Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Mason proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The Rudd Government’s annus horribilis of missed opportunities, broken promises, and absence of genuine leadership.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The matter of public importance today is particularly important. It is important that the Australian Senate reflect upon the anniversary of the election of the Rudd government. The question can be quite easily put: is Australia better off or is it worse off on 24 November this year than it was on 24 November 2007?

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

Yes!

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is demonstrably worse off—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Sterle, it is disorderly to interject at all, but it is even more disorderly to interject when you are not in your seat.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and even a casual look at the key economic performance indicators of this country for these last 12 months indicates that. Let me go through just a couple before I go on to perhaps even more important circumstances. We heard so much about inflation during the first six months of this government. The genie was out of the bottle. It was the one thing within the target of the government, and they even failed to pursue that properly. Inflation is going up. What has happened with industrial disputes? There has been a six-fold increase in industrial disputation over the last 12 months. What about the real growth of Australian average weekly earnings? Australian average weekly earnings went up over 50 per cent over the last 10 years of the previous government. What have they done under this government? They have already fallen in the first year by a quarter of one per cent. Real average wages have fallen over the last 12 months. What about consumer confidence? As you would expect, it has plummeted dramatically over the last 12 months. What about retail turnover? What has happened to the small business people that the coalition seeks to represent? Retail turnover has dropped more than seven per cent and it is just in the positive. The retail sector is crying out for help.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At Christmas time.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, at Christmas time, Senator Brandis. What about the budget surplus? Well, we left about $20 billion in the kitty. You would be aware of that, Mr Deputy President. Already at least half of that is gone. Who knows if there will be any left at all by the middle of next year! I somehow doubt it. What about small- and medium-sized business sentiment? Well, confidence there has dropped astronomically. The All-Ordinaries index, which, of course, reflects and impinges upon superannuation, has dropped by more than 50 per cent over the last 10 months. There really is a crisis in this country. What is even more disturbing is this: these melancholy trend lines, these dismal trend lines, commenced before the onset of the global financial crisis. That is the point: they commenced before. Business confidence turned down before Christmas last year. So the grand excuse of the government—that it is all the fault of the global financial crisis—simply does not wash. The trend lines were bad; of course, now they are getting worse.

Just imagine for a second if this government had inherited the sort of economy that we inherited from a Labor government in 1996. If the government had come into office in November last year and inherited a government debt of $96 billion, this country would be in dire straits. The interest bill alone would be more than $10 billion a year, and there would be no buffer between working families and recession. We would be in absolute dire straits. The only reason this country is insulated somewhat from the global financial crisis is a dozen years of very sound economic management. The government secured the healthiest Australian economy ever bequeathed to a new government, and thank God they did, because without it this country would be lying on its back.

But there is something even more important, something more basic—perhaps even more fundamentally flawed—than simple economic failure. It is this: 12 months ago, the Australian people believed they were electing a new government. They did not elect a new government; they elected a bureaucracy. Mr Rudd is a technocrat, a soulless bureaucrat. He is not a conviction politician. To Mr Rudd, politics is no longer about ideas; it is about management. In the Rudd regime, politics is about management. Life under Mr Rudd is like a perpetual 2020 Summit, full of the flummery, bells and whistles of summiteering. We had the apology, the republic, the tax on alcopops, which Senator Joyce mentioned, and we had politicians’ salaries and Kyoto. Some of that was good, some of that we supported, but it is all bells and whistles. No hard decisions have been taken. Now it is the war on everything. Mr Rudd is seeking to invoke the language of war to somehow elevate himself to the island of statesmen. But, to me, he still sounds much more like Sir Humphrey Appleby than Sir Winston Churchill.

The Rudd government combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of politics. On the one hand, there is the elevation of process over outcomes—that is more important to the Rudd government; process over outcomes—constant ideas about management over leadership and technocracy over policy. On the other hand, all of this is subsumed by and subjected to spin, focus groups, symbolism and a 24-hour news cycle.

I read the other day in, I think, the Weekend Australian where someone said, ‘Mr Rudd is the first Prime Minister of the 21st century. Mr Rudd is a perfectly modern man.’ I do not know about that. What I do know is this: he now leads the first post-modern government. Government does not exist, except as a media event. That is what has happened to this country under the Labor Party. A media event—that is all government is now. Mr Rudd is trying to garner responsibilities as a statesman, he is invoking the language of war, and yet it does not work. Why does it not work? It just does not work with Mr Rudd. What is it? It is a lack of conviction, a lack of sincerity. What does Mr Rudd lack? It is not hard work. It is sincerity and conviction. That is what is missing. Perhaps the saddest part, though, of the last 12 months is implementation. Implementation has been an absolute shambles. I remember so well Mr Rudd, standing there before the election, with a laptop computer, saying, ‘This is the toolbox of the 21st century.’ What did we discover? It was all toolbox and no tools. We have a government of self-proclaimed economic conservatives who did not even take the trouble to estimate the total cost of this network. They did not even bother to estimate, until July this year. The opposition and the public have still not seen the costs of this proposal. An amount of $1,000 has been allocated for every computer, yet everyone knows and every indication is that it is underbudgeted by billions of dollars—a flagship policy that the government has not been able to deliver.

I listened to poor Senator Carr today in question time today trying to defend the indefensible. The fact is that 10,000 computers have been delivered this year—one per cent of the one million that are supposed to have been delivered. Do you know what the problem is? The state Labor governments will not pay for the ongoing costs of the computers. The capital costs, somewhere between $500 and $700, are virtually irrelevant. The problem is that the costs of insurance, software, storage, electricity, air conditioning and training teachers to use the computers have not been budgeted for—and the government knows it. It has been an absolute shambles—a keynote policy has not even been properly budgeted for. In essence, it comes down to this. Half of the Rudd Labor government believe in nothing and the other half believe in policies that are totally unacceptable to the Australian public, and that is the ultimate paradox, the ultimate failure of this government.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The feedback I get from around Australia remains: we have got our country back. For that the Rudd government can take a bow.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are such an apologist!

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would expect the honourable senator to say I was an apologist because I say what I think, I say what I mean and I say what I hear. Maybe he could learn from taking the same direction.

That said, with regard to the feedback, you have to ask: why is that? The fact is that if this year has been an annus horribilis—and I hope there are no Latin scholars here—it follows anni duodecum horribilis maximus, 12 particularly dreadful years. The unforgettable thing about those years, the mark of those years, was the locking up of little children, defenceless kids, as well as their mothers and fathers, behind razor wire in the deserts of Australia. That mark, that stain, of the horrible years will always remain with the Howard government. Despite the economic largesse of the period, we have so gladly moved on. The Prime Minister’s expression of sorrow to the stolen generation was indeed an important milestone in Australian politics, where often there is so little heart and everything is too frequently measured by dollars and budgets, but many of the things that make Australia and Australians great are outside the simple parameters of finance, money and dollars.

The Greens are also celebrating a year of five senators, and I want to pay tribute to the new senators who have joined Senator Siewert, Senator Milne and me—that is, Senator Hanson-Young and Senator Ludlam. We are a team that is adding to this parliament, particularly in the areas of heart, the areas of humanity and the areas of environmental debate and progress—a much needed component in any parliament around the world when we look at the cataclysmic situation that the human population, of now some 6.7 billion people, faces not in coming centuries but in our own lifetimes and those of our children and grandchildren.

Here is the challenge to this government: will this country—the wealthiest country on the face of the planet per capita when it comes to resources and one of the world’s four oldest continuous democracies—take a lead in a world which badly needs leadership globally as well as at home? The big challenge there, of course, will be in tackling climate change. We look forward to this government measuring up to the Greens minima of a 40 per cent reduction—over 1990 levels—in greenhouse gas pollution of the atmosphere from this country by the year 2020 when the Prime Minister and his Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, make that announcement in the coming weeks. Short of that, we will be short-selling this wonderful country of ours.

On nuclear issues, not least uranium mine expansion and Australia’s support for US weapons of mass destruction programs, including so-called missile defence programs around the world, the government has yet to show the independence that is needed in a world lead to get us away from the nuclear madness and insecurity of the last century. There are great challenges before the country, which I cannot speak to in five minutes, but, finally, I would say: what a pity that the pulp mill in Tasmania, this environmental disaster, is going down the chute not due to government action but due to the financial crisis. (Time expired)

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to say that I was a little confused when I read Senator Mason’s matter of public importance today—in particular, the Latin term ‘annus horribilis’. I have to admit, Senator Mason, that I have not heard or read much Latin in my life—and I would be the first to admit it. I have to say that I do not think many Australians have spent much time learning Latin. I went back and did a bit of research. In the 2001 Census, 205 households in Australia reported speaking Latin. In 2006, that number in the census skyrocketed from 205 to 210. So I think I can say, Senator, that most people would have no idea what you are talking about.

But I decided to do some more research. Senator Mason believes that we have just had our annus horribilis—or horrible year—but can I say to the good senator that I believe his argument can be summed up as ab absurdo. In fact, if you compare the Rudd government’s first year with the Howard government’s first year—and the loss of seven ministers—you will certainly come to the conclusion that it was the Liberal Party and the Liberal government that suffered an annus terribilis—and in fact just experienced another one.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner interjecting—

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take on board the interjection from my own side. Unfortunately for Senator Mason and the Liberal Party, this matter of public importance highlights the sheer elitism and born-to-rule mentality of those opposite. Senator Mason and the Liberal Party have learnt absolutely nothing from the last 12 months. They fail to understand why they lost the last election. They fail to understand why the voters of this country threw them out of office. In fact, they believe the voters got it wrong. They believe that somehow the voters were conned. They think that they were fantastic managers and deserved another go. Until they understand the reasons for their defeat, they will never be able to go forward. You need to learn from history to be able to move forward into the future.

The Liberal Party’s 12 years of government can, I think, best be described as 12 years of missed opportunities, broken promises and neglect. During the Howard government’s 12 years, Australia experienced a once-in-a-lifetime mining boom. It was a time of global prosperity. It is in these times of prosperity that you must build a nation. It is in these times that you can add to the productive foundations of a country to move forward into the future. Let us look at the Howard government’s record. During this time of global growth—during this time of mining royalties—they neglected education. Education investment in this country was the second lowest in the OECD. Between 1995 and 2004, public funding of tertiary education increased by an average of 49 per cent across the OECD but declined by four per cent in Australia. They neglected our health system. Investment in health by the federal Liberal Party fell by five per cent in real terms.

They neglected infrastructure—and you do not have to ask us; ask BHP. Ask BHP Chairman Don Argus, who claimed that Australia’s infrastructure capital stock to GDP ratio fell by a whopping 10 per cent over the past 12 years. They neglected climate change. They failed to ratify the Kyoto protocol, they failed to take any action on renewables and they failed to put in place a plan for an emissions trading scheme, which left us as international pariahs on the issue. They neglected inflation. This country and this government were left with the highest inflation rate in 16 years. What did that mean for working families? What did that mean for people with a mortgage? It meant high interest rates. There were 10 straight interest rate rises under those opposite. This country had the second highest interest rates in the OECD. That is your legacy.

In terms of industrial relations, we are not talking about neglect but absolute contempt. What did those opposite do to help workers and working families? They gave them Work Choices and AWAs, which stripped away working conditions of ordinary Australians. That is their legacy of their 12 years. We have had only 12 months in government and when we came to government we said we were going to be preparing Australia for the future. We said that we were here to modernise the country to face future challenges, and that is what we have been doing for the past 12 months.

Some people criticise the Prime Minister for his high work rate and the amount of time he spends at work. I think that is one of the great assets that this country has. When we were elected 12 months ago, one of the first decisions taken by the Prime Minister was to ratify the Kyoto protocol—to come in from the cold, to actually get involved in the international community and to take on the issue of climate change, something that the Liberal Party had neglected for so long. We did not stop there. We then met our commitment to withdraw our combat troops from Iraq. We abolished AWAs and we abolished Work Choices, and this is something that working families everywhere are celebrating. We apologised to the stolen generations—something that so moved the people of this country and that you on the other side just wiped away in one foul movement. These are the things that characterise the past 12 months.

Moving along to the budget, this was a budget that delivered on our commitments: a $55 billion package for working families; massive tax cuts; an increase in the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent; an education tax refund to help families with their education expenses; and first home saver accounts to help young people get a start and get into the housing market—something that you opposite had forgotten for 12 years. You did not even have a housing minister, let alone care about housing. We acted in our first 12 months. That was the budget—real action—and it has not stopped there. Look at the work that has been done through the education revolution. It is not just computers in schools. Funding has been put forward for 116,000 computers, and those computers will be in schools, but it is much more than that. Look at the trade centres that are going to go into those schools and that are being rolled out right now. Look at what the Deputy Prime Minister was talking about today: performance pay for teachers, getting teachers into the disadvantaged schools, and reporting of schools’ progress to ensure that disadvantaged schools are lifted up. They will get extra funding so that no kid is left behind.

We are passionate in this party and in this government about education, because we believe it provides every child with the opportunity to be the best they can—something that you squandered and ignored for 12 years. The figures are there.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who’s in charge of the school system? The state governments.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. The OECD figures show that you completely ignored education. We were the only country that was going backward. That is the legacy of the Liberal Party. This is the good work we are doing, and it is only a start. We know that it is just the beginning. There is a lot more to do and we will be doing it. So I think it is time to wipe away any talk of annus horribilis. This is a country that is on the move, and I am proud of the first 12 months of the government.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise on this, the first anniversary of the election of the Rudd Labor government. I support Senator Mason’s very sensible, timely and appropriate motion and reject the accusations made by Senator Arbib. Most peculiarly, in particular, he attacked the education system of this country, which, as he should know better than anybody, is the responsibility of state Labor governments. It is state Labor governments that should be wearing the shame of the state of the public education system in this country. Contrary to what Senator Arbib said in his contribution, the Labor government is the most fortunate in the history of this country. As Senator Mason quite properly said, it inherited an economy and a budget that were the envy of the rest of the world. That was the result of 11½ years of extraordinarily hard work by the former government, of which I was proud to be a cabinet minister for nine years. I know full well the extraordinary work it took—with no help from those on the opposite side—to resurrect this economy and to leave the budget in the extraordinary shape which this government has inherited.

This government inherited a budget which is absolutely and utterly debt free—with $96 billion of debt wiped out. When we came to government, we were paying $8 billion a year in interest on the debt which Labor left us. That was more than was being spent on education or defence. That was an extraordinary record for the Labor government, which we had to work so hard to eliminate. We returned the budget to surplus and, in all but two of our 11½ years, the budget was in surplus. We made full provision for the unfunded superannuation liabilities of this nation, which no government before us, in the 100-odd years of this country, had ever done. We fully provided for the $90-odd billion worth of superannuation which we owed to our former soldiers and public servants. So this government came into government in an extraordinarily fortuitous situation, thanks to the work done by its predecessor—of which we on this side are very proud.

What the Labor Party did in coming to government, and in its extraordinary campaign through 2007, was to raise the expectations of the Australian people to extraordinary heights, in an amazingly irresponsible way, which it must have known it could never possibly live up to. We saw a sequence of rash and irresponsible promises made by the party that is now in government, throughout the course of 2007, behind the smiling visage of one Kevin Rudd.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Kevin Rudd.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection: Mr Kevin Rudd. What have we seen in the 12 months? We have certainly seen an enormous amount of process—a process driven government. We have seen the spin that is the creature of the state Labor governments now transferred to Canberra. We have seen symbolism of a kind we have never witnessed before at federal government level. We have heard talk of a kind that is breathtaking. And have we ever seen a lot of travel. I was staggered by Ms Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister, saying on Insiders that she has been the Acting Prime Minister for no less than 69 days in the first year of the government. Every time I turn on the TV, I seem to see the Prime Minister’s 737 taking off for another destination. No wonder the government want to get a new fleet of aircraft. They are wearing out the existing aircraft with the travel that Mr Rudd engages in on a constant basis.

What we have not seen is action. We have had 10 months of the government initiating reviews, talks, summits et cetera, and then for the last two months a blind panic reaction to the meltdown on Wall Street and around the world in financial markets. We have seen a panic reaction that involved splashing out $10 billion from the surplus—half the surplus gone in a blink—and a panic reaction in terms of the banks.

This ‘all talk and no action’ is best exemplified, may I say, by Labor’s extraordinary position on their proposed national broadband network. Before the election, Labor spent all their time demonising the coalition about the state of broadband in this country, completely and utterly misrepresenting the truth about the state of broadband in this country. In response, when everybody said, ‘What’s your policy?’ they made the most extraordinarily simplistic, shallow and ill-thought-through policy, which they are now all living to regret. They are all very pleased that poor old Senator Conroy is the one who has to front on this hopeless policy. It was a one-size-fits-all policy where they simply said, ‘We’ll just roll out a fibre-to-the-node network to 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses and we’ll do it in five years.’ That was the policy—no detail, no structure, nothing. That was all they said. Then they said, ‘And we’ll throw $4.7 billion of taxpayers’ money at it.’ That was the extent of this amazing policy, which they are now stuck with.

They promised in the course of the NBN process that they would select a tenderer to build this thing by the middle of this year. Five months later, of course we do not have a tenderer. The tenders do not even close till Tuesday and there is no way that the preferred tenderer can possibly be selected till next February—15 months after the government was elected. Senator Conroy promised that construction of this thing would begin by the end of 2008. We will be lucky to see it by the end of 2009, if at all.

The only action they have actually taken in relation to broadband has been to come into government and arrogantly cancel the Optus-Elders contract that had been awarded by our government to extend wireless broadband to all those regions of Australia who currently cannot get fixed line broadband. This was a magnificent policy, with $958 million behind it, to extend to rural and regional Australia the sort of broadband services which we in metropolitan Australia take for granted. The only thing that the Labor government have done since they came to office has been to cancel that contract, thus depriving the people of rural and regional Australia of a metropolitan equivalent broadband service, which they would have got by the middle of 2009. At the rate we are going, they are not going to see a broadband service equivalent until about 2013, if they are lucky.

In relation to the tender—which closes in two days time, can I say—we only have one confirmed tenderer and that is the TERRiA consortium, principally backed by Optus, a great company. But three companies have already pulled out of that consortium. The biggest telecommunications company in this country, Telstra, is refusing to bid because the government cannot seem to make up their minds whether they are for or against the structural separation of Telstra. They are so incapable of making a decision about that fundamental issue that the biggest company in the telecommunications industry is refusing to make a bid, thus jeopardising the very process that Labor put in place.

Nothing symbolises more the cynicism and failures of the government after 12 months than the failed and fatally flawed process that has involved the national broadband network. Their failure to deliver the national broadband network on time and on budget shows that it was a cynical and cruel hoax perpetrated on the Australian people at the time of the last election.

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

I can take one of two lines in this matters of public importance debate today, and I will take the more mature, grown-up line. I could feign anger, like Senator Mason, wave my hands around and pretend that I am absolutely disgusted and that the more I raise my voice the more people will be listening out there. But I am above that. We will leave that out of it. Or I could take the Senator Joyce line, where I just prattle on and talk about nothing, as long as I am screaming and going red in the face.

While I am on that, I do want to clarify what I mean by that. I had the misfortune to walk past the television when Senator Joyce was prattling on about something to do with the economic boom and how it is still alive and well around Australia. They were not really his words; it was something like that. I was reading the West Australian, that fine Western Australian newspaper, today and I noticed on page 17 an article by one Dawn Gibson. I have not met Dawn yet, but no doubt I eventually will. Dawn was talking about cashed-up bogans. For all those out there who are not aware, cashed-up bogans are those middle-aged people, probably about my age, who all own a V8 and a couple of houses and have made a lot of money on the back of the skills shortage and the mining and commodities boom—which has been fantastic, especially in my home state of Western Australia, as I have no doubt it has been in Senator Joyce’s and your home state of Queensland, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore.

Senator Joyce made the outlandish statement that the boom is still going and that everything is fine. If Senator Joyce does come across to Western Australia to check out how the boom is going or not going—and I do not want to get into Mr Brendan Grylls’s ears about who he should and should not be talking to—he might want to take note of page 17 of the West Australian and Dawn Gibson’s article. I would like to quote from it. She interviewed KPMG demographer Mr Bernard Salt. Most of us have heard of Mr Salt and the outstanding work that he does. Mr Salt talks about the mining boom in Western Australia and he says his warning comes amid the following indications:

Global economic woes will impact heavily on WA’s employment market. Several big mining companies, including Consolidated Minerals, Newcrest Mining and Mount Gibson Iron have announced in the past month that they have axed or plan to axe hundreds of jobs because of plummeting metal prices and reduced demand.

Having to requote that article does not make me feel good, but, whether Senator Joyce and other senators opposite want to believe it or not, the world is changing daily. Yes, we have been through a wonderful economic boom, a financial boom, through the commodity markets—especially in the fine state of Western Australia, which has every mineral you could want and more. And, yes, the Commonwealth of Australia and Australian taxpayers and users of infrastructure and the like have made a lot of money out of that. But I do not know how many times ministers will have to get up in question time and reiterate to those opposite that we have a global financial crisis. One would hope that, by now, senators opposite would climb above politics—I take that back; they are not mature enough to actually do that—but I am still waiting for the tooth fairy. One day the tooth fairy may bring you back the tooth you lost when you were four or five years old, Senator Williams and Senator Nash—

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, I remind you to address your remarks through the chair.

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

I am sorry, Madam Acting Deputy President. Through the chair: the tooth fairy may visit senators opposite one day. We are seriously in financial strife around the world. The newspapers are continually telling us that Europe is in recession—and we are tightening the belt financially. One must really wonder what makes sensible mature senators on the other side come out with some of the nonsense that we hear in the chamber daily. The latest from Senator Mason is an absolute pearler. He used the term ‘annus horribilis’—for crying out loud!

I would like to touch on a few things the Rudd government has done. I had the privilege earlier this year of accompanying the former President of the Senate—the second best President we have had since I have been here—on a tour of Europe. We visited some European parliaments—the French parliament, the Belgian parliament, the parliament of the Netherlands and the parliament of Austria. Politicians from both persuasions, left and right, wanted to congratulate us, the new government, on two things as we walked into every meeting and every room. Man and woman, shoulder to shoulder, they thanked us and wanted us to take back to the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, their sincere appreciation for Australia joining the rest of the world community in ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

In our little part of the world, we sometimes think everything is here. And we are very lucky to be living in Australia and having these conditions for our children to grow up in. But there are some ups and downs, and it takes a change of government to bring things back up again with respect to fairness and equity in the workplace. These European parliamentarians could not wait to thank us on how mature Australia was to finally sign the Kyoto protocol. That makes your chest puff out and you think it is great to be part of the Rudd Labor government. But the second thing they wanted to congratulate us on—and I know your views on Indigenous Australia, Madam Acting Deputy President, and I think you know mine quite well—was the apology to the stolen generation.

Unfortunately, some of the behaviour by the West Australian Liberals when the Prime Minister was making his stolen generation apology was nothing short of disgraceful. But I felt proud to be a member of the Rudd Labor government. The day of the apology was a beautiful day. I walked to Parliament House, as I do every morning. I came up past Old Parliament House and I could not believe the number of people on the front lawn. It made me feel damned proud to be an Aussie. There were Indigenous Australians and white Australians. I walked into this fine building and had the privilege of seeing the welcome to country, which was absolutely moving. It was certainly supported by all on our side of politics, the government, and fortunately by a lot of the other side. But there were some notable absentees. What a wonderful day it was.

I represent Western Australians of all colours, creeds and religions, which I am proud to do. My job takes me through the Kimberley and the Pilbara a lot.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner interjecting—

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

We do very well, Senator Faulkner, there is no doubt about that—and I had the privilege of being in the Pilbara last week talking to some Indigenous people. But on my first trip through the Kimberley we were thanked by Indigenous Australians who had tears in their eyes because they were so damned proud to hear the Prime Minister deliver the apology. And I have not seen the sky fall in. This is still a wonderfully fine country. We are still doing all right, even though it is getting harder and harder. Apologising to Indigenous Australians did not bring the country down; it did not collapse the economy.

Apologising to Indigenous Australians and ratifying the Kyoto protocol were the two things the Prime Minister did in the very early days of his prime ministership—and what wonderful initiatives they were. But I do not have the words to respond to the accusation from the opposition. When it first came across my desk, I thought it was a joke. But then I saw that it was not a joke because it had come from the whip’s office. Senators opposite actually sent that disgraceful wording through.

But let us talk about other things that the Rudd Labor government has done. Regardless of what those opposite wish to agree to, Labor was swept to power 12 months ago on a range of issues. In my heart of hearts, there were three very important issues: (1) the environment—quite clearly; (2) the opposition, through former Prime Minister Howard, had delivered no fewer than 10 interest rate rises in a row, leading Australians to think that they could control interest rates and keep them down; and (3), very importantly, Work Choices. That was the bogey. I may as well keep saying it: Work Choices! Work Choices! They do not like to hear it. Thank you very much for giving Australia Work Choices! You did so well that you were thanked by being booted out on your backsides. It was a disgraceful, bastardly act. We saw industrial relations tipped on its head after 100 odd years of Federation in this country. No wonder Australians revolted against you. But they sit there and ask: what has Labor done? What about our Building Australia Fund and our $20 billion infrastructure fund? That is another thing we have had to take up because of the mess that was left for us. (Time expired)

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being new to the Senate, as you are well aware, I would like to look back on the 12 months of the Rudd government and the many things that were promised. Like Senator Sterle, who was reading a piece of paper, I read this piece of paper: ‘Kevin Rudd will fix our hospitals. Justine Elliot and Kevin Rudd: new leadership in health policy will fix our hospitals.’

Before going on to the hospitals, I will remind the Senate of a couple of things. I hear so much about interest rate rises. I can recall the 25.25 per cent I was paying under the Hawke-Keating government and the then so-called ‘world’s greatest Treasurer’. We talk about these eight or 10 interest rate rises of increments of a quarter of one per cent at a time. Back in November 1987, if my memory serves me right, there was a two per cent interest rate rise in one day. It took how many years under the Howard government to have that amount of interest rate rise?

Of course, unemployment followed, up to 11 per cent—a million people were out of work. Those working families were thrown onto the unemployment heap by the then Hawke-Keating government. We hear a lot about working families. I must say that I have a bit of a chuckle when I look across the chamber and I think of the shearers, the Australian Workers Union, under the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine, who started the Australian Labor Party. I look across there now, and not one of them would know how to load a handpiece, let alone knock the wool off a sheep. I stand here proudly as the only shearer in the chamber, knowing what back-bending hard work is about.

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

I think Bill’s done a bit, mate. You’re being a bit harsh!

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the few that Bill could scratch off you wouldn’t actually call shearing. Anyway, we will proceed. I make the point about our hospitals. Here it is: ‘Kevin Rudd will fix our hospitals.’ Let me just have a look at what has happened in New South Wales under our hospital system. It was only a couple of months ago that I raised the issue that hospitals like those at Gilgandra and Coonabarabran could not provide meat to their patients. Why? Because the bills had not been paid to the small businesses. What sort of a health system do we have in this nation when the bills cannot be paid to small business and the hospitals get their credit cut off? I have seen it in many small businesses, coming from small business myself. I know of one small business in northern New South Wales that waited 12 months to have their bill paid by the Hunter New England health system. So we have a system in our hospitals where we have the meat supply cut off. That is a disgrace, especially in this nation, where we talk about the wealth and how in New South Wales we are the highest taxed state in the nation. I believe that is still the case—and they cannot pay the bills. So there is where ‘Mr Rudd will fix our hospital systems’.

I look at the Inverell Hospital, in the proud community I come from, one of the communities in country Australia, which has grown from 10,000 to 12,000 people over the last five years. Inverell is a good-sized country town, with 12,000 people. There are about 17,000 in the area of the Inverell Shire Council. At our hospital, we do not have a surgeon—12,000 people and we do not have a surgeon. We used to have two surgeons in the town. What happens when there is an unfortunate incident—for example, a youngster might come down with appendicitis? Oh well, it is into the ambulance and off in a helicopter. As we know, when you come down with something like appendicitis, the clock starts ticking, and the longer the clock ticks the more danger the person’s life is in. So we go off to Armidale.

We are now in the hub-and-spoke hospital system, where we cannot carry out these emergency operations in our town unless it just happens to be one of the days when a visiting surgeon may happen to be in town. I just hope the situation does not arise where we actually lose someone’s life because of this situation of our hospitals being neglected by years of Labor government in New South Wales and by the broken promises of Kevin Rudd that he would fix our hospitals.

I could go on about the health system for ages, but I would like to say this: at our hospital at Inverell—I was talking to a local doctor just recently—we have around 10,000 visits to that hospital a year yet we have no CMOs, no permanent resident doctors, in that hospital. The local GPs have to service that hospital. They also have to run the HN McLean Retirement Village. They also have to run their local surgeries, visit patients all day and have patients attend their surgeries all day. They are overloaded with work. And there is a hospital system that has no permanent CMO to take the workload off our local GPs in the town.

However, when I look at Armidale, they have something like five CMOs in their hospital and they get 15,000 visits a year—15,000 visits and they have five CMO resident doctors to serve their hospital. We are getting 10,000 visits a year and we have no CMO residents. But I suppose there is one difference—when your state member lives in Armidale, not Inverell. Here is the problem we are now facing. What if our local GPs say, ‘The workload is too much and we’re not going to service the hospital’? What sort of emergency department are we going to have?

The biggest promise that the current Prime Minister made to the Australian people prior to the election on 24 November last year—that he would fix our hospitals—was to me the greatest load of misleading information a nation could ever have. Our hospital system is in disarray, not only in country areas of New South Wales. We have heard so much of what has happened in the city hospitals and emergency wards. Even at Port Macquarie, there is a desperate need to improve the hospital, but nothing has been done. In the slashing of the minibudget in New South Wales parliament just recently—we do have a government in New South Wales; I just do not think it is recognised these days—there were another 400 jobs on the North Coast in the health system of New South Wales.

What are we seeing? Over the last 12 months, we have seen a situation where the bucket of money is almost empty. They inherited it full, debt free. And now we have the same problem in New South Wales, where there is no money to go around, where the bills are not being paid and our hospital systems are neglected. But, as we have known for many years, when it comes to running the nation, there is only one side of politics that can run the economy in the way it should be run, and we know that is not the side of Labor. I thank you for the opportunity of speaking.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This government came into power with a promise of social inclusion. Many in the community took this to mean that the government would be acting on that basis and that part of that social inclusion reform and agenda would be welfare reform. Unfortunately, that is not what we have seen. In fact, we have seen the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Ms Macklin, and other ministers ‘out-Howard’ Howard in the way they have approached welfare reform.

Instead of reforming the Northern Territory intervention, which we all know had no evidence base and was a knee-jerk, dog whistle approach to how we handle Indigenous disadvantage in the Northern Territory, we have seen the government continuing this discriminatory approach. This is despite the fact that the government, when in opposition, made very strong statements about the Racial Discrimination Act and how it was outrageous that the Northern Territory intervention was exempted from the provisions of the RDA legislation. Unfortunately, we have seen the government putting off introducing racial discrimination legislation to make sure that the Northern Territory intervention complies with the RDA. This has been put off until at least the latter half of next year, I would suggest.

Despite a Northern Territory review saying very strongly that the compulsory nature of income quarantining should be stopped and it all should be done on a voluntary basis, the government have announced they will continue compulsory income quarantining in the Northern Territory. Then, on top of that, we get the government rolling out income quarantining on a trial basis in my home state of Western Australia, in many towns in the Kimberley and in the Cannington district, which includes about 39 suburbs in the south-west of Perth. That is based on no evidence. There is no evidence base to support this approach. The government came into power saying they would base all of their policies on evidence. There is no evidence base; the government cannot point to any evidence base. In fact, the overwhelming evidence in the Northern Territory and overseas shows that the punitive approach of income quarantining does not work. It is a knee-jerk, simplistic reaction to what are very complex social problems.

The Australian Greens are certainly not saying that we should not be doing anything about child abuse and child neglect. The point is that cutting off people’s income does not deal with these issues. In fact, it can exacerbate the issues, as it has done in the Northern Territory. There is little available funding to address the complex issues that we need to address if we are going to address the underlying causes, such as the still outrageous overcrowding of housing, poor education, poor access to education and poor health outcomes.

When the government made their Indigenous apology on 13 February, they said as part of that that the events would never be allowed to happen again. Unfortunately, it is all happening again. We have racist policies in place in this country that see the same discriminatory approach being taken to Aboriginal Australians. Where is the government’s commitment to getting rid of the RDA exemption? Where is the government’s promise of an evidence base? They are nowhere to be seen. In fact, as I said, the government have been so stridently ignoring the evidence that one might think they have blinkers on.

When I asked in estimates about the evidence base for the income quarantining and what requirements the government would be placing on the Western Australian government to make sure that the services that were required for those being income quarantined would be delivered, they said, ‘All we’re doing is providing a tool. All we’re doing is providing income quarantining as a tool for the Western Australian government to use and apply.’ As I was listening to this, in my mind was being run a scene of Pontius Pilate washing his hands. ‘It’s not our problem,’ they said. ‘It’s the state’s problem. All we’re doing is providing a tool.’

We see a similar sort of approach being taken to the schools requirement bill where the government is proposing that, if a child repeatedly plays truant from school, income support will be cut by up to 13 weeks or in some cases could actually be cut permanently. Again, there is no evidence base. Evidence overseas shows that this punitive approach does not work, that you need to be working with parents and that you need to be providing case support and addressing the underlying causes of nonattendance. These include a whole range of issues. They start with No. 1, the parents having had a bad time at school. No. 2 is about ensuring that the underlying causes, such as poor housing and poor health outcomes, are being addressed. Then it is about making sure that school is culturally appropriate. In the last few weeks the Northern Territory government have announced that they will be requiring English to be taught for the first four hours of school. I understand that the federal government are encouraging and in fact supporting that approach. That is despite the evidence that shows that bilingual education is having better outcomes. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 24 November 2007 Australians elected a Rudd Labor government and tossed out an out-of-touch, stale government, a government of core and non-core promises. The opposition matter of public importance motion that we are debating, as bad as it is, shows that the opposition are still out of touch and have no idea of Australian values and ideals. I think Senator Mason may have drawn the short straw on this one. Senator Mason tried hard but it did seem to me that his heart was just not in it—intent on playing the man and not the ball. Why? Because the election of the Rudd Labor government generated a renewed sense of optimism and hope in this country. Indeed, when elected a one year ago, the Prime Minister outlined a firm vision for this country’s future, one grounded in building a fairer and better resourced nation equipped to met the challenges of the 21st century. A year on and the Prime Minister has stuck steadfast to that original vision and this government is well on its way to delivering on all that which it set out to achieve. A year on and, despite being confronted with what has been billed as the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Rudd government has remained focused, rolled its sleeves up, dug in its heels and set about doing all that it can do to build a stronger, secure and vibrant future for this nation.

It is hard to begin to list our achievements over the past short year. They are indeed many and of equal value in terms of their significance. For the benefit of those opposite, however, let me begin. In one short year, the Rudd Labor government has set about building a stronger Australia. We have delivered an economically responsible budget boasting a $21 billion surplus, which has put us in good stead during these unusually tough times; taken some of the load off the household budget by providing tax cuts for working families and low-income earners and introducing measures such as the 50 per cent childcare rebate and the education tax refund; and started our education revolution by building trade training centres in high schools and installing over 116,000 computers in 896 schools, with a ratio of one to two. That is in contrast—as we heard earlier today from Minister Carr—to the Howard government’s ratio of one to eight and up to one to 12. That is indeed a remarkable difference.

We have also invested more than $2 billion in trade training places in the VET sector over the next five years and embarked on a nation-building program and committed $26 billion to three new building Australia funds, which include the Building Australia Fund for transport and communications infrastructure, the Education Investment Fund for education and infrastructure and the Health and Hospitals Fund for improved health infrastructure.

On top of this, the government also announced the $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy to stimulate the Australian economy and further support Australian households. The strategy includes an immediate $4.8 billion down payment on pension reform; $3.9 billion worth of financial support payments to low- and middle-income families; $1.5 billion worth of assistance for first home buyers; the creation of 56,000 new trade training places in 2008-09; and the acceleration of the implementation of the government’s nation-building funds to 2009.

The government has also committed to guaranteeing all depositors and all deposits on term funding in all Australian banks, building societies and credit unions for the next three years. On 10 November the government announced a $6.2 billion investment in a New Car Plan for a Greener Future. More recently the Rudd Labor government delivered $466 million to local councils across the nation. Councils in my home state of Tasmania will share in over $8 million of funding, which will help them deliver vital infrastructure to their local communities.

The Rudd Labor government also made a firm commitment to making Australia not only stronger but fairer. Indeed, some of the government’s most significant actions since being elected have arguably been in the area of social reform. In the past year it has taken the first important steps toward bridging the gap between Indigenous—

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for this discussion has concluded.