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

Mr President, I seek leave to speak for up to 20 minutes on the adjournment.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate for its indulgence. There is a new dichotomy in Australian politics. We have today in the opposition economic conservatives. We have in the government former economic conservatives. But they are much happier today because no longer do people in the government have to live a lie. Friends like Senator Carr can tax, they can spend and they can send the nation into debt as much as they like, and they are much happier about that. Senator Carr’s old boss, former Premier Joan Kirner, said the other day that she was so happy that debt was no longer out of fashion. Debt in effect for Ms Kirner is the new black; debt is again fashionable.

The former economic conservatives, the government, have a very interesting solution to the current economic crisis. All of us in this chamber know this: the current economic crisis was caused by individuals and indeed by companies borrowing and spending far too much. In the United States, and indeed elsewhere, far too much money was borrowed and far too much money was spent by individuals and companies. What is the solution offered by the government? It is for governments to borrow and spend even more. That is the solution of the government. After companies and individuals have spent too much and borrowed too much, the nation, the government, should borrow and spend even more. That is the solution. It is a bit like drinking to cure a hangover. That is the analogy. That is the idea the government has: to keep on spending and borrowing even more and more and more.

There has been a lot of talk over the last two weeks about political DNA, about what makes political parties and political leaders tick. A quick look at history will tell us about every single Labor government since Federation. What does it tell us? It tells us this: every single federal Labor government puts our nation further into debt—every time. There have been 10 Labor prime ministers and they have put this nation into further debt every time. There is not one exception. Every time you have a Labor government they put the country further into debt. Debt is always higher when Labor governments leave than when they arrive—every single time. The farewell gift of Australia’s previous nine Labor prime ministers is more debt. That is the iron rule of Australian federal politics: every Labor government, more debt.

Go right back to the first one: Chris Watson. He was only there for a short time, but there was more debt. Andrew Fisher—he spent a lot; he created a lot more debt. Billy Hughes—again, he created a lot more debt. James Scullin—there was much, much more debt. John Curtin and Ben Chifley—again, they left far, far more debt than there was when they turned up as prime ministers. Then, of course, there was Mr Whitlam. We know what he did. What did he do? He borrowed and borrowed, and there was more debt. At least it is consistent. There is always more debt.

The one thing that is in Labor DNA is debt—every single time. Then, of course, there were Mr Hawke and Mr Keating. It is funny, you know. They did not start off so badly, but in the end the DNA came out. Mr Hawke and Mr Keating left this country in debt—$96 billion. Then, finally, there was Mr Rudd. Mr Rudd also, after six months, spent $50 billion and put the country into debt again. That is 10 Labor prime ministers: Watson, Fisher, Hughes, Scullin, Curtin, Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating and Rudd—10 out of 10, more debt. There is not one exception. Every Labor Prime Minister creates further debt for this country. It is a disgraceful record. In war and peace, in good times and bad, there is always debt. Debt is in the Labor Party’s DNA—not jobs; but debt. The excuses change, but it is always the same rationale—debt, debt, debt and debt, from every one of the last 10 Labor prime ministers.

There are some who doubted Mr Rudd’s commitment when he first came into parliament. They doubted whether he would be a good Labor prime minister, because he did not come from a union background—he was a former diplomat. They were concerned that he might not know the Labor Party’s ways. But the Labor Party need not have worried, because he has the DNA. He has the debt gene. He has it; the Australian Labor Party need not have worried. Mr Rudd knows how to spend and he knows how to put the nation into debt. He has never forgotten that. Mr Rudd fits in perfectly with the other nine former Labor prime ministers in creating further and further debt. This country must never forget that when Labor left office they left this country and its people with $96 billion of debt—paying about $8 billion of interest each year to service that debt. That is what Mr Hawke and Mr Keating left this country, just like all the other Labor prime ministers did: debt. And they left it.

It has taken just six months for the Labor Party to spend over $50 billion and, of course, to extend a credit line of $200 billion. If it ever happens—and it will—that Labor spends the $200 billion, we will start to have the problem of structural debt. That is where, every year, the budget gets consumed by interest on debt—just like in western Europe. It becomes part of the political culture, the fabric and the way of life of, let us say, France. And 10 per cent of the budget is taken up on interest payments on debt. That is the problem. This credit line of $200 billion signifies the fact that the Labor Party will do it if they feel it is necessary.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O’Brien interjecting—

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

Well, it’s funny. What worries me is that Mr Rudd talks about turbocharging social democracy; what he has done is turbocharge debt. Perhaps that is the same thing. That is the problem. The debt has gone up $50 billion in six months. Only twice in this nation’s history—during the McMahon government and under the Howard-Costello government—has there been no net government debt. What did Mr Whitlam do as soon as he got in? He fixed that problem. He put the country back into debt. What happened when Mr Rudd got in? He put us back into debt, just like the other nine Labor prime ministers did. The one consistent fact of Australian political history, the one consistent political fact about Australian Labor governments, is debt—and there are no exceptions. What a coincidence! We know what is in Labor DNA. It is debt. There have been no exceptions. It is always the same. The Labor Party will bugger up the economy and they will expect the coalition to fix it up. It happens every time. With 10 Labor prime ministers, the coalition government to take over has been expected to fix and pay off the debt.

This is a moral question. What about the intergenerational equity? Mr Costello has spoken often about this. This is a moral issue. The Labor Party love to talk about equity, but they do not mind bankrupting our children or grandchildren to pay off the debt. It is all very well to spend on behalf of today’s voters, but who is going to pay off the debt? Our children and our grandchildren will be saddled with the debt that these people create, just like all the other Labor governments do. There are no exceptions. It is the one ironclad rule of Australian politics. They always say that the great dictators love children and hate their parents. You could never accuse Mr Rudd of that. He loves the parents; we are just not too sure if he loves the children who will be saddled with the debt that he is creating today, just as the other nine Labor prime ministers have created debt in the past. Every Labor Prime Minister puts this nation further into debt. It is the ironclad rule of Australian politics. It is absolutely disgraceful, if not scary.

Let us not forget how Labor spent their first year in office. How I remember Mr Swan, Mr Rudd and even Senator Conroy saying: ‘The economy’s overheated. The inflation genie is out of the bottle.’ They talked it down: the economy was overheated, interest rates were going up and the economy was out of control. We said, ‘Go for growth.’ They talked the economy down just at the time when it needed to be talked up, making the recession even worse. I will never forget how ‘the inflation genie was out of the bottle’—at four per cent—and things were so terrible, weren’t they! Now, a few months later, we know what economic terror is, their having talked down the economy. If they had gone for growth, they would not have had the problem. Instead, they kept talking down the economy and they failed to build up business and consumer confidence. So well done! Mr Rudd even got that wrong—first year in office: wrong.

What is the intellectual edifice behind this change from being an economic conservative? What is it based on? It is political opportunism, but this voodoo economics is based on the famous essay of Mr Rudd’s in the Monthly, which of course I have read. The philosophy, if you call it that, is unusual because it reflects an unusual state of mind. Mr Rudd’s political and economic philosophy changes at every opportunity. He was a Christian socialist. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor, was his spiritual, economic and social mentor, but he abandoned that and decided he was a neoliberal when he was after the shadow Treasurership before the 2004 election, under Mr Latham. He was trailing Mr Latham’s coat-tails through Labor caucus, saying he was a neoliberal. So he went from the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the Austrian Friedrich Hayek in a very short amount of time.

Then, upon becoming opposition leader, Mr Rudd called himself a self-styled economic conservative, and he was proud of it—very, very proud of it. Mr Rudd was so proud of styling himself as an economic conservative. He was out and proud about being an economic conservative. There was no difference between him and Mr Howard at all, really; he was ‘Howard lite’. He was an economic conservative and he loved every minute of it.

The first whiff of economic grapeshot, the first bit of real tension, the first downturn, and what happens? He drops all that. He drops Bonhoeffer, drops Hayek, drops economic conservatism and becomes a reborn social democrat all of a sudden. So he has changed four times in just a couple of years. Mr Rudd is, in a sense, Australia’s first post-modern Prime Minister, because he does not actually believe in anything. No-one I know has changes of hearts like that, except Mr Rudd—no-one at all. My old friend Senator Carr—I always have a go at him, I know—is wrong about everything, but at least he believes in something. Mr Rudd does not believe in anything. He changes his mind every second week. He is like a schizophrenic Harry Potter figure, baring his latest philosophy to some sort of focus group in Labor headquarters in Sussex Street over a Chinese meal, with dim sims. That is where he has got this philosophy from; it is pathetic. It is this sort of groupthink.

The essay in the Monthly is wrong. Not only is it based on hypocrisy; it is intellectually lazy, ignorant and wrong. Mr Rudd of course does not like talking about the fact that Mr Blair was one of the great neoliberals of the latter half of the 20th century; a Labour Prime Minister was one of the most significant neoliberals of the 20th century—as well as Mr Hawke and Mr Keating, of course, to their partial credit; I will give them that.

But perhaps even more disturbing than the shocking hypocrisy of the Labor Party adopting neoliberalism as well—even forgetting the hypocrisy—is the moral argument here. More people have been moved out of poverty in the last 20 years than were moved out of poverty in previous recorded history. More people have moved out of poverty in the last 20 years than ever before in human history. It is not because of communism or socialism or social democracy but because of free trade—yes, free trade. Free trade and neoliberalism created more wealth for the Chinese than for anyone else. The Chinese do not go on like Mr Rudd does. Mr Rudd takes advantage not only of the hypocrisy but of ignoring great moral arguments.

What the Labor Party does not seem to understand is that this is about good regulation. The fact is that the reason why Australian banks are among the best in the world is that the regulation is very good. This same system that Mr Rudd decries in Australia—the neoliberalism he criticises—is the same system that gave us the best banks in the world. So not only is this article in the Monthly pathetic, lazy and ignorant; it is just plain wrong.

And now it is worse. I understand that our high commissioners and our ambassadors are having to run around and hawk this line to world leaders. When Australia’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom meets Her Majesty the Queen, I suppose he says, ‘Here, have a look at this article from the Australian Prime Minister.’ In Ulan Bator they probably take a translation of this article and give it to the local president, prime minister, doge or whoever it happens to be.

Our diplomats are expected to run around the world with this embarrassing little essay, which is ignorant and hypocritical. Our embassies have been changed into publishing houses these days. It is a pathetic, intellectually lazy and ignorant piece of work. To have the hide to have our diplomats running around with this! I wish they would peddle something I wrote, rather than this rubbish. Can you imagine asking our diplomats—our high commissioners and our ambassadors—to run around with this stuff? It is absolutely embarrassing. I feel sorry for them.

Who are the political legatees of this appalling ideology? Who are the people who love debt—debt being the new black to the Labor Party? Of course, in Queensland it is Ms Bligh, with $74 billion in debt. And she racked up that $74 billion of debt—guess what—in boom times. She has just had record mining receipts of billions of dollars. She has received billions of dollars in property taxes and hundreds of millions in GST. And do you know what she has done, Mr President? She has still racked up $74 billion of debt. I thought the $96 billion of debt federally in 1996 was bad. That was spread among about 20 million people. This is $74 billion spread among 4½ million people. Talk about structural debt. When will this debt ever be paid off, Mr President?

Of course, the Labor Party do not worry about that. They are not concerned about paying off the debt at all, because there is one golden rule of Australian politics: every Labor Prime Minister—from Chris Watson through to Kevin Rudd—spends more money than they raise. They leave this country with more debt. That is an iron rule of Australian politics. And this diseased DNA is now spreading to the Labor states. We have got Ms Bligh with $74 billion in debt and she does not seem to give a damn. It costs $10 million a day in interest alone to service that debt, and Ms Bligh does not care at all. (Time expired)