go on for the entire nine minutes about what we are doing in defence industry: new submarines, new air warfare destroyers, new offshore platform vessels et cetera.

I could speak about the free trade agreements which we are negotiating at the moment with 11 other countries—the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Forty per cent of the world's economy is tied up in those 12 countries. This, of course, is after the apparent failure—I would call it the immense success—of then trade minister Andrew Robb, now being undertaken in this hundred days by Minister Steve Ciobo, the trade minister. Free trade agreements with a few miserly little countries: China, Korea, Japan. Do not know much about them.

Senator Lambie interjecting—

I will talk to you one day, Senator Lambie, about free trade agreements. You understand nothing about the investor dispute-state service. I will explain it to you one day in simple terms so you too can understand it.

We come now to the work of Senator Birmingham and what he has been doing in reversing the shocking Labor failure under VET FEE-HELP. I sat—Acting Deputy President Ketter, before you were in the Senate—in the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee and I said at that time in those committees, 'You will set up another pink batts disaster. You will set up another Gillard memorial halls disaster.' And we have seen the wastage of billions of taxpayers' dollars on VET FEE-HELP, which of course Senator Birmingham—in the hundred days that was the subject of this question from Senator Gallagher—is now trying to wind back. He is winding back that corrupt loss. When I talk about people who cannot buy a horse, train a horse or ride a horse, the Labor opposition fits right into that analogy.

In my own industry, that associated with livestock, I look at the strength of livestock prices—beef prices, sheepmeat prices, live animal prices—as a result of this coalition government. Remember, we came off a pretty low base, I must admit. That was after Labor in government banned the live export trade and destroyed the live export of sheep and cattle out of this country. So I do admit we are coming off a low base. There is tremendous confidence now in the agricultural industries of this country as a result of the decisions of our coalition government. There is employment in Australia through processing, through live exports, through production. Senator Williams knows as well as I do the tremendous investment that is now going back into agriculture.

I will talk about another industry with which I am wonderfully familiar, and that is LNG. We have failed so badly that in 2018-19 we will go past Qatar as the biggest exporter of LNG in the world. I was in the country of Azerbaijan only two weeks ago and they were saying to us, 'Look at what you in Australia have done.' Chevron and their partners—US$100 billion of investment. Is that some failure? You call it failure; I do not. Only yesterday, we had the first cargo of liquefied natural gas from the second of the two 4½ million tonnes per annum projects out of Gladstone. What wonderful performance we have had in that industry! Again, in only the last couple of days, Senator Paterson—through you, Acting Deputy President—there has been a whole stack of new interest in the sale of and increased pricing for coking coal. And for those who get concerned about coal: no, it is not the thermal coal that produces electricity; it is the best quality coal in the world, which is used for steel production. I hope that even those who are opposed to the generation of electricity from hydrocarbons at least recognise that we do need steel.

It has been 800 days without a single person coming to Australia through that shocking trade of people smuggling. How much longer can I go on for? I am proud to be on the horse that is going to win the Melbourne Cup year after year after year.