Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I'd love to. But we've got to tell the truth. So I want to get back to this: if you haven't got the money, you can't spend it. It's a basic, simple principle that we all grew up with in the 60s—I know that goes for all of those before and a lot after me. They are the same principles I instilled in my kids. We all want the four-bedroom house. We all want the holiday in Bali. We all want the latest Toyota LandCruiser. We want, we want, we want. But we actually have to go to work, put money aside and start gradually working our way through our lives. All of us want the big mansion we can't afford. But what this previous government did—I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but it's just the truth. The previous Prime Minister was all about announcements.

It's very, very easy to sit back in the car or in the lounge and say, 'Yeah, the government should be doing this, the government should be doing that.' Yes, there are a lot of things the government should be doing. But for crying out loud we had to call for an urgent review. The previous government, under Mr Morrison and Mr Frydenberg, promised 800-odd projects. They had announcements, they had photos, but they did not consult with state governments and they did not consult with local councils. When we do these infrastructure projects—roads, rail, ports and all sorts of things—God help us, we actually should talk to the states because the states are the ones that have to implement it, and they cofund it. You don't have to be Einstein to work out that $33 billion, as Minister King said, is overspending on promises and announcements with no homework, no agreement with the states, no agreement with the councils, but a lot of photo opportunities for an election.

I think there are a lot of Aussies who would probably sit back and say, 'That's fair, I think it's fair that we have to control not only what we spend.' But what about our labour? I don't know about the good folk in the chamber, but I can tell you I'm from the great state of Western Australia. We have seriously got a crisis in construction. We know over 2,200 building companies have gone broke. We know that there is a strain in trying to get tradespeople and builders, so what is absolutely wrong with saying, 'Hang on, when we plan or when we make these announcements, let's talk to the local governments, talk to the state governments, make sure we have everything in place for when the money starts coming so that we can afford to build infrastructure'? There are many times when we should spend more than what we can afford on infrastructure. We get that. But for crying out loud, if this is the way that some people want to bring up the next generation by just making announcements, spending, saying 'Don't worry about it, she'll be right,' God help us. Thank God Australia woke up, thank God the grown-ups are finally back in power.

It hurts me to see a lot of infrastructure projects that aren't going ahead because we can't get the labour. What hurts me more is when shallow, hollow promises are made in the heat of an election just to save a few miserable souls in their seats with no intention of building these projects. What about the election promises to commuters, the car parks, the train stations? Every single one of them came in at the same cost of around $600 million for each one. It didn't matter if it was in the heart of Melbourne or the top end of Queensland—isn't that amazing? Then we have the audacity now from the senator who is not in the room—am I allowed to say that because she's not in the room now anyway?