Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems that every public utterance of our Prime Minister devalues the office of Prime Minister and its integrity. His latest contribution to the public debate demonstrated an individual who is so vain and so contemptuous of the truth that he actually sought to rewrite history.

During his undignified and, frankly, embarrassing speech at the launch of Paul Kelly’s book March of the Patriots, Mr Rudd not only demonstrated the extent of his self-delusion but made the most undignified contribution by a Prime Minister that I can recall. His contribution was unbecoming of the office of Prime Minister of this country. It was devoid of both graciousness and any moral integrity, which are two key elements required by the holder of the office.

This most conceited man to hold the highest office in the parliament, among other extraordinary claims, accused the Howard government of indolence and inactivity. He must have neglected to remind himself of the achievements—just some of the achievements—of the Howard government, including: paying off $96 billion of the previous Labor government’s debt; working on the Medicare safety net; introducing a childcare rebate; and intervening in the Northern Territory Indigenous communities to save the lives of and give hope to an entire group of people.

The Howard government boosted border and national security; we established the Future Fund to give our economy and our governments confidence in being able to pay their future obligations; we enhanced the family tax benefit; we increased foreign aid; we undertook welfare reform; and we undertook the sale of Telstra, which was opposed by the Labor opposition.

In Mr Rudd’s speech, he also accused the Liberal Party and the coalition of being a party of obstruction at the same time. He rattled off a couple of selected examples, accusing the coalition of opposing significant reforms. Unfortunately for Mr Rudd, his memory and his thoughts are so consumed by his own actions and his own self-delusions that he neglected to remind himself that obstruction by the Labor Party has a long and tired history.

Has the Prime Minister forgotten about the GST? The GST was a major reform that was put in place to reform the taxation system in this country. It was opposed by Labor, who promised to unscramble the egg—‘unscramble the egg, we will’—until they realised that they had no chance of that. The GST reform was opposed by the Labor Party, who did not want fairness and equity in the taxation system.

What about the waterfront reform undertaken by the Howard government? Gee, that was supported by the Labor Party! No, it was not, because the Labor opposition wanted to preserve in perpetuity the rorts and the scams that were undertaken by the union movement on the waterfront. It was a shameful exercise, because the proof of the pudding is in the eating; we know now what reform has done on the waterfront, and it was opposed by the Labor Party.

Work for the Dole and the crackdown on welfare rorts were opposed by the Labor Party. Employees who had the temerity to want to choose where they put their own superannuation investments and their superannuation fund money were opposed by the Labor Party because that money had to go into a union dominated fund. Every one of the 11 Howard government budgets, which helped to create more than two million new jobs and eliminate the $96 billion net debt that the Keating government left behind, was opposed by the Labor Party.

And more recently there was one of the grossest betrayals of integrity that I can recall in this place. It showed the hypocrisy of the Labor Party, who, in opposition, supported a bill to enhance measures to protect children from sexual predators. They supported it in opposition. There was a bipartisan Senate committee report. Yet when I tried to reintroduce exactly the same bill in this place and give it precedence, they said: ‘No, we don’t want to do it. There’s not a problem or if there is a problem we’re going to fix it.’ They have been promising that for nigh on two years. They have failed to do it. And all that time they have been spinning their wheels and trying to demonstrate that they are doing some work.

Unfortunately for him, Mr Rudd used the phrase ‘hard heads and soft hearts’, but let me tell you that what applies to the Rudd government is soft heads and hard hearts. This is a government that lacks the courage to take the tough decisions. This is a government that favours symbolic gestures over meaningful action and showers these symbolic gestures with all the media fanfare that it can muster. The government says, ‘Look at what we’re doing. Isn’t it great?’ Mr Rudd says, ‘Aren’t I great?’ Well, let me tell you Mr Rudd: no, you are not. When you strip away all the advertising, all the promotion, all the spin and all the fanfare, what you are left with is of very little substance, if any substance at all. We have poorly designed programs, overspending, a lack of action and a lack of reform.

Mr Rudd cites many examples of reform. He talks about his reviews, his summits and his committee. But what have we actually seen from the 2020 Summit? What have we seen from the changes to the Northern Territory intervention program? What have we seen as a result of the failed Indigenous housing program? We have seen nothing. We have not seen anything. What have we seen as a result of signing the Kyoto protocol? We have seen nothing. We have seen a complete lack of action, because Mr Rudd is only interested in the symbolism.

Once again his hypocrisy was exposed when, before the election, he said that there was not a sliver of difference between him and Mr Howard on economic management. Yet, in last Monday’s speech, he suddenly went to great lengths to point out the distinct differences between the two. Which is it, Mr Rudd? Is there not a sliver of difference or have you changed your mind and would say anything and do anything to remain in power? Might I remind you, Mr President, that Mr Garrett so eloquently stated, ‘Once we get in we’ll change all that.’ And Mr Rudd certainly has changed. He claimed before the election that he was an ‘economic conservative’ yet he has spent taxpayers’ money in exorbitant amounts. He has plunged future generations of Australians into debt—a debt which, along with higher interest rates and inflation, will be a burden that will last for decades to come.

Mr Rudd says that there are no other examples and that we have been conservative with our spending. Let me give him one more example. Only a couple of months ago Mr Rudd was proclaiming that his great friend was the Prime Minister of New Zealand. New Zealand is on the road to recovery from the financial crisis, and it only spent four per cent of its gross domestic product on stimulus. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said:

It’s not a time to be dieting on debt. We have to make sure we don’t deliver deeper recession by allowing ourselves to blow our debt profile.

And now New Zealand is expecting a stronger recovery.

Mr Rudd fails at every turn. He seeks to intervene in our markets, to intervene in our family lives and to control all aspects of Australian life and then dress it up in language that people are used to and can understand. But that is obfuscated by his rhetoric and by his tortured attempts to ingratiate himself with the Australian public.

Mr Rudd has a long list of failures. He has talked about a ‘communications revolution’, but I have not seen a communication revolution yet. I have only seen a failed, delayed national broadband network. Where is this communication revolution? Where is the tax reform that Mr Rudd was boasting about and the ‘global competitiveness through targeted tax reform’? If he means targeting tax increases on particular products or targeting tax increases on Australian families by reducing some of the benefits they are able to get, that is targeted tax reform, but it is not the sort of tax reform that Australians want. It is not the sort of tax reform that those on the other side of the chamber should be proud of.

Mr Rudd, in his speech last Monday, hoped that his government would be remembered as ‘a government of hard heads and soft hearts’. The evidence proves and demonstrates that his is a government of soft heads and hard hearts. And I hope that as the government’s lack of action and spin is exposed over time, the Australian public will come to that conclusion too.