Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In February this year I rose in the adjournment debate to lament the political demise of the member for Isaacs, Ms Ann Corcoran. Ms Corcoran, as senators will be very well aware, is a diligent and hardworking local member who is well regarded on both sides of the chamber. You will recall that Ms Corcoran fell foul of a factional fix to move on some very decent members of parliament. The move failed in the case of Mr Crean but succeeded against the member for Corio, Mr Gavan O’Connor, and Ms Corcoran. Despite this, I can attest that Ms Corcoran is still working hard. I regularly receive her ‘Corcoran Isaacs News’ and see her at most community functions I attend in Melbourne’s south-east.

The individual who won preselection against Ms Corcoran was Melbourne silk Mr Mark Dreyfus QC. Mr Dreyfus was installed by the ALP central panel despite being heavily defeated in the ballot of local party members. Mr Mark Dreyfus QC may be known by Victorian senators opposite as the author of the 1998 Dreyfus review into the Victorian branch of the ALP. In that report Mr Dreyfus stated:

Membership makes a party, not the other way around. Labor is, or should be, people—not vehicle, not structure, not hierarchy.

Yet it was structure and factional hierarchy, not people, that secured Mr Dreyfus his preselection.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, we have to put up with you for 20 minutes later on; I do not want you to start now, thank you!

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Dreyfus went on to say:

A measure of the party’s self-confidence should be an easing of the discipline, the ‘closed backroom-ness’ that formal factionalism inevitably brings.

I guess Mr Dreyfus was banking on this easing of factionalism occurring only after he had managed to secure his own preselection. The fact is, rotten though the process may have been, Mr Dreyfus is the endorsed ALP candidate for Isaacs. You might expect, having been preselected over a year ago, that Mr Dreyfus would be living in the electorate he seeks to serve—you might, but you would be wrong. He lives in Malvern in the seat of Higgins, and he has no intention to move either before or after the election.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are a genius!

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Dreyfus told the Age on 7 February last year that the measure of a good MP is not where they live but how hard they work for local people. But he remains unabashed. Only last week—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order: does reading the Age into Hansard constitute giving a speech? Is it relevant?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators quote from all sources, Senator Conroy.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or just read slabs of the Age into the Hansard.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not just the Age. Mr Dreyfus is unabashed and unashamed. Last week he told the Chelsea, Mordialloc, Mentone Independent that it is not where you—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point of order: I was just wondering, now that he has demonstrated how well read he is, if it is relevant at all to be just quoting from—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, if you are going to continue to take frivolous points of order, I will have to come down on you. Remain quiet.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I closely read not just the local papers but also everything that Mr Dreyfus produces. He has produced a lot of material in the electorate of Isaacs—a lot of personally addressed mail. It is a very slick, professional, well-financed, union backed campaign. I must admit to being surprised not to read anywhere in Mr Dreyfus’s material that he does not live in the electorate. Nowhere does he mention that he lives 20 kilometres away in the suburb of Malvern. Nowhere in his material to the electorate does he mention that he has no intention to move, and nowhere in his direct mail to his prospective electors does he mention that he has no intention of moving.

But what I have read, in his personally addressed letter to residents of May 2007, is that Mr Dreyfus is keen to represent ‘you and other local residents’. He uses the word ‘local’ to try and convey that he is local. In the same letter he also invites the same local residents to fill in a survey so he can ‘be a strong voice for our community’. He refers to ‘our community’ as though he is part of it. In another letter, back in March of this year, Mr Dreyfus informed residents that he was standing as ‘your local Labor candidate’. He uses the word ‘local’ again as though he lives just around the corner.

You could not say he fibs. You could not say he lies. But he does seek to leave the impression that he is local. But to be local means you live in the area. We know he does not. We know he lives in Malvern. Even being charitable, to claim to be local means you must at least work in the area, even if you do not live there. But we know Mr Dreyfus does not work in Isaacs. He has chambers in the city. The location of Mr Dreyfus’s chambers—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. Does putting your office in an electorate make you a local, Senator?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order, Senator. If you continue on in that fashion I will have to name you.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Dreyfus’s chambers are in Bourke Street. The location of his chambers shows he does have a bit of a sense of humour. His chambers are in Latham Chambers.

You cannot sneak around using the words ‘our’ and ‘local’ and pretend to be a local. The people of Isaacs will not be fooled. Mr Dreyfus spruiks a post office box in Mentone, and a back-alley shopping strip address in Chelsea, as his point of contact. But it takes more than a database and a mail-merge to show that you have local knowledge.

Mr Dreyfus is not relying on hard work and local commitment to win Isaacs. His campaign is extremely well resourced. He has the unions behind him, he has the local state members behind him and he has the Bracks Labor government behind him. Today, under the headline ‘Silk’s purse’, we learnt that documents obtained by the Herald Sun under freedom of information reveal that Mr Dreyfus was paid handsomely by the Bracks government to help them foist a toxic dump on the people of Mildura.

I told the Senate on 8 February this year that Mr Dreyfus was paid in excess of $50,000 for this task. I was wrong. The Herald Sun revealed today that Mr Dreyfus was not paid $50,000; he was paid $340,000. Now, it will not surprise anyone to know that Melbourne has no shortage of barristers. There are plenty of them around but the Bracks government managed to pick and pay one of their own. So, you have a well-known friend of the Bracks government pocketing $340,000 to prosecute an issue on behalf of the state government against the wishes of the people of Mildura.

But perhaps there is some good news for the people of Isaacs in this $340,000. Perhaps Mr Dreyfus could use this $340,000 pocketed from the Victorian taxpayers to buy himself a home in the electorate—to move into the electorate and start engaging with the community. I would like to be helpful to Mr Dreyfus. I know Mr Dreyfus has a successful and busy practice at the bar. He is a busy man, so I have gone to the trouble of helping him out. I jumped on realestate.com.au this afternoon and have located a selection of properties which would neatly fit within his price range—the $340,000. There is a lovely two bedroom unit in Station Street, Carrum, for $345,000. According to the advertisement you can ‘see the boats from your front window and walk 100 metres to the beach, supermarket and train’. Not a bad spot!

There is another nice unit in Bridges Avenue, Edithvale, for $345,000, and it comes with a stone and stainless steel kitchen and ducted heating. That sounds nice. In Clifton Park Drive in Carrum Downs there is a three-bedroom house for $339,000, complete with a meals-and-family room that opens onto a sunny paved pergola entertainment area. Or perhaps the address that is more to Mr Dreyfus’s taste is Chardonnay Drive in Skye. There is a four-bedroom house for $339,000 with a great outdoor entertaining area and rumpus/theatre room. All of these properties would enable Mr Dreyfus to live in the electorate, and all of them are within his budget—or thereabouts—of $340,000 courtesy of the Bracks government and Victorian taxpayers. All of them are locations which are good enough for the people of Isaacs, but not good enough for Mr Dreyfus.

In contrast, the Liberal candidate, Ross Fox, lives in the electorate. He participates in local community groups. He is fighting for local issues. He is out and about in the electorate, talking to people, finding out about the issues and working to address them. He is not waiting for the outcome of the election before he starts working to earn the trust of the people of Isaacs; he is seeking to earn their trust now. When Ross Fox wants to visit the Mentone Post Office, he need only stroll a few blocks. He does not have to drive 20 kilometres to collect his mail from the PO box at Mentone, as Mr Dreyfus does.

Mr Dreyfus ignores the people of Isaacs and he ignores their local papers. Time and again the words, ‘Mr Dreyfus could not be contacted,’ appear in the local papers. The editor of the Chelsea, Mordialloc, Mentone Independent said on 13 February:

Since his endorsement early last year I have found Mark Dreyfus very difficult to track down for a comment on anything.

If this is the approach Mr Dreyfus intends to take when he seeks to become a member of parliament, one can only imagine how he would conduct himself in seeking to represent the people of Isaacs. Mr Dreyfus cannot be bothered winning a local preselection. He cannot be bothered talking to local journalists. He cannot be bothered moving into the electorate. But he can be bothered picking up a cheque for $340,000 from the Bracks Labor government. I think Mr Mark Dreyfus QC has his priorities wrong. He should just admit he has no interest in representing the people of Isaacs. His only intention is to seek to win the seat of Isaacs to try and become Labor’s Attorney-General. That is not a good enough reason to seek a seat in parliament.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Fierravanti-Wells.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank goodness—a bit of class!

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Conroy. Tonight, I too want to focus on Labor’s record on financial management, or, should I say, financial mismanagement. This is the same Labor Party that under Paul Keating gave us the ‘recession we had to have’, 17 per cent interest rates for homeowners, 22 per cent interest rates for business and record unemployment. That is hardly a shining record in government. Labor’s idea of financial management was to leave a budget deficit of $10 billion and a huge $96 billion net government debt. Under Labor we had high inflation, 0.2 per cent real wages growth and downgrading of credit rating, twice—and the bad economic statistics go on. This is the appalling record of Labor in government.

It was the Howard government that had to fix the appalling mess that was left, and what did we then get from Labor? Opposition and more opposition. Labor opposed every substantial measure to return the budget to surplus and reduce debt, and it now has the temerity to try and tout some degree of economic credibility. Labor obstructed us every step of the way. Every single reform that has strengthened our economy Labor has opposed. At every turn, Labor has chosen the path of short-term expediency over Australia’s long-term economic interests.

Now that the Howard government has returned the budget to surplus and eliminated Labor’s debt, the Labor Party comes along here wanting to claim the current strong financial position as its starting point. Now the Leader of the Opposition wants to claim there is no real difference between the opposition and the Howard government. All our policies—balanced budgets, low tax, an inflation target, structural reform and flexible workplaces—are his policies too. As the Prime Minister recently said:

Mr Rudd wants you to believe that the Coalition is Tweedledee, Labor is Tweedledum, as if a few soundbites can extinguish 11 years of policy indolence and opportunism ...

But let’s look at Labor’s actions rather than their words. Indeed, if we want evidence of how Labor would manage federal finances, we need only look at state Labor governments. The facts are as follows. While the federal government is running a $10 billion cash surplus this year, the states will run a combined cash deficit of $3 billion. This is despite the almost $40 billion of GST revenue that the states will get in 2006-07—expected to grow to $46.6 billion by 2009-10. While the federal government is running an $11 billion fiscal surplus, the states are running a combined fiscal deficit of $6 billion. When you add in state government businesses like water and power utilities, the cash deficit being run by the states this year rises to a staggering $14 billion. States collectively will be borrowing this $14 billion on the markets this year, and over the next four years they will borrow a total of $50 billion. While the federal government has eliminated net debt and is placing money in the Future Fund, the Labor states are out there running up debts of $50 billion. The borrowing binge is being led by New South Wales, which will borrow $6 billion this year. Queensland will borrow $4 billion and Victoria will borrow $2 billion.

In the absence of criticism, it is clear that federal Labor are condoning this borrowing binge by their ALP mates in the states. We have seen this re-emergence of state budget deficits driven in part by a frenzy of infrastructure spending designed to make up for years of neglect, which in turn is complicating our macroeconomic management task at the national level. Federal Labor’s failure to criticise this fiscal irresponsibility means that they support the substantial cash and fiscal deficits being run by state Labor governments. This is not sound financial management.

As a result of the Howard government’s reform of the tax system on 1 July 2000, every state and territory is better off than it would have been had the reforms not been implemented. All states and territories will receive much more revenue from the GST than they would have under the previous system of financial assistance grants and the state and territory taxes that were abolished under the new tax system. In 2007-08, the states will receive GST revenue totalling an estimated $41.9 billion, and this is expected to grow to $48.9 billion by 2010-11. The budget estimates indicate that no state or territory will require budget balancing assistance in 2007-08 or in any year over the forward estimates. Moreover, consumers and businesses will benefit by $5 billion in 2007-08 due to the abolition of the inefficient state and territory taxes. Indeed, the states will be collectively better off by $3.2 billion in 2007-08, with these gains from the reform of federal financial arrangements growing to $4.6 billion by 2010-11.

Implementation of the intergovernmental agreement has already delivered significant economic benefits as a result of abolishing several inefficient state taxes from as early as 1 July 2000. The value of the revenue forgone from the abolition of these inefficient taxes is an estimated $4.1 billion in 2007-08. I want to focus for a moment on the agreed state and territory timetable for the abolition of the state taxes listed in the intergovernmental agreement. In 2006, the Howard government agreed with the states on a schedule for the next tranche of state tax reform. The value of the revenue forgone from this second tranche of the abolition of state taxes is estimated to be a further $950 million in 2007-08, growing to $2.3 billion by 2010-11. The states have so far refused—yes, refused—to fulfil their intergovernmental agreement commitments by agreeing on a timetable to abolish the final tax listed in the intergovernmental agreement, namely stamp duty on conveyances of real non-residential property. The abolition of this tax would save taxpayers $2.8 billion in 2007-08. The Howard government will continue to pursue the abolition of this tax.

Earlier, my colleagues spoke of Labor’s record in South Australia, Queensland and Victoria. I want to focus on what is now the biggest of the big spenders: New South Wales. The taxpayers of New South Wales today have every right to ask (1) where all of the record amount of GST money has gone and (2) why the New South Wales government, on top of all this GST, is also borrowing to the tune of $6 billion. New South Wales has doubled its general government sector net debt since the 2003 election and on its own figures will double it again by the next election. This year, the New South Wales government will run a $2.4 billion fiscal deficit and a $3 billion cash deficit.

The reason for these deficits is the fundamental problem that, over the last five years, spending has grown on average by one percentage point more than revenue each year. Any household knows this cannot continue indefinitely without ultimately resorting to borrowing. New South Wales has gone from being the engine room of the Australian economy to the most underperforming of all the states. Indeed, we see a two-speed economy illustrated most starkly by the growth differential between states like Western Australia and New South Wales.

The latest growth figure in New South Wales of just 1.4 per cent is the lowest of all the states. New South Wales has also amongst the highest unemployment rate of the states. As I have said, this is a state that has received record GST—$10 billion in 2007-08—and is a lot better off than it would have been without the Howard government’s tax reform.

One of the principal reasons for the low growth rate in New South Wales is that the New South Wales taxing rate is the highest in the country. The New South Wales Labor government has repealed the vendor tax, which had stopped the New South Wales property market well before interest rate rises. In New South Wales Labor has imposed 24 increased tax measures. There have been over 50 rises in government charges since it has been in office and nine fare increases since 2005. Where has all the money gone in New South Wales? This is financial mismanagement at its worst; this is Labor’s specialty; this is their record at federal and state levels. Under federal Labor there were no performance indicators because they never specified what outcomes government spending was designed to achieve. This is very much in keeping with state Labor government financial management, where all the focus is placed on inputs—like the pay and conditions of public service employees—rather than outcomes for parents, patients, motorists and citizens.

In conclusion, all of this highlights the fact that Australia’s current prosperity cannot be taken for granted. The singular test of any government is its willingness to take decisions it knows to be unpopular today in order to build tomorrow’s prosperity. This is the test that the Howard government has met over and over. We have met it right across the spectrum: on the waterfront, in paying debt, in reforming social security, in reforming workplace laws, in reforming the tax system, and in ensuring that state governments have the revenue they always pleaded for to fund schools, hospitals, roads, police and other responsibilities. (Time expired)