Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

I refer in particular to the answers given by Senator Minchin regarding government advertising. Today, we were told by Senator Minchin that he has no shame when it comes to the wanton waste of public moneys with regard to government advertising. In the run-up to this election, $500 million will be spent by this government in a desperate attempt to secure a life raft in the face of increasing levels of public dissatisfaction.

Some $2 billion has been spent on public advertising since this government came to office. This is a desperate attempt by this government to avoid public accountability. This government is seeking to pump out hundreds of millions of dollars in propaganda to hide from the public, in a period when it should have called an election. We all understand this is one of the longest running parliaments in the history of this Commonwealth. This government is desperately running from the Australian people. This government has sought to abuse public advertising in a manner which goes to the heart of the nature of the deceit of and the contempt for the Australian people shown by this government.

In last year’s annual report of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, they avoided reporting on government advertising. They neglected to report a whole series of sums, including $209 million for 2005-06. Of course, this year’s figures will not be reported until well after the election—this figure of $500 million that the government is spending in the run-up to the election. This government’s deceit and dishonesty have now been visited upon its own ranks. We know about this because the situation arose some years ago, when Shane Stone pointed out to us that this government has a reputation for being mean and tricky. There has been a period of total turmoil while the government has visited upon its own ranks this deceit and deception.

We are now told that Mr Costello will take over from this Prime Minister at some point in the future—on the condition, of course, that the Liberal Party agrees. This is about the fifth time that promises have been issued to Mr Costello by Mr Howard. Going back to 1994, Mr Costello was told that the Prime Minister would serve only two terms and then hand over. Mr Ian McDonald, of course, was a witness to those discussions and kept a note in his wallet for 13 years. He kept the faith for 13 years—the poor hapless fool! He should be able to provide advice about this Prime Minister’s capacity to tell the truth. We had a situation back in 2003—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, on a point of order: I have been misrepresented. I did not keep a note of anything. Senator Carr seems to have confused me with someone else.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2003 we had the Athens declaration, where the Prime Minister yet again reneged on a promise to Mr Costello. He said that he would hand over when he was 64. We now discover what a deception that was. We are now being told there were further promises made and that Mr Costello would be the first to be consulted about the Prime Minister’s plans. We discovered in just the last fortnight that he was the last to be consulted about the Prime Minister’s plans. Of course, we all understand who was first to be consulted. It was Mrs Howard. We all understand who made the decision. It was not the Liberal Party; it was Mrs Howard. We all now understand that the deputy leader of the Liberal Party was deceived yet again. We are now told that, sometime in the future, at some indeterminate date, if the Liberal Party agrees and if the Prime Minister has not already organised another candidate, then maybe Mr Costello will get an opportunity to serve.

This follows a pattern of deceit by this government. We saw it with foreign debt. The Prime Minister said in 1995, ‘I promise you we will follow policies which will bring down foreign debt.’ What has been produced? The exact opposite. We were told in January 2006 that no worker would be worse off—and how ridiculous that proposition now looks! The Prime Minister said in 2004, ‘Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?’ We were told a lie on Iraq. We went to war on a lie. This is a government that has been founded on one lie after another. (Time expired)

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting to hear Senator Carr talk about deceit and deception and things that happened in the past. One could draw attention to what has happened in the past in Queensland. On 5 March 1990, documents pertaining to a rape at a correctional centre were shredded with other matters. It is the ultimate deceit and deception when people decide to make themselves party to actions like that. However, moving on to other things, this government has shown an incredible record of good management on interest rates. This government has one of the greatest records of being close to other benchmarks in the world, especially the US benchmark. It is interesting to note that today our official interest rate is at 6.5 per cent. The interest rate in the United States is at 5.25 per cent. There is only 1¼ per cent between them. That is a management figure; that is the capacity of the government to manage. What we can note, however, is that when the Labor Party was in power the differential between our interest rate and the US interest rate was around 8.3 per cent. That also is a management figure. It shows that Labor had in excess of seven times the differential we have now. That comes straight down to their capacity to manage a domestic economy.

One of the fundamental aspects of a domestic economy is having people with the expertise to manage that economy. As I have said before, we are on a political 747 and its capacity to fly is determined by the people in the cockpit. We have left the Labor Party’s cockpit door open and we are having a look inside. The question has to be asked: has any of them ever flown a political 747? The answer, obviously, is no. In fact, none of them have ever flown before. I do not think there is one person on the Labor front bench who has ever managed a business—not one! They have not sourced one person with the capacity to run the economy; they have not even gone close. If you want deceit and deception, it is about being completely errant in getting onto your front bench those with management expertise in business. It is quite obvious that you are not going to be able to have any credentials in running a trillion-dollar economy when there is no-one who has run so much as a corner store. What are they relying on to find these people—divine providence? Do they think the skills to manage the economy will descend upon them?

To see Labor’s management expertise, you need only look at the states. The states are the best reflection of what Labor Party management is like—and my state, Queensland, is probably one of the best examples. At the moment, I think the Queensland government are about $16.4 billion in debt. That is what they have chalked up on the state credit card. They are moving towards being between $40 million and $50 billion in debt. What have they done for the person who was responsible for that, the former Treasurer of Queensland? What prize have they presented to someone who has been completed devoid of management expertise? She is now the Premier of Queensland.

I would counsel Senator Carr very strongly, when he talks about deceit and deception and all the things that are involved in it—all the things that have happened in the past—that there are things that should be addressed and the truth should be tabled. There are some truths that have never been tabled. I hope that some day they might be tabled in here, because there are a lot of answers required. Maybe this government has only another four or five days to go, but it would be another travesty of justice if those people who have been suffering for so long from so many acts have to once again put aside any hope of those acts ever being dealt with.

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I speak on the motion, I note that I detect—as maybe you do yourself, Mr Deputy President—in the comments that are being made about the backgrounds of Labor Party shadow ministers and members of parliament that there is some sort of inverted snobbery about what our backgrounds might be. It almost appears, from what Senator Joyce just said, that we should be born to rule, that they are born to rule, that they are better at it and that we should just get on with it and go back to serfdom where our forebears came from. I remind you, Mr Deputy President, that even the House of Lords has now been reformed. Even the House of Lords, Senator Joyce, is elected.

Senator Minchin today gave a pretty hysterical response to questions in relation to government advertising. I suppose that reflects the degree of desperation that the government is experiencing at the moment, particularly with its senior levels of management. I have always—and I have expressed this before—had a lot of time for the integrity of Senator Minchin. But today I thought he was quite shameless in his hysterical, unfounded attack on the state Labor governments in trying to defend a position that is clearly indefensible.

I am assuming that Senator Minchin was a member of the shadow cabinet before 1996. I was going to play the ‘who said this’ game that Senator Abetz plays, but unfortunately Senator McEwen mentioned it in her question to the minister. Let me just quote from a press release of 5 September, 12 years ago, by the then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard. Of course, Senator McEwen has already mentioned this first bit, but I will go with it again and start with the following:

In a desperate attempt to find an election life raft, the Prime Minister is beginning an unprecedented propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money.

I have already alluded to you, Mr Deputy President, that it was in fact John Howard who said that. He went on further to say:

They—

that is, taxpayers—

don’t want their money wasted on glossy advertising designed to make the Prime Minister feel good.

He went on further to say:

There is clearly a massive difference between necessary government information for the community and blatant government electoral propaganda.

Finally, he said:

The problem for the government is not communication. The problem is that it is tired, it has broken too many promises, it has hurt too many people. This propaganda blitz will make the electorate feel even more angry.

Are they not prophetic words, Mr Deputy President? They could well be the dying words of the government that is presiding over Canberra at this moment.

We could well mention, as has been highlighted by Senator Carr, that since this government has been in power nearly $1½ billion has been spent on an advertising blitz. It appears that in the next period up to $500 million is going to spent on advertising. Let me make this point, Mr Deputy President, because I know my time is going to expire shortly: if we had applied the money that has been used for blatant propaganda by the government, we could have paid for 28,000 secondary school teachers. We could have paid for 32,000 nurses. We could have taken steps to fix the skills shortage. Yet all we have seen—to give just two examples—has been that shameless ‘unchain my heart’ advertising on the GST and, even now, a planned climate change advertising blitz for a group of people who do not believe in it. (Time expired).

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is something very phoney about the Labor Party this week—and even previously, but especially this week, as we have what is most likely the last week of parliamentary sittings before an election. It came out through the last two speakers. Two days into this week, they have feigned a concern for—they say it is a connection with—the households of Australia with regard to housing affordability and the pressures households are feeling with increased prices of groceries et cetera. They have not, on a Tuesday afternoon, in what is a most valuable on-air debating period, been able to sustain that debate. They have gone right off the economics and back to what they know best—that is, personal abuse towards and personal attacks on the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Prime Minister, no less, led by Senator Carr.

If you are going to allow Senator Carr to lead the motion to take note of answers then you are not serious about the economic debate. If there was one message given to the Labor Party at the last election, in 2004, which they ought to carry into this coming election, it was: establish your economic credentials. They are so phoney that they cannot even sustain the economic debate—a debate we will always welcome—for two days. They are so phoney in now calling themselves economic conservatives when we know that throughout the past decade of this government there was not a reform that brought the economy to the sound state it is in today that the Labor Party did not reject.

Now, they want the Australian people to accept them as economic conservatives. It was not so long ago that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, declared himself a democratic socialist and said that there ought to be a red line through every policy of government. There is something phoney about a leader who said that no fewer than eight months ago and now wants to be called an economic conservative. There is something phoney about an opposition here in the Senate that cannot sustain an economic debate for two days and feigns a concern for mortgage-paying households but will not get up in this chamber and debate it on air.

There is something very phoney about an opposition who will not recognise that the fundamentals of this economy and this government’s policies, which they say they would support, are in good, sound order. The Leader of the Government in the Senate quoted the International Monetary Fund’s declaration that Australia’s economy is sound and one of the best in the world because of the hard decisions made to bring about those reforms. There is something very phoney about a Labor Party who, when in government, presided over 17 per cent interest rates on housing mortgages, 24 per cent interest rates for small businesses, one million workers unemployed, $96 billion in debt and so on—you know the story. They instituted those policies and now want to be called economic conservatives.

As I said, that is what they did in government. If you want to know what they did in opposition, they voted against every single reform this government introduced so as to bring about the sound economy that is now being praised by the International Monetary Fund. As I said, there is something phoney about the Labor Party, whose leader told us he was a socialist democrat eight months ago and now wants us to believe he is an economic conservative. And there is something even phonier when the shadow minister for industry is Senator Kim Carr, who runs on trust—that was the nature of his comments today: trust in the Prime Minister. His own side do not trust him, and you know it. To think that he is the potential minister for industry must send a shiver up industry’s spine. I cannot believe that, if by chance you are elected, you will ever make him minister for anything. It is a disgrace that you have him on the front line. There is something phoney about Senator Carr being the minister for industry, and you know it yourself. It is as laughable as Rasputin’s credibility in the Tsar’s court. There is something very phoney about the other side when they say they are not run by the unions yet 70 per cent of their frontbench is made up of unionists. (Time expired)

Linda Kirk (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Howard government has wasted almost $2 billion on government advertising since it came to power in 1996. Since the last election it has spent more than $800 million on government advertising. In fact, $126.3 million was spent on advertising in the last financial year. We have heard today from other speakers that the estimated cost of this government’s propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money in this election year, 2007, is estimated to be more than $500 million—that is, half a billion dollars. Meanwhile, Australian working families continue to struggle, not only with interest rate hikes but also with the increasing price of food and petrol. This demonstrates just how completely out of touch the Howard government has become with the plight of Australian working families. It also shows the arrogance of the government, which appears to view taxpayers’ money as its own to spend however it sees fit.

In the short time I have available, I would like to take the Senate through a few examples of the government’s expenditure on advertising campaigns in key policy areas. I will begin with the government’s extreme industrial relations laws. This government has spent $93 million advertising its extreme IR laws. The Howard government’s changes to Work Choices have been a further extravagant excuse to spend more taxpayers’ money on advertising these unfair laws in the lead-up to the election later this year. These laws, as we know, have shown themselves to be exactly what the Labor Party said they would be—that is, unpopular, extreme and unfair—and they have hit working families very hard. No amount of taxpayer funded advertising will change the substance of these laws, yet this does not stop the Howard government trying to fool the Australian public with its taxpayer funded advertising. Mr Deputy President, $20.5 million alone was spent on the campaign to promote the Office of Workplace Services and the Employment Advocate. A further $40 million was spent on promoting the employee advisory program, a program designed to encourage employers to promote Work Choices. When Australians see these ads on TV they should shudder at the expense, because every tax dollar that the government spends on advertising is one dollar fewer that can be spent by Australian families on clothing, children’s education, groceries and other essentials of life.

I want to move on to climate change. The government has recently launched a $52 million campaign on climate change, including $23 million in advertising. The campaign includes an expensive series of television advertisements and a booklet to be mailed to every household in this nation. As we know, the government has consistently over-promised and under-delivered when it comes to climate change. Since 1996, the Howard government has failed to deliver on almost $460 million of funding it promised to climate change initiatives. As a consequence, less that 0.05 per cent of the $245 billion federal budget is being spent on climate change initiatives. Mr Deputy President, 0.05 is a blood alcohol limit, not a climate change strategy.

I could go on to talk about money that has been spent on superannuation advertising—$69 million—and private health insurance. The government has spent $27 million on advertising private health insurance. It has spent $6 million on advertising regional telecommunications and $20 million has been spent on advertising government internet policies. A Rudd Labor government will end the abuse of taxpayer funded government advertising. A Rudd Labor government will cut spending on government advertising and ensure that all advertising campaigns costing more than $250,000 would be authorised—(Time expired)

Question agreed to.