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

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

The Labor government’s decision to spend $38 million on advertising their proposed new Super Tax.

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.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To put this debate in some context I will read two quotes. In 2007, prior to the federal election, Kevin Rudd said that government advertising was:

… a sick cancer within our system. It’s a cancer on democracy.

Another quote from the Prime Minister, in November 2007 at a doorstop press conference, was:

I can guarantee that we will have a process in place, run by the Auditor-General ... In terms of establishing the office of the Auditor-General, with clear cut guidelines to whom every television campaign is submitted for approval before that television campaign is implemented, you have my absolute 100 per cent guarantee that that will occur—100 per cent guarantee. And each one of you here can hold me accountable for that.

This is a broken pre-election promise from a man who described advertising as ‘a sick cancer within our system’ and ‘a cancer on democracy’.

In the time available to me I want to very quickly talk about the legacy of this government in the context of the resource super profits tax advertising campaign. If you look through this government’s 2½-year legacy you will see that it simply does not deserve to be re-elected. Let us go through some of these matters. There are the obvious ones, such as: $100 million a day borrowed to fund poor economic management; a budget deficit of $60 billion; house fires and tragic deaths from its failed Home Insulation Program; the Building the Education Revolution debacle—$1.5 billion over budget and $5 billion wasted; and an illegal immigrant program in tatters with illegal immigrants arriving in their thousands and no slowdown in the activities of people smugglers. They are the obvious, in-your-face matters for this government. Under the surface bubbles a lack of transparency and a lack of openness that will define this government and in my view will ultimately lead to its quite rightful downfall.

I want to go on to the question of government advertising. I want to talk about the changes that were made by this government. I remind honourable senators of the context that I gave this debate and the context of the Prime Minister’s comments. I want to reacquaint honourable senators with the changes that were made in relation to exemptions to advertising campaigns. Under the Auditor-General, as we know, the guidelines for the use of this exemption by the minister were for ‘national emergency, extreme urgency or other extraordinary reasons’. After having reinforced and put in place proposals in relation to government advertising and the Auditor-General in 2008, this government changed those rules this year. They put in place weakened guidelines, according to the Auditor-General and also, interestingly, the man who reviewed these guidelines, recommended the changes and—remarkably—is ultimately making the decisions. But that is another matter. In his testimony to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit last week, Mr Allan Hawke noted that when he was reviewing the 2008 guidelines he felt that the ‘extraordinary reasons’ in the exemption provision did not take into account the historical position of the Australian Electoral Commission. Historically, although it is an FMA Act agency, the Australian Electoral Commission has traditionally been exempted from having to go through external vetting processes. So rather than creating another specific exemption, Mr Hawke recommended a change in the general exemption provision. That was replicated in the new guidelines—the 2010 guidelines—which then changed the reasons for an exemption to ‘national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reasons’.

That there was a change from ‘extraordinary reasons’ to ‘compelling reasons’ was not in any way justified by the government. There is no definition of ‘compelling reasons’. As I said, the Auditor-General has constantly stated that these changes represented a softening of the guidelines and, notably, Dr Hawke has subsequently stated that it was not his intention to have such advertising as the mining tax campaign encapsulated in the compelling reasons rule. The man himself who recommended these changes was only assuming that they would be changed to allow the continuation of the AEC’s previous exemption from external review.

I just want to give an exchange during that committee meeting:

Mr GEORGIOU—… Did you envisage that an advertising campaign on mining and promoting the government’s position on mining was of the same order or the same quality?

Dr Hawke—I did not, no.

               …            …            …

Mr GEORGIOU—… Did you anticipate that your notion of ‘compelling’ would be as elastic as to embrace an advertising campaign designed to combat the so-called misinformation by the mining lobby?

Dr Hawke—… I did not anticipate that this might be used in the way it has …

That is from the mouth of the man who was responsible for changing these rules. He has said that this duplicitous government has actually bent his expectations of the change in the rule.

In the time left open to me, I will turn to the very interesting part—the events of two weeks ago. As we know, the government’s new committee looked at this so-called mining tax advertising campaign once—on 21 April. They met once in relation to this and there was no mention at all of the likelihood of the ministerial intervention by way of an exemption. Two days before the Treasurer wrote a letter to Senator Ludwig, there had been two advertisements in the West Australian. There was no other paid advertising from anyone in relation to the mining tax. But, despite that, the Treasurer wrote to the minister on the back of urgency or compelling reasons. So we got evidence at the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration last week, not evidence given during Senate estimates, that indeed the minister had signed a letter on 24 May granting the exemption that the minister had received from his department on 14 May—a brief containing draft letters to the Treasurer and a draft statement of reasons to accompany it which should have been tabled with the parliament. That was Monday, 24 May.

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration made a decision to hold the question of government advertising over to the Thursday morning. The minister was sitting at the table with these officials for at least 1½ days, and one presumably would have thought that at that stage he had advised them. We then learnt that the department themselves were only advised on the Thursday afternoon that the minister had made this decision and parliament was only advised on the 28th. Now there is only one reason for this. There is only one reason why this minister would have failed to tell his departmental officials. There is only one reason why this minister would have failed to tell the parliament and those who were attending Senate estimates: it was a complete and utter cover-up. The fix in relation to this exemption was on from 14 May. The fix was on on 24 May when the letter was signed, and the fix was really on when there was no mention of it until the following Friday—after Senate estimates in relation to this matter had finished. This is a government that no longer deserves government. It is a government where Operation Sunlight has been completely and utterly thrown out the window—where there is no accountability for the minister, the Prime Minister or the Treasurer, and no accountability whatsoever in relation to the activities of a government that does not deserve re-election. (Time expired)

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no question that the issues associated with political advertising are very important, but it is about time that the opposition, and in particular Senator Ronaldson, put away its confected outrage. Today’s contribution, verballing Dr Hawke as referring to ‘this duplicitous government’, is starting to get quite ridiculous. After about three minutes he did get to the substance of the motion but, in his reference in his introduction to Mr Rudd’s comments, he again faded well away from the truth. Yes, what occurred under the Howard government—which I will elaborate on later if I have sufficient time—was a sick cancer on democracy and, yes, we honoured our election commitments, but it is about time this opposition stopped hiding behind the independent review that occurred to try to claim we have not met our commitments on transparency and on political advertising.

Let us look at what Senator Ronaldson does not say. He does not say that in Senate estimates the Auditor-General, Ian McPhee, indicated very clearly that, in his view, the framework we have in place under the current guidelines—despite his concerns with those revised guidelines undertaken as a result of an independent review by Dr Hawke—is a significant improvement. There is no qualification and no moving away from it; it is a significant improvement. So what seems to be happening here is that, where the Rudd government acts and then responds to changed circumstances, this opposition continues to try to argue that original commitments have not been met. And let us just deal with the issue about changed circumstances, because that was also referred to in the opposition’s dissenting report into the Greens bill that we have also dealt with on this matter. In fact, quite a bit of attention was paid to the issue of the role of the Auditor-General in the advertising guidelines and, in fact, the change that occurred was your policy.

So on the one hand the opposition have one of very few limited positions or policies—and we have accommodated the concerns that have been raised not only by the opposition but by the independent review—and now they try to claim that we are not meeting our election commitments! I am sorry, Senator Ronaldson, but you cannot have it both ways. Senator Abetz will be following me with his contribution. We will hear him too try to have it both ways as we look at some of the detail about what did not occur under the Howard government and what he will try to justify now. Again, when I looked at the coalition senators’ response to the report of our Senate committee inquiry into the Greens bill on political advertising, it had a very interesting historical discussion. Senator Ronaldson talked about the fact that he wanted to reacquaint the Senate with this. Well, I think he ought to reacquaint some of his own senators with what happened under the 11½ years of the Howard government in this area.

The introduction to the coalition senators’ report refers to the fact that in 1998 the Auditor-General issued a set of draft guidelines for government advertising. This was not in response to the Howard government—and the Howard government continued to ignore them; they were ignored for the full period of the Howard government. However, the coalition senators seem to think that in this little historical discussion they can avoid addressing what they ignored for so many years. They go on to say that these guidelines were the subject of a review of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit in 2000—but still no action by the Howard government—and that they were further revised in 2008 as government policy and revised again in March 2010. Well, that is the whole point: it took until 2008 until there was any government policy. Before that time, there was an enormous level of government expenditure on advertising—and it was completely unjustified, completely unreported and hidden.

One of the first things the Rudd government did was to abolish the Ministerial Committee for Government Communications and the Government Communications Unit in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. This, of course, was the body that Senator Abetz chaired when he was the Special Minister of State, when government politicians and staff ran the government’s advertising. So it will be very interesting to hear how he justifies his activities during that period and indeed the present lack of any policy from the coalition on this matter.

I want to try and capture a brief summary of what occurred in the Howard government years. I need to pay tribute to Jason Koutsoukis, who in a piece on 2 September 2007 elaborated on the Howard government’s record on political advertising. He said:

Prime Minister John Howard has spent nearly $2 billion on government advertising and information campaigns since coming to power 11 years ago—

And this is possibly why Senator Joyce is confused about ‘millions’ and ‘billions’—

A Sunday Age investigation has found that just weeks from calling an election—

Remember, this is 2007—

the government has 18 advertising campaigns on the air …

Eighteen campaigns! He continued:

The Sunday Age investigation has also shown that since the last election in 2004, Mr Howard has spent a record $854 million of taxpayers’ money on government advertising.

               …            …            …

The record spending comes despite Mr Howard being elected on a pledge to cut it back.

In 1995, Mr Howard promised that if elected he would instruct the Commonwealth Auditor-General to draw up guidelines on appropriate use of taxpayers’ money for advertising. “There is clearly a massive difference between necessary government information for the community and blatant government electoral propaganda,” Mr Howard said at the time. “Propaganda should be paid for by political parties.”

Despite 11½ years in power, Mr Howard never instructed the Australian National Audit Office to inquire into government advertising. According to Melbourne University academic Sally Young, the author of Government Communication in Australia, the Howard Government’s spending on advertising is among the highest per head in the world. “It’s up there with only a few other countries,” she said.

This puts some broader context around the comments made by Senator Ludwig in question time today. The Rudd government’s expenditure in this area last year was one-third of the Howard government’s expenditure in 2007, and in 2009 it was one-half. The comparison is very stark and speaks for itself.

In my remaining time let me address the RSPT issues and the exemption matters. As Senator Ludwig highlighted, we make no apology whatsoever for defending the national economic interest against the scare campaign from some companies and from those opposite. This scare campaign could damage the economy and hurt working families, whom we strove so desperately to protect against the global financial crisis with a stimulus package. Do not forget that every government that has substantially reformed the tax system has engaged in a public information campaign, including those opposite—look at their advertising expenditure on the GST.

But let us go to the facts of this particular matter. We announced our tax package on 2 May and this campaign was funded in the budget on 11 May. Let us have a look at what happened, though, between those dates. One miner said his company was in trouble, but then he bought a million shares in it with his own money. Of course, we need to remind ourselves about Mr Peter Dutton’s own investments contrary to the complaints of the opposition. At the same time, Rio Tinto put a story in the paper about closing down all their projects and then rushed out a correcting statement before markets opened. And Mr Palmer claimed that he cancelled a South Australian project that did not even exist. This is why Mr Swan asked Senator Ludwig to allow us to bring the planned campaign forward—not to exempt it from scrutiny— (Time expired)

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

Federal Labor has reached a new low. Having promised so much and delivered so little, its backflip to run an unconscionable taxpayer-funded misinformation campaign is another example in the long list of broken Labor promises. To add insult to injury and like with so much else they do, Labor has not only embarked on a $38 million taxpayer-funded propaganda campaign but also rushed it and not consulted. Remember throughout all this that Mr Rudd gave this solemn commitment: government advertising was a cancer on the body politic of Australia that needed surgical removal.

So rushed was its desire for a taxpayer-funded campaign, Labor—through its Special Minister of State—crashed through and ignored its very own pathetically weak guidelines by invoking emergency powers. That is bad enough in itself. But—oh, what a tangled web we weave—having disingenuously claimed urgency and emergency, Labor then withheld this decision wilfully and deliberately from the parliament in an attempt to avoid the scrutiny of Senate estimates process.

Under Labor’s own weak rules, any decision by the Special Minister of State to bypass due process for advertising campaigns needs to be explained by a tabling statement to the parliament. Mr Swan asked for the exemption on 10 May. By 14 May the Special Minister of State had prepared for him a draft letter and a tabling statement. Yet the tabling statement was not tabled until 28 May, the very day after Senate estimates for the Special Minister of State had finished. It was just a coincidence, just serendipitous, according to Labor. In fact, the Treasurer was told a full four days earlier in an extensive two-page letter. Why not just table the letter to the Treasurer as the Special Minister of State’s reasons? It would have been pretty simple.

According to Senator Ludwig at the reconvened Senate estimates hearing forced upon him by the Senate, the letter was not tabled because he was ‘preparing the tabling statement’. When asked later whether he had been provided with a draft tabling statement, the minister said, ‘No, my office and I prepared the tabling statement.’ The minister was asked again, ‘There was no draft from the department?’ The department then intervened and exposed the attempted cover-up by confirming that there was a draft. So the minister did not prepare the statement—he may have finalised it but he did not draft it from scratch. Even more devastating for the hapless minister was when he said to the committee:

… I wanted to not just simply rubber-stamp the department’s draft statement but read it, reflect on it and then decide on what I should say in it. After all, it is my signature at the bottom of the page.

Let us examine this excuse and thereby expose it. Firstly, we were told the minister could not prepare the tabling statement because ‘it was estimates’, but that was before we found out he got the draft on 14 May. Estimates started on 24 May, so the minister had a full 10 days before estimates to consider his tabling statement. Secondly, when listening to the minister you would have thought his tabling statement was a like a High Court decision where the judge says how he has decided the case and will publish reasons later. The only problem was that his tabling statement was even shorter and contained even less information than his letter to the Treasurer. Thirdly, the copy of the tabling statement does not even bear the signature of the minister, which he said he had signed. So on top of his brief is this minister—oh, what a tangled web we weave.

The minister has got himself into a terrible mess. We are to believe that it took all of the minister’s mental acuity and unbridled intellect over 10 days to condense his own letter to the Treasurer into the statement to the parliament from 459 words and nine paragraphs into 180 words and seven paragraphs. Step aside, members of Mensa, and let Senator Ludwig through so we can give full acknowledgement to this unparalleled intellectual giant. This nation should be oh so thankful that we have such a gifted minister who can distil nine paragraphs into seven paragraphs in only 10 days. What wonderful intellectual prowess!

Just look at paragraph 2 of both the letter and the statement to get the full import of this expenditure of intellectual gravitas. First of all, in paragraph 2 of the letter the minister said:

In my capacity as Cabinet Secretary responsible for the guidelines, I can exempt advertising campaigns on the basis of national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reasons.

In just 10 days, and after harnessing all his intellectual fortitude, the minister was able to distil that paragraph into this:

As Cabinet Secretary, the campaign framework provides that I may exempt a campaign from compliance with the guidelines on the basis of a national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reason.

Can you imagine the mental anguish the minister went through to reflect and decide on how to make those wonderful changes? This is just sheer brilliance personified in none other than the Special Minister of State himself. This minister has a choice: he has either an intellectual deficit or an integrity deficit. I suspect no-one believes the minister’s explanation on pages 17 and 18 of the Hansard:

As I said in answer to your question, having written a letter to the Treasurer on 24 May and provided the reasons therein, I wanted to not just simply rubber-stamp the department’s draft statement but read it, reflect on it and then decide on what I should say in it. After all, it is my signature at the bottom of the page.

The tabled statement is shorter and provides even less explanation than the letter to the Treasurer. If it genuinely is the case that the minister needed 10 days from the draft, or even four days from the letter to the draft, he should not be the minister.

The reason for the delay in tabling was very simply a cynical attempt to avoid the scrutiny of this parliament. If you analyse this excuse that the minister needed to read, reflect and decide on what he should say, and then compare the letter to the Treasurer and his tabling statement, you will see that the statement is word for word but just a condensation of it. No extra reasons, no extra rationale, and no extra thought power went into this, and that is why the minister’s explanation falls so very, very hollow. And it provides the explanation to this parliament and to the Australian people why the tabling of this statement was deliberately withheld until the Senate estimates for the Special Minister of State were over. There was no reason that the minister needed four days—or, indeed 10 days—to redraft this statement. A junior in his office could have undertaken the task.

As I said before, this minister either has a huge intellectual deficit, if he claims that it did take him 10 days and a lot of thought and intellectual grunt to come to this statement, or there is a deficit in his explanation to this parliament; I fear the latter. The Labor Party, the Prime Minister and this Special Minister of State stand condemned.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to again defend the state of Queensland and the $2 million worth of infrastructure funding that the resource super profits tax will bring to Queensland’s roads, rails and ports and to dispel the myth of Senator Parry’s MPI about ‘the Labor government’s decision to spend $38 million advertising their proposed new super tax’.

I find it entertaining that the opposition have the nerve to stand up in this chamber and make comments about the government’s consultation processes. On the one hand, if we do not make the public aware of our policies they say there is a lack of consultation. On the other hand, when we do share our information with our valued constituents, they say we are wasting taxpayer funds. I find that amazing, coming from a Liberal Party which spent $254 million in 2007 alone on their election campaign and an amazing $420 million to explain the GST in 2000. To put that into perspective, that is $420 million spent on explaining their GST as opposed to $38 million the government has approved for explaining our RSPT. The Howard government also spent $121 million of taxpayer funds to advertise Work Choices, a policy which hurt our working families and enabled employers to dismiss employees without a valid reason, to strip conditions from the award system, to place employees on woeful individual contracts, and the list goes on.

The Rudd government cares about our working families and how taxpayer funds are spent, and that is why we have cut expenditure on government advertising. In fact, in 2008 we spent a third of the amount that the Howard government spent in 2007. In 2009 we spent less than half the amount that the Howard government spent in 2007. We introduced guidelines on how taxpayer funds should be spent and principles as to how materials can be presented. These guidelines make sure that government advertising is authorised, properly targeted and non-political. This initiative is a far cry from the Howard government’s handling of their campaign funds, which did not have this type of scrutiny. When the opposition were in government they were able to produce campaign material which unashamedly endorsed the Liberal Party, and the ministers themselves approved campaigns.

This government makes no apologies for defending the future prosperity of this nation against a massive scare campaign funded by some companies and mining magnates like LNP funder Clive Palmer. By bringing this up in the chamber today, it shows that the opposition’s puppet strings are being pulled by Mr Palmer. It shows that they care more about their next campaign funding than the national economic interest. The opposition do not care that the RSPT will help working Australians increase the amount of money they will be retiring with, that it will provide vital infrastructure for our mining states and that it will provide a tax break for small businesses and an instant write-off on assets worth less than $5,000. In fact, representatives from the mining industry have acknowledged that they can pay more tax. On 3 June the Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson said:

A number of major mining company CEOs have said to me, not just over the last couple of weeks, they all knew a tax reform package was coming, that they’ve had a good decade and they’re in a position to actually pay more tax.

The opposition has also pushed that the RSPT will hurt the mining industry and shares. This misinformation is clearly just that: misinformation. Just yesterday, Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed agreements worth $10 billion, covering resources and energy.

The Australian today reported that Vice-President Xi acknowledged ‘huge potential for growth’ in energy and resources and went on to pay tribute to Australia’s ‘sound investment market’ whilst encouraging close partnerships on energy, metals and environmental protection. Mr Xi also encouraged parties to ‘oppose trade and investment protectionism’. Fortescue Metals Chief Executive Officer Andrew Forrest, who has been vocal about his opposition to the RSPT, was also present at the signing of the agreement and was given the opportunity to meet Mr Xi. Incidentally, I note that Andrew Forrest’s own shares in his company rose by 20c to $4.57 per share. The Minister for Trade, Simon Crean, said that the RSPT would ‘encourage further investment’ and that the signing of these agreements ‘put paid to the exaggerated claims by some mining executives’. Mr Crean also stated that ‘There has never been any suggestion by the Chinese that it would harm investment in Australia’. The article also stated that Rio Tinto Executive Doug Ritchie said that as long as security and stability were provided by government policies, companies would invest.

The opposition’s claims that share prices would drop because of the RSPT is more scaremongering. In fact, Rio Tinto’s share price is now higher than what it was when the RSPT was announced. It is clear the opposition does not really support its own claims when one of their frontbenchers, the member for Dickson, purchased $2,000 worth of shares in BHP. This government is passionate about giving our Australian families a share in the profits of the mining industry. Australian citizens own 100 percent of this nation’s natural resources and, with mining companies making massive profits of up to $80 billion in the last decade, is it not time our nation shared in this success?

We are being targeted for our spending on this campaign, but what is the government to do when the opposition and the mining industry, which is more focused on reining in profits, is spending millions on misinforming the public about the RSPT? It is up to the government to clear up these myths and to rightfully inform the public of what our policies are and what they mean to our nation. Australians want to know what the impact of the government’s RSPT will be and what it will do to strengthen our economy. The Rudd government is passionate about standing up for our citizens and, even though we are faced with a multimillion dollar scare campaign, we will continue to stand up for working Australians and small businesses, to protect them from the misinformation and scaremongering and to ensure they receive the right information.

Our public campaign, which has already featured on TV, radio and print, provides actual facts to the community about the RSPT and provides them with a contact base where they are able to seek more information. We have held meetings with representatives from the mining industry and we have been nothing but upfront with Australians about the RSPT. We have established the Resource Tax Consultation Panel and have been open at every step—a practice which demonstrates our government’s willingness to discuss this very important tax reform and a practice which is completely different to the previous government’s.

Because of the grubby scaremongering and misinformation being put out by some of the mining industry, the Treasurer applied to the Cabinet Secretary, Senator Ludwig, to allow the government to defend itself and inform the public of the real facts. According to the campaign advertising guidelines, the Cabinet Secretary can exempt campaigns on ‘the basis of a national emergency, extreme urgency or other compelling reason’. This secretary granted his exemption on 24 May, and on 28 May this was tabled in parliament. The reason for the exemption was that:

… there is an active campaign of misinformation about the proposed changes to our tax system … Australians are concerned about how these changes will affect them.

… as the tax reforms involve changes to the value of some capital assets, they impact on financial markets …

The exemption was granted on two grounds: firstly, the extreme urgency, the need, to address misinformation that is being distributed about the reforms; and, secondly, the compelling reason that these reforms impact on financial markets. For the sake of our nation’s prosperity, it is time for those opposite to stop the scaremongering and enable the public to hear the real facts on how the resource super profits tax will provide important infrastructure for our mining states, boost the economy, increase the superannuation of our working Australians from nine per cent to 12 per cent, keep people in jobs and help build sustainable growth. The RSPT is a sensible tax reform which will benefit the Australian economy.

Previous speakers from this side of the chamber referred to the legacy of the Howard government. Senator Collins pointed out that the previous government spent $2 billion during that reign on this type of advertising—in stark comparison to this government. I do not think there are any parallels to be drawn or issues to be made about who is outspending whom. So, once again, I think the opposition need to cease their scaremongering campaign and come back on track in terms of delivering the true facts on what this RSPT is essentially about.

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

I may have only been here for a little under two years, but every so often I see a new low reached. It seems that, no matter what the issue, those opposite seek to throw around the words ‘Work Choices’. Representatives of the Australian Labor Party come into this place—many of them having come from trade union backgrounds—and talk about ‘advertising scare campaigns not based on fact’, and they do it with a straight face. That requires a level of gumption that I do not have. The newspaper tells me that the ad campaigns being run by the miners have some of the same people involved in them as the Kevin 07 advertising campaign did. That was a real scare campaign. That is the campaign that is scaring Australians today as they remember what happened 2½ years ago. I assume the Labor Party will start to disown that.

It was the Prime Minister who described advertising as a ‘sick cancer’ on our democracy. I suppose it goes with the ‘great moral challenge’. I suppose it becomes yet another piece of flowery rhetoric that is being discarded by this government that cannot live up to the words of the Prime Minister as he seeks to moralise rather than govern. They claim, after only two years, that the Auditor-General effectively made it too difficult for them to run the advertising campaigns they wished to run. Their advertising campaign today could best be summed up as a PowerPoint presentation—a person in front of a PowerPoint slide. I cannot image a better summary of this Prime Minister than something out of The Hollowmen: an advertising campaign that will put people to sleep, as even government members will acknowledge.

We heard from Senator Ronaldson earlier that once ‘extraordinary’ reasons are now ‘compelling’ reasons. The only thing that was compelling in this campaign was the desperation of the Australian Labor Party as it realised that the tax it blindsided Australians with was in no way going to save it from the debacle of its mismanagement of pink batts, green loans and myriad other issues. That became the compelling reason for this campaign.

The Hawke review used the Australian Electoral Commission’s unique status as the veil under which the ALP thought it could dance away from its commitments. The Prime Minister thought: ‘Here we go. The Australian Electoral Commission is a bit unique. We will use this excuse to dance away from our commitment about describing something as a sick cancer.’ But this veil has been lifted, and the Australian people quite frankly do not like what they are seeing. What they are seeing is the underbelly of the Australian Labor Party using taxpayer funds to campaign for a policy thought-bubble that has no draft legislation and has not been brought before this parliament. We see no indication of it coming any time soon. This is nothing short of a series of campaign ads—bad though they are—for the Labor Party to try to dig itself out of a political hole.

This brings me to the time line. Just prior to me speaking, Senator Furner spoke about the four days between 24 May and 28 May as if it was December. These were not four average days; these were the days when the Finance and Public Administration Committee of this Senate was holding estimates hearings. The committee rearranged its timetable to accommodate Senator Ludwig’s personal timetable to discuss government advertising on the Thursday morning, the 27^th, at the request of the minister. These were not four average days—four quiet days; this was an issue in these estimates hearings. The estimates committee changed its schedule to accommodate the minister. Despite having the draft statement for four days, he did not see any reason to inform the estimates committee, nor did he find any reason to table out of session the statement outlining that he had exempted this advertising campaign from his own guidelines. He could have done so but he chose not to.

This government are now learning the lesson of Nixon: it is not the action that gets you into trouble; it is the cover-up. What we have here is an attempt by the government to avoid scrutiny, and they have been caught out. They have been caught out by tabling this statement after Senate estimates hearings had concluded. Then they acquiesced in this chamber to allow those estimates hearings to be reconvened last week. I cannot think of another example where something like that has been slipped out at 9.30 the next day—as a number of us were at the airport leaving after estimates hearings—in order to specifically avoid scrutiny.

No-one believes that to delete two paragraphs of a statement and turn it from a nine-paragraph statement to a seven-paragraph statement takes four working days—four working days in this building while this was an issue discussed in those hearings. This delay was not due to the decision Senator Ludwig took; it was due to this government trying to craft the language to justify the decision they took. The decision to exempt and declare this partisan advertising campaign a ‘compelling reason’, albeit one for the Labor Party, had already been taken. What the minister was trying to do was avoid scrutiny and come up with language that would not make the government look bad, and he has been caught out.

Why will the minister not show us the draft? The minister is not keen for us to see those extra two paragraphs, those extra couple of hundred words. He says he took four days to delete those two paragraphs and table it in the Senate. No-one believes that. The minister should table in this Senate and make public the draft statement so that we know what took four days. I am certain that those four days were only used to try to craft the language to make this government look a little better. But it cannot because this decision stands very clearly in contradiction to the language they used themselves.

This government is simply trying to claim credit for a policy it implemented and junked. You do not get to claim political credit saying, ‘We were being all good two years ago but we have decided to be bad now.’ That is its only defence. Just like everything else about this Labor Party, this government only wants to speak about the opposition. It does not want to be tested against its own record. It avoids being tested against its own words. It wants to talk about the opposition—and it always brings up Work Choices whenever it can. The only thing I would say to that is that the Penrith by-election made clear that—with the little stunt with T-shirts—that did not have the traction that the Labor Party thought it might. According to this government, a small cancer is okay. We can have a small cancer on our democracy because its only defence is that it is smaller than it once was.

I would like briefly to turn to the tax itself which is the subject of this advertising campaign. Contrary to specific government commitments, there was no consultation with industry about this tax. They were blindsided like everyone else was on 2 May. It is a flawed tax based on flawed assumptions. Former finance minister and senator in this place, Peter Walsh, made the comment that the only barrier to a resolution of this was the current Prime Minister. Another comment that is of particular interest is that in his own memoirs, where he says that ‘there is rarely if ever any economic rent in iron ore’. He said that in his memoirs. He said it was different to oil, petroleum and gold, but this government sees it differently. Then again, I suppose this Labor Party has spent the last 2½ years running away from the Hawke years back into the arms of the Whitlam years and now, as it attempts to take national stakes in key industries, it is in some ways running back to the Chifley years.

The motives of this government with respect to this tax are betrayed by its attempt to apply it to existing projects. Those existing projects do not get the alleged benefit of the 40 per cent allowance for capital. It is simply a grab for money to try to fill the government’s budget black hole, which has been created by its unprecedented spending—spending which it did not flag in any way before the last election when, on the hills of Nambour, the Prime Minister was describing himself as an economic conservative.

There are myriad issues with this tax that this government is trying to hide with its advertising campaign. Royalties are the property of the states. The Commonwealth cannot seek to take those unconstitutionally. The royalties are the property of the states. They do not belong to all Australians in a legal sense. We also have the Commonwealth Grants Commission, which quite effectively redistributes income from those states which have a resource bounty compared to those that do not—and that is nearly a century-old tradition.

I will conclude with this: the key flaw in this tax—which this government is trying to hoodwink the Australian people into with its advertising campaign—is that, unlike petroleum, gold and other precious metals, iron ore and some of our key mineral exports are not rare. What is rare is the investment required to take them to market—to get them out of the ground, to get them on ships, or however they are to be transported, and to get them to market. This government is making a fundamental miscalculation in assuming that this tax can be introduced without impacting future investment levels in Australia—and this advertising campaign will not save it.

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

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. It is good to speak last because you get to listen to all the other contributors—and some certainly challenge the thought processes on this side of the chamber. I want to clear the air on one thing—and sorry to those poor souls outside of parliament who may be listening because they are stuck in a traffic jam or whatever. I have been in this place for five years and have listened to many debates. But when I was listening to the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Abetz from Tasmania, lecture the Special Minister of State about ‘decency in dealings’ and the other words he used, I found what he was saying absolutely disgraceful. It is absolutely incredible because that senator was caught colluding with a witness to train that witness how to answer questions at a Senate hearing. I am dying for someone from the other side to challenge me on this, because no senator in this chamber would dare think that they could get away with that sort of corrupt behaviour.

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order.

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

Thank you!

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that Senator Sterle is casting aspersions on the motivations of another senator. He is also misquoting the findings of the Privileges Committee.

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

Senator Sterle, I ask you to be very careful with your words and to reflect on what you said. I ask you to withdraw the imputation against Senator Abetz.

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

Yes, I hear what you say, Mr Acting Deputy President. I withdraw.

The Acting Deputy President:

Your withdrawal is noted.

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

We have cleared that up, but I just want to put on the record that the minister, Senator Ludwig, has never attracted that attention. I do not think anyone could argue with me on that.

I want to remind those outside the parliament who may be listening about the Howard government’s spending on advertising. On this side, we all know that the Howard government actually took some $420 million of taxpayers’ money to promote the GST. Remember the ‘Unchain my heart’ ads and whatnot? Let us not forget what was said in this chamber earlier: in 2007, the Howard government put their hands into taxpayers’ pockets and took out $254 million to use in their election campaign. I will mention Work Choices; I cannot help but mention Work Choices. Let us not forget that $121 million of taxpayers’ money was used to promote that failed policy that poisoned the Howard government’s last three years in office.

As a senator from Western Australia, a resource state, it is good to stand in here and talk about the advertising against the resource super profits tax. I do not disregard any senator from any other part of Australia, but I come from a state where the mining industry is a very, very important industry. Unlike others in this chamber, particularly those with the bigger mouths, I actually made my living off the back of the mining industry—not sitting in a courtroom with my hands in other people’s pockets. The mining industry is important and it was a fantastic way of making a living. It is still important. But what we have here is the mother of all scare campaigns. Let’s face it and tell it as it is: there is a massive scare campaign being driven by the Minerals Council of Australia and a certain few.

In the West Australian a couple of weeks ago, before the rally and all that stuff, it was reported that Western Australian Liberals were writing to all the mining companies saying, ‘Please fund our campaign and we will get rid of this tax.’ Let us not lose sight of the fact that this is political comfort for the Libs. They are thinking: ‘We’re broke. We need some money. Let’s get it off the mining companies. Let’s be part of this massive scare campaign.’ What is this scare campaign saying? It is not saying so in as many words but it is coming across as this: if a resource super profits tax was implemented in the great state of Western Australia, all of a sudden, overnight, every individual employed in mining or in servicing the mining industry would find their employment at risk; that the work of every small business that relies on the mining industry or supplies the mining industry would come to a sudden end the very day the tax was implemented.

This could not be further from the truth. It has suited those opposite to encourage a campaign of some mistruths. That is what it is all about. There is no argument about that. Look at a gathering of concerned people on the esplanade in Perth recently, where the front row was the Liberal members of parliament. They were shaking their jewellery in disgust. Ms Gina Rinehart’s pearls were glowing in front of the camera and she was saying, ‘It is so bad that the mining companies have to pay extra tax.’ Senator Ryan said that it is disgusting that existing mining projects should come under the umbrella of a resources tax. I want to know what Senator Ryan and others on that side think of the agreement obtained by the Western Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, for Rio Tinto and BHP mining in Western Australia to obtain $1 billion extra in royalties.

All the time in this chamber we hear the cliche thrown about that you cannot have it both ways, so why is it great for Mr Barnett, the Premier, to achieve that—and quite rightly so; it is fantastic, as long as it delivers to Western Australia along the lines of our Regional Infrastructure Fund, and I would like to know where that money is going—but bad for the federal government to want to get a bit of the profit being made by these supercompanies to deliver it back to Western Australians in the form of $2 billion in the Regional Infrastructure Fund? Why is it bad for the federal government to do something that would put important infrastructure projects into mining communities—communities affected by mining and communities that supply to the mining industry? For the life of me, I cannot understand how that could be any different.

I would also encourage senators over there who want to make contributions about the evil of a fair and equitable tax on the mining industry to take the time to visit some of these mining communities. I will talk about the mining communities in Western Australia. Two that come to mind are Port Hedland and Karratha. I remember Karratha in 1979. I took up a load of door jams for the brand new second suburb. There are now nine or 10 suburbs. If one wants to know the effects of the lack of infrastructure in these mining communities one should visit Karratha and Port Hedland—let alone Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Newman, Pannawonica, Wickham or wherever.

When I was on the road delivering furniture up there through the seventies and eighties, I went into these mining towns and it was clear the mining companies ran them. They built the infrastructure—they built the homes; they built the roads; they built the community facilities; they built the playgrounds; and they built and maintained the sporting venues, whether it was tennis, whether it was bowling or whether it was football, netball or soccer. Then, in the eighties, the mining companies decided that that was not their core business; they did not want to do that anymore. As I said, I made my living moving them in and out. It was a fantastic way to make a living, running through the great state of Western Australia. That is no longer there. It is mainly fly-in fly-out.

I encourage you, Mr Acting Deputy President, to pop into Port Hedland. Go and meet the mayor; go and meet the councillors. Ask them what their thoughts are on seeing some of the hard-earned dollars from their region actually coming back into their communities, because I have to tell you there is not a lot to be seen. It is quite irksome to have a major mining company tell you what a wonderful job they have done in Port Hedland because they put some sails over a playground. They said that to me, and I thought, ‘Well, that is wonderful, but where is the rest of the contribution back to that region, which they have successfully worked?’ They have employed a heck of a lot of people and they have paid some good wages. It is time to bring it back.

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

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.