Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked today.

I would like to make a few remarks about this Rudd government budget. This is just another big-taxing big-spending Labor budget—more debt, no hard decisions and no plan for real action. On the whole, this budget is uninspiring and has almost no unexpected announcements. It is totally unimaginative. It is a shameless deception, operating on the basis of new taxes and unrealistic expectations of the economy. It provides little in the way of benefits to the people of Australia. The budget confirms that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan are addicted to spending and are allergic to tough decisions. As I said, this is just another big-taxing big-spending Labor budget containing no serious reform.

The budget’s return to surplus is predicated on a great big new tax on Australia’s resources sector. This tax is a dagger in the heart of the Australian economy, putting major projects at risk and sending jobs offshore as well as weakening the superannuation of many thousands of average Australians whose superannuation funds have been invested in resource stocks. The Resource Super Profits Tax is a tax on so-called superprofits. There is no doubt in my mind that this supertax will kill the goose which has been laying the golden eggs for the Australian economy. The ALP likes to think that it was their stimulus package that saved Australia from recession, but it was not really that; it was China coming back into the resource sector in the second and third quarters of the last year and improving our balance of trade. If that had not happened, Australia would have gone into recession, notwithstanding any of the policies of the Rudd government. There is no doubt that what is happening in the resource sector with this supertax will mean that we will have projects not going ahead. We are going to see projects deferred and overall investment in mining decrease.

Already we have seen doubt cast over the $200 billion expansion of Olympic Dam, Santos deferring a decision on a $15 billion LNG export terminal in Gladstone, Xstrata suspending a $30 million regional exploration program, and Origin Energy predicting increases in domestic energy and fuel prices. All of that is a consequence of this budget of the Rudd government. In addition, we have levels of debt which now mean that the government has to pay something like $700 million a week for the next three years to cover the cost of the deficit. That in itself will put upward pressure on interest rates and the cost of living for Australian families. The cost of merely servicing our interest repayments is $4.6 billion in 2010-11 and it increases to $6.3 billion in 2011-12. The peak debt bill of $93.7 billion will be the amount owed by the Australian people to pay for Kevin Rudd’s spending spree.

The government is still spending $500 million on its flawed school halls program as well as on other programs from their flawed stimulus package. The government’s promise of a $661 million investment for skills rebadges the $601 million of existing spending, including a $456 million cut in the Productivity Places Program. Funding to trade-training centres in schools in this budget is set to be slashed considerably while we see the government spending millions and millions of dollars on unnecessary advertising for government services. (Time expired)

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to bring this debate back to some reality. The reality is that for a decade the previous Howard government allowed the opportunities for working families of this country to disappear.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were an incompetent government and an incompetent group of economic managers. You were a failure in every key economic indicator. All John Howard was about and all Peter Costello was about was the pork barrel at budget time. You frittered away the opportunities for Australia. You frittered away the future of many young Australians. You were incompetent. You failed to bring investment to this country. You failed to bring innovation to this country. You failed to increase productivity. You failed to develop this economy. You were a failure in economic management and you now have the hide to look at a government that is taking steps to build for the future and criticise this government.

To the Western Australian senators I have to say, ‘Don’t bow at the knees of the mining industry as much as you are doing.’ You should stand up for the rest of this country and the other workers in Western Australia who are not employed in the mining industry. If you look at this tax, it is a tax of fairness. This is the tax that is about bringing fairness into this country. In 2005-06 the mining industry had a profit of $30 billion and they paid $8 billion in taxes. In 2008-09 their profits were over $90 billion and what did they pay in taxes? They paid $11 billion. The coalition has got the gall to stand up there and say that ordinary Australian families should not share in the profits that the mining industry creates out of our resources—our resources! The resources do not belong to Clive Palmer and his ilk. The resources belong to the Australian people and those resources should be building for the future of this country.

I say clearly that any company that is not paying its fair share in taxes has to pay its fair share. You know that the mining companies are running a scare campaign aided and abetted by the coalition—a scare campaign to try to make sure that the big end of town and the mining industry can still have their mansions on the Swan River while ordinary workers are doing it tough trying to keep their heads above water. We want to make sure that ordinary workers get a fair share of the wealth of this country. The tax that we are implementing will build this country for the future. It will build a good society, something that you know nothing about. All your society means is that workers are subjected to Work Choices. What was the first stop for Senator Abetz? Down to the HR Nicholls Society to bend at the knees of the HR Nicholls Society and tell them what he was going to do. The HR Nicholls Society for Senator Abetz—first stop. Work Choices is there. Work Choices is in your back pocket. You know it is there. That is where you are going to come from.

It is about time the billionaires in the mining industry understand that a fair share is required for the rest of this country. We want decent health, education, infrastructure—something you lot never delivered over a decade of incompetence. (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is easy to be fooled listening to that Scottish brogue as it rolls out platitudes about how the government is going to fix up the country. But it masks a dark heart, and one we have seen before: the dark heart of socialism. Socialism has failed all over the world, yet it is on the ascendancy in the Rudd government. Yesterday we saw Senator Cameron asking questions of Senator Carr. We have seen Senator Marshall asking questions. The socialists are on the march, and their mantra has not changed for decades. It is about finding something that makes money and creates jobs and prosperity and taxing the heart out of it. Mark my words: this is a government that is intent on finding those companies that dare make a profit and ripping the cash out of them to put back into its government, which has proven over and over again that it cannot manage public finances.

Let us put this in perspective. Senator Cameron attacks the record of the previous government. The Howard government took 10 years to pay back Labor’s $96 billion debt. The debt it took 10 years to pay back is what this government is going to rack up in the next two years.

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

Which we’ll pay off in full.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In two years Labor will exceed its previous high point, and already debt is at $78 billion. I note the interjection from Senator O’Brien about paying back the debt. Let us put this in perspective. In the next three years the government is allegedly going to have a $1 billion surplus. At that rate, it will take 450 years to pay off your nonsensical spending.

If you had not squandered billions of dollars on the pink batts program you could have doubled the surplus, because you are going to spend another billion dollars fixing up the disaster that no minister has been held accountable for. The minister responsible still sits at the cabinet table, getting his fat ministerial salary for nothing. Then there are the hundreds of millions of dollars which you have spent and wasted on your extreme climate change folly, which the minister did not even know was dumped by the all controlling and commanding socialist-in-chief, Kevin Rudd. She did not even know that it was going to be dumped. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered.

This is a government that is absolutely drunk on reckless spending. There is no doubt about that. It has not managed its expenditure. It only knows: ‘There’s something that’s profitable; we’ll grab the cash from it.’ The government dresses it up in public health measures, like it did with the alcopops tax, which did not see alcopops, or ready-to-drink drinks, consumption fall at all. The government says it is going to reduce the incidence of smoking by putting the price up. Will we see the same result as that of the failed alcopops policy? Probably. Now the government is going to go into the mining sector, which has been the driver of growth and wealth in our economy, and tax the heart out of that.

This is a government without a heart. It says it is going into bat for the people, but it is not. It has no plan to deal with the 500,000 people whose livelihoods are dependent on the mining industry in this country. Some of those jobs will go—make no mistake about it. We already know that industries are going to be closing up here. We know that they are going to move their exploration and mines offshore because they think it is a punitive tax regime.

Not all the people on the other side believe in this. There are some who have been shut down, although I will not call them economic conservatives. The reasonable people have been shut down because the extreme Left is on the march. The government might indeed trot out someone like Senator Hutchins or Senator Polley, people who should know better, to defend some nonsensical lines that have put out by the Rudd bureaucracy, or central casting, but the fact is their heart is not in it. We know the government’s heart is in closing down industry. We know that this government is going to spend $36½ million dollars in the next couple of years promoting a review of taxation of which it has implemented one of 138 measures. We also know the government is going to spend a further $126 million, including over $30 million in this financial year, advertising government programs like their climate change program. Remember that one? What happened to that? That was ditched without even Minister Wong knowing.

This government is a fraud, it is phoney, it is led by a phoney, it is led by a fake and the Australian people are waking up to the shemozzles that it is producing.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi has covered himself very well in this debate, but his shallowness has still been exposed. The word that I have used most since we came into government about those opposite is ‘hypocrisy’. They try to rewrite history. This is a budget for all Australians and it is a budget that all my colleagues in this chamber are very proud of. It is history making. Finally, after more than a decade, there is a federal government that is not about pork-barrelling. That was what Peter Costello, the former Treasurer, and John Howard were not about. This is a budget for the future.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz interjecting—

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz is the next big step to Work Choices mark 2. He is all about living in the past and what the Menzies government did. This government will not waste the opportunities or the resources that belong to the Australian people. We are actually reforming the economy. You talked about responsibility, Senator Bernardi; I think you will find that the Australian people are no longer fooled by you and those opposite in relation to economic sustainability and this country’s future. I am overjoyed at this opportunity to once again pick up on those opposite who want to rewrite history.

When we talk about the health reform that this government and the Prime Minister are undertaking, we have to talk about aged care. I think those opposite should hang their heads in shame at their record during almost 12 years in government when they neglected older Australians in aged care. You talk about our record; let us talk about the record of former minister Santo Santoro. How many ministers were there? There were six in four years and we can talk about kerosene baths. When we talk about aged care, I notice that those opposite are very quiet. I also note that Senator Humphries at least had the gumption not to take that question on aged care.

I want to put on record my congratulations to the Treasurer and to the leadership team for bringing forward a budget to sustain the long-term future of Australians, ensuring that all Australians share in the wealth and prosperity of this country. We are talking about investment in skills and apprenticeships, giving young men and women of this country the opportunity to have a start in life.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They want jobs.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, having jobs because if we had taken the advice of those opposite during the global financial crisis, done as Senator Coonan advised and put our heads in the sand and just sat back and waited, what a mess this country would be in. The Rudd Labor government acted decisively to ensure that Australians kept their jobs. We invested in infrastructure, something that those opposite would know very little about from their more than 11½ very long years of neglect. It does not matter what area you talk about, whether it is health, ageing, investing in our schools or investing in skills and training, we are the ones who have set the agenda—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jobs.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we are the ones, Senator Abetz, that have ensured that Australians have retained their jobs. We will continue to do that, to ensure that all Australians have access to the profits from the resources of this country—resources that all Australians own not just the top end of town and those with shares, although there is nothing wrong with having shares in mining companies. When we come to superannuation, let us not forget that once again it was a Labor government that introduced superannuation. Those opposite, the Liberal coalition, would not even agree to the fact that Australian workers deserve the right to have superannuation. It is imperative for this country that everyone has access to superannuation and that all young Australians are encouraged to invest in their superannuation to ensure that they have a good standard of living as they reach their twilight years and can be self-sufficient. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am amazed by the gumption of the government. This government that has run up a level of debt that was unprecedented two years ago walked into the building yesterday and claimed credit for that debt being $50 billion less than it otherwise would have been only 12 months ago but three times what it would have been two years ago. Why is it that whenever we hear the word ‘reform’ from this government, every taxpayer in Australia has to reach for their wallet or in this case, with Labor’s mining supertax, to reach for their superannuation? It is because this government is incapable of taking a difficult decision.

Not only does this government lack the ticker of Hawke, Keating or Peter Walsh, it also lacks the albeit flawed philosophical commitment of Whitlam. Since this government announced its mining supertax, this government has channelled Rex Connor. We have had the Prime Minister with his xenophobic campaign against foreign investment running around to try and justify his mining supertax, the same foreign investment which this budget counts on. Of course, there is one big difference between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and Rex Connor and that is that Rex Connor only wanted to borrow $5 billion, he did not want to borrow $150 billion. Secondly, Rex Connor saw development as good. He tried to facilitate the development of Australia’s resources whereas this government is trying to kill it.

A decade ago, when the previous coalition government undertook the most drastic tax reform—the most significant Australia had seen since World War II—it convinced the states to abolish a raft of taxes and reduce other taxes—promises that many of them have not followed through—and it cut income tax rates. The catchcry was: ‘It is not a new tax, it is a new tax system’. Under this government, the Labor Party, it is not a new tax system; it is just a new tax. This is a tax on our most productive export sector; a tax on that sector which did more than most to get Australia through the global recession, the sector that is most exposed to growth in our own region. This government has done to the sector what it has done to everything else—whether health care or the so-called education revolution—it has created the illusion of reform. By throwing around words like ‘reform’ and ‘revolution’ often enough it seems to think they will eventuate. But it takes no difficult decisions.

There are no real spending cuts in this budget, despite what they may say. The two per cent real growth cap represents a substantial increase in government expenditure of over $40 billion over the forward estimates. Government is getting significantly larger. In every sense this is a state Labor budget in spirit and in practice. It has rubbery forecasts. It has massive increases in expenditure and any semblance of claimed financial responsibility is based on one thing only and that is a dramatic increase in taxation. All the promises are on the never-never. The surplus is never today, it is never tomorrow, it is always after the next election, just like it is for every state Labor government when you see increases in taxes and massive failures in services. This surplus is illusory. Let us put it in context. At $1 billion allegedly in three years time, it is less than one-third of one per cent of government expenditure. That is a rounding error, a typographical error, a $1 billion surplus out of a $350 billion budget. That is not going to happen, it is an illusion.

I recall when the former Treasurer Paul Keating promised he was ‘bringing home the bacon’. There was a small surplus promised, although in real terms it was larger than what this government is promising. He said he was ‘bringing home the bacon’. This was just before he put the budget into such massive deficit that it took the last coalition government a decade to pay it off. Labor then ran up tens of billions of dollars of debt for the same reason: no discipline in spending and an inability to take difficult decisions.

But there are a few things in this budget that I am sure the Labor Party’s trade union mates will be proud of. I did pick up last night that there is a $10 million grant to the trade unions for the Trade Union Education Foundation. The government, of course, will just try to slip that in on a page of the budget: $10 million to the paymasters. It is nice to know they are doing well, but future Australian taxpayers will pay for a long time.

Question agreed to.