James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2019. One of the great achievements of this government—there have been many great achievements—has been its investment in science, research and innovation, something that I believe the Australian people, especially those from Queensland, recognised at the last election. Queensland is renowned for having people who basically are brain boxes. We're a lot smarter than the rest of the country, and that was recognised at the last election—sorry, cabinet minister from New South Wales—when 23 out of the 30 seats in Queensland returned a Liberal National Party member. Queensland understands and respects how this Liberal National Party government spends funds and makes sure we are the guardians of the taxpayer funds, because it is not the government's money. It's not the Greens' money.

I heard Senator Faruqi before talking about how she would like to spend more money. That's nice, because that means Senator Faruqi and the Greens want more taxes and they want to tax the people who work hard and who make sure that Australia drives forward. We on this side of the chamber, the Liberal National Party, make sure that the taxpayer funds are spent appropriately. In 2018-19 the Liberal-National coalition government committed $9.6 billion of taxpayer funds to the areas of science, research and innovation. Now, that mightn't be much to the senators from the other side, because they're very good at wasting money—they're in the Guinness book of records. There are photos of the shadow cabinets and previous cabinets of Labor administrations that have been world record breakers at wasting money, but $9.6 billion is a lot of money. We've got to make sure that that money is spent appropriately, cautiously and in the right area.

It gets even better for the research sector. Over the next four years, the Liberal-National coalition government will invest $12.4 billion in education. That's not 'million'; it is 'billion'. That is a lot of money. That includes $8 billion through research block grants provided to universities and $3.3 billion in funding provided through the Australian Research Council. This government understands the importance of research and understands the importance of science. It's why, since 2013, for example, we've been prioritising STEM in terms of making sure that element of schooling is focused upon. Minister Andrews, a former engineer and the minister in one of these spaces here, is pushing forward to make sure we get more young people, especially more young women, into these areas. We're also making sure the money is going into these areas.

This goes to an earlier point I was making. You cannot spend these record amounts of money, these billions of dollars, unless you are looking after the economy. You can't all go to some Swiss bank, get a MasterCard out and say, 'We'd like to borrow a couple of billion dollars, $3.3 billion, to fund the Australian Research Council.' We can't keep going overseas and borrowing money off people; we have to make sure we live within our means in Australia. That's why our government in Australia, this Liberal National Party government, understand we have to live within our means, to make sure that there are low taxes, because we believe people are better judges to make sure the money they worked hard for is spent by them, and that the taxes raised are spent appropriately. We make sure business is encouraged to employ more people, to invest in business and grow. We want to encourage people to start their own businesses, so they can get out there and earn money.

We don't want to have the Labor and Greens approach of having a drone-like economy where people are constantly sanded down and all they're seen as is just cash cows for left-wing projects. We understand the majesty of people, the majesty of innovation that can happen in Australia with freedom. That comes from having a government who understands that low taxes work. When you get the money in, you invest it wisely. We already heard here today that the Greens want to spend more money and more money and more money. That's nice. There's no such thing as free money. There's no such thing as a nice international bank that's going to send lots of cheques over to the Greens and say, 'Here you go; spend all this money.' The money the Greens want to spend comes from taxes and will come from increasing taxes on hardworking Australians.

We've also supported a further $2.2 billion investment in world-class research, equipment and facilities through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. The government invests in research because we recognise its role in securing a strong and prosperous economy. The Australian Research Council supports a wide variety of fundamental and applied research projects. I'll be brutally honest: sometimes they put investment into projects where I raise one or two eyebrows and probably roll my eyes, but I understand the importance of the research sector. The government is supporting the next generation of researchers as well as Australia's current generation of excellent researchers through the research funding schemes of the Australian Research Council, with around $770 million of funding allocated to the council this year.

This is not the government's money. I keep stressing this. This is taxpayer money. On this side of the chamber we want to make sure that taxpayer money is being spent appropriately. We don't want to see an equivalent of 'cash-for-clunkers'. We don't want to see an equivalent of the pink batts scheme. We don't want to see an equivalent of what Labor did in their last term, sending out cheques to dead dogs and things like that. We want to make sure that taxpayer money is being spent appropriately.

What this bill does is update the appropriation in the Australian Research Council Act 2001 with current indexation rates across the forward estimates. It is an annual exercise to ensure the council's funding is maintained in line with indexation. The Australian Research Council Act is the legislative basis that supports the financial operations of the Australian Research Council's research programs. It does this through special appropriation mechanisms which must occur each financial year. Each year the special appropriation funding caps—that is, sections 48 and 49 in the Australian Research Council Act—are amended. The funding caps are amended to reflect the latest agreed funding profile as established in the 2019-20 budget. That is a very important budget that we should always spend more time focusing on. It is a budget where Treasurer Josh Frydenberg laid out a very strong plan—building on the work of previous treasurers in this government—for how we're going to get this budget back into the black and, importantly, pay down the national debt that was racked up by the reckless spending of the previous Labor administrations. It is only by managing the economy carefully—by ensuring the guardianship of important taxpayers like pay-as-you-go taxpayers and businesses that grow and have income and pay company tax, and by making sure they have the aspiration to work hard and make their lives better and make Australia a better place—that the government can receive taxation income and spend that money in areas such as this.

Because if you do not have a well-run economy, if you do not live within your means, that will conclude with important programs like the Australian Research Council not being funded. If you look at what happens in the recent history of this country, Labor will get in and they will stuff the economy up. And that is a very analytical term: 'stuff the economy up'. You can look at the periods 1972 to 1975, 1983 to 1996 and 2007 to 2013. What happened in each of those Labor administrations? In fact, I might be back to pre-1949. When Labor get into power, they stuff up the economy or they want to do crazy things like nationalise the banks and nationalise the economy. They get in, they rack up debt and they increase taxes, and the resulting effect of this is that services suffer.

In my home state of Queensland, Labor administrations have been in power for decades and look what they have done. We've got hospital ramping again. We've got overcrowded schools. On a national level, we can see, for example, whether it is the funding that goes into the Australian Research Council program or the funding that goes into the Australian Army, Navy and Air Force, that under Labor spending as a percentage of GDP on our Defence went down to pre-World War II levels. That happened because Labor, the left and the Greens were not managing the economy. And what we're seeing here is that we are managing the economy and we are investing in research programs. This funding profile reflects the government's agreed policy. These amendments only impact administered special appropriations and they do not alter the substance of the Australian Research Council Act. As such, I recommend the bill to the Senate.