Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

The Gillard Government’s continued pattern of broken promises, maladministration, waste and debt.

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 Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fifield for submitting this matter of public importance. I will just read it again for the sake of the record. The matter of public importance lodged by Senator Fifield reads, ‘The Gillard government’s continued pattern of broken promises, maladministration, waste and debt’. What we have seen this week is a remarkable transformation in Australian politics. We have actually seen the Australian Labor Party cede responsibility for government to the Australian Greens. The outcome of that is that the honesty and integrity of someone no less than the Prime Minister of this country are now on public trial. The ramifications of the decisions of this government over the last week should not be underestimated.

I want to give some quotes in relation to the Prime Minister’s views on these matters. I am grateful for the article written by Glenn Milne on ABC Online today, where this was detailed. I will pull some of these quotes out as part of this discussion. On 3 March 2009, the Prime Minister told Jon Faine from 774 in Melbourne:

I think when you go to an election and you give a promise to the Australian people, you should do everything in your power to honour that promise. We are determined to do that.

In the same interview, the Prime Minister went on to say:

If the reputation of this Government is that we are stubborn in the delivery of our election promises, then we are stubborn in keeping our word to the Australian people. Then I’ll take that. I’ll take that as a badge of honour.

Then on Lateline on 16 June 2009 the Prime Minister again said:

We’re always there delivering our election promises. That’s important to us.

I will repeat it: ‘That’s important to us.’ So when the Prime Minister on 16 August last year on Lateline said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,’ then the Australian people were entitled to believe her. Then four days later when she again said, ‘I rule out a carbon tax,’ the Australian people were entitled to believe her and make a value judgment about the Prime Minister’s views on a big new tax.

What we have seen again is the Australian Labor Party constantly creating new taxes that burn through the pockets of taxpayers in this country. I do not need to remind honourable senators about some of the farcical expenditure, the wastage, imposed upon the Australian community by the Australian Labor Party, much of which the Prime Minister herself, the person who is on public trial as we speak in relation to her honesty and integrity, has had ownership of. I refer, of course, to the BER program, where the government itself acknowledges that it will not provide the requisite financial information in relation to the expenditure. The shadow minister for education as late as half an hour ago again brought to the parliament’s attention that, despite the Orgill report recommendations requiring the immediate production of all financial information in relation to the BER, despite the House of Representatives moving a motion to demand its production back in November last year, the government failed to provide it. And I do not need to tell honourable senators about the pink batt debacle.

If people say, ‘I’ve heard it before,’ people will hear it again and again up until the next election. There was $1 billion spent on rectifying the mistakes of this government, let alone the wastage beforehand. As I have said before over the last week, there was $1 billion wasted by this government in relation to pink batts and they cannot find $5 million to put towards the Australian War Memorial despite General Peter Cosgrove twice last year requesting a $5 million input to ensure that the Australian War Memorial did not close for one day a week. It is the priorities of this government but it is the priorities of the Prime Minister herself that are now on public trial.

I want to go on further to talk about the $13 million that was wasted by the Rudd-Gillard government in relation to their national health program, this wondrous agreement between the Commonwealth and the states, this wondrous agreement that required $13 million spent on it in public advertising. Only one problem: there wasn’t an agreement. There wasn’t an agreement, and $13 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money was wasted on an advertising campaign for an agreement that had not been reached.

I want to turn again to the Orgill report. The Orgill report was the government’s attempt to extract themselves from a particularly difficult situation. The Prime Minister before the election said, ‘Every single one of the Orgill recommendations will be followed by this government.’ We know that the one that underpinned it—as I said before, the production of the financial documents relating to this program—has still not been released.

What we are going to see in this country between now and the next election is a very clear delineation of the policies of the opposition and the government. We will hold the Prime Minister to account every single day between now and the next election for the promise that she broke, for the untruth that she told in the run-up to the election in relation to a carbon tax. What we will remind the Australian people every single day between now and the next election is that this is a government single-handedly responsible for a reduction in the standard of living of ordinary Australians in this country, where the cost of living pressures are mounting and mounting.

In about 2½ weeks time we are going to see another complicit government removed forever from the face of Australian politics, the New South Wales Labor government. The Victorian Labor government were removed in November last year because they again did not give a tinker’s cuss about what was happening to ordinary Australians. And the New South Wales government will go, as will every Labor government around this country.

Surely one fundamental responsibility of any government in this country is to ensure that it governs for all Australians, and this unholy alliance between the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens will come back to haunt this country. As I said yesterday, it was consummated on earth and it will be delivered from hell. If the Australian Labor Party and those opposite are not aware of what they have been stitched up to and signed up to then some of them have less intelligence than I have previously given them credit for. The fact that this tax went through without any backbench consultation is a clear indication of the guilt that the Prime Minister felt in relation to this broken promise. If you believe some of those opposite, they will tell you that even cabinet did not discuss this big new carbon tax—a remarkable outcome from a government in absolute free fall.

Someone rang me this morning and said we had been a bit unfair attacking the Prime Minister, because she is not misrepresenting the truth. She can’t be because she is not leading anything, she is not leading a government, so how can we quote her when she says that she is? She is leading nothing. She is leading this country and leading her party into oblivion with a grubby deal with the Australian Greens. The question everyone is now asking is: when was this deal done with the Australian Greens? Was it done during preference negotiations, which would have been before her commentary about there being no carbon tax under any government that she leads?. If that was indeed the situation, then the heinous crime of a broken promise is multiplied fivefold and the Prime Minister and Bob Brown, the Leader of the Greens, need to make it quite clear when this grubby preference deal was done. The Prime Minister stands utterly condemned. (Time expired)

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have heard commentary lately that the opposition are getting increasingly hysterical on all kinds of arguments, and I think we have just seen a fairly good example of that. I would like to address the terms of this discussion one by one. First of all, the coalition speak about broken promises. Let us discuss the coalition’s credibility on this. I would like to quote at some length from an article by Phillip Hudson in the Herald Sun about a very well-known case in the previous election campaign when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, appeared on the ABC’s 7.30 Report. The article says that Mr Abbott revealed in that interview with Kerry O’Brien that ‘in the heat of discussions’ he sometimes went further with a promise than he should. The article went on:

Quizzed about his broken promise not to increase taxes, Mr Abbott said sometimes ‘absolute weight’ could be placed on what is said and other times it was just the ‘give and take of standard conversation’.

‘I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark,’ he said.

‘The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.’

We have seen very little in the way of carefully prepared, scripted remarks from the opposition in the last week or two. What we have seen is hysterical over-reaction. If their leader is to be believed, nothing that he or the coalition say in this heated debate can be believed. The leader of the coalition broke promises, admitted during the election campaign, and those opposite have the gall to come into this MPI discussion and talk about broken promises. In the heat of the moment, coalition members, according to their leader, are able to make whatever wild exaggerations they like. I did not see any member of the coalition come out and decry those statements from their leader, and I presume they still apply. That is the sort of credibility the opposition have about broken promises—none whatsoever. The previous coalition government had no credibility whatsoever either. So let us forget all about broken promises and their interpretation of what Ms Julia Gillard, the leader of the government, has been saying about the carbon tax.

Let us talk about the claim of maladministration. Senator Ronaldson specifically referred to the Orgill report on Building the Education Revolution projects. What he failed to refer to, of course, was Mr Orgill’s conclusion:

The vast majority of the BER projects across the country in the government and non-government systems are being successfully and competently delivered, which has resulted in quality and, from our own observations, generally much-needed new school infrastructure, while achieving the primary goal of stimulating economic activity.

There was $16.2 billion in this package, and only three per cent of all the schools that benefited from this package had issues. In the building and construction sector, when the promise was to have early delivery of this stimulus, three per cent is a pretty good result. Such a minimal number having problems in a project of this scale in my view equates to success. I know many people have seen coalition members at ceremonies opening these BER projects—

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not me!

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

Not me!

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You say ‘Not me’, but I suggest you should go and see some of these projects; I suggest you should go and talk to some of the teachers—

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hurley, please ignore the interjections and address your remarks through the chair.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will try, Madam Acting Deputy President, but the provocation has been far too great. I will continue to make the point that it is a pity that coalition members do not go and talk to their schools more often and find out how very much needed these projects are, certainly in schools around my state. By and large the ones I have opened are small country seats that are enormously grateful—

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Small country seats?

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These small country schools are enormously grateful for this funding. Let us talk some more about maladministration and waste. Senator Ronaldson referred to an unholy alliance. Let us talk about the unholy coalition of the Liberal Party with the National Party. One of the biggest examples of maladministration and waste was the regional rorts program under the previous Liberal government. Nothing has been able to touch that since. That was a litany—far more than three per cent—of failed projects and projects that were not properly considered or constructed. All around the country, in all of these regional seats, we saw programs that went nowhere—an enormous waste of money that was quite properly decried. Let us talk about debt, the last point raised in the MPI.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No debt—$20 billion surplus.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘No debt, no debt’ says Senator Williams.

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

I didn’t say that.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was me.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I quote here from Lindsay Tanner from Wednesday, 16 September in the House of Representatives:

In the 2007-08 budget and pre-election period, the previous government committed to $117 billion in new policy over five years. This pro-cyclical spending put upward pressure on inflation and interest rates. At the height of the boom, with the economy growing at around four per cent annually, the previous government was projecting growth in government spending of 4.5 per cent in real terms in 2007-08. This level of spending meant that despite there being an underlying cash surplus in 2007-08 of 1.7 per cent of GDP, the budget was actually in structural deficit of around 1.2 per cent of GDP or roughly $12 billion.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can hear the cries from the opposition. They do not want to acknowledge this. They do not want to acknowledge that they put in place by their policies a structural deficit because they did not think about the future. They did not think about which way the country was going to go. That structural deficit was well and truly in place and at the same time we had rising inflation and projected rising expenditure. This was pro-cyclical spending. When the Labor government was hit by the GFC it got into countercyclical spending, a classic and much-applauded technique around the world. The fact is—and the opposition will not acknowledge this—this government is recognised around the world as having undertaken sensible, pro-active and successful policies to ensure that, when the rest of the world was going into recession, Australians were able to bypass that.

There was a cash surplus left by the Howard government, which was useful in that process. I think all government members acknowledge that. It was, however, funded by an extraordinary growth in tax receipts. Again I quote Lindsay Tanner:

Over the six years to 2007-08 growth in tax receipts averaged 8.1 per cent per annum.

These are the people who complain about big new taxes. He continued:

In the election budget of 2000-01 tax receipts grew by 12.6 per cent. Yet from 2003 to 2007 there were virtually no significant savings measures in the budget.

Yes, there were tax cuts under the Howard government but there were tax cuts under the Rudd and Gillard government as well. We delivered on those tax cuts. We delivered sensible tax cuts and we are now delivering expenditure on infrastructure and expenditure on productivity that will reverse the underlying structural deficit. That is the difference.

Senator Ronaldson talked about cost-of-living pressures and we have heard that from the coalition. We did not hear anything about cost-of-living pressures under the Howard government. I do not deny that there are cost-of-living pressures. I know that families are experiencing cost-of-living pressures, but they would be experiencing a lot more cost-of-living pressure if there were a lot more unemployment in this country. If the government had not put together the sensible, practical stimulus package, there would be a lot more unemployment in this country and that would cause continuing structural problems in our economy.

It is all very well for coalition members to live by some short-term formula, but Labor government members take great pride in the fact that their policies and their passion are for delivering a strong, stable, productive economy where ordinary people are able to benefit from the growth of this country, hence proposed measures like the mining tax, which is so trenchantly opposed by those opposite. They trenchantly oppose any revenue measures but do not propose any serious practical measures for reducing our outlay. To be lectured by members of the coalition is demonstrably inane and stupid because their record in government has been poor. They have stood back and opposed a serious, practical and extensive government program of economic management. We have seen no policy and no ideas, and even if we had we have seen in the past that the projections made by their leader, Tony Abbott, are subject to this broken promises out—we cannot place absolute weight on what he says at some times. This is the quality of the opposition that we are facing and I am certainly glad that I am on this side of the chamber.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where to begin? If only eight minutes were enough. It is not going to be, but I am sure my colleague Senator Back will follow it up. I will move onto what we have just heard soon. What we see from the Labor Party is an attempt at all costs to avoid a discussion of their own record. Let me just go over a few of Labor’s broken promises. There are many; I do not have time to cover them all. In February 2008 the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said, ‘The private heath insurance rebate policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.’ That did not last the year as the government walked back on that promise and sought to means test the private health insurance rebate. I would like to point out, Senator Hurley, that it was a promise in writing from the shadow minister for health to the Australian Health Insurance Association. But it was not a promise which the government kept.

In November 2007 at the Labor Party campaign launch—you cannot think of another time where there was probably more national attention on the then Leader of the Opposition—the then Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, said, ‘We have no plans to make any other changes to the way the baby bonus is structured either in terms of eligibility or payment methods.’ Yet again, that did not last the first budget. Six months later the then Prime Minister and the then Treasurer stood up and tried to confect an excuse to break that explicit promise again. They are just two of the meaningful promises.

Then we move to the ridiculous: the ridiculous promise for a citizens assembly, the national focus group on climate change organised by Mark Arbib and probably moderated by Karl Bitar. Most people thought they were going through an election at the time to actually elect what we call a citizens assembly, our national parliament; but no, that ridiculous promise by the then Prime Minister—

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

Madam Deputy President, on a point of order: the senator should be referring to other senators in this chamber by their correct title.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a correct point of order, Senator Ryan. Please do so.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The current Prime Minister promised a citizens assembly, a promise that was laughed at all around the country.

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

A harebrained idea.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An absolutely harebrained idea, Senator Williams. It was ridiculous. But here we have the killer. Here we have the excuse that cannot be run away from: ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ At least someone is going to come in here and admit that the Prime Minister is not leading this government, which some suspect and, I am sure from occasional grins down the other end of this chamber, some of us suspect on more than one ground.

This was a promise that had no qualification. There was no ‘unless’, there was no ‘if’, there was no ‘but’, there was no ‘maybe’ and there was no ‘except’. This was an explicit promise. You cannot run away from video footage. It is there on You Tube. It has been played tens of thousands of times as Australians know that this government is simply trying to obfuscate. This was an unqualified, explicit promise intended to deceive. And there are two reasons we know this—because the government is using many excuses now to try and run away from this. You heard the Prime Minister last week saying, ‘But we always spoke about a carbon price.’  If this is not a euphemism for a tax—which it has been used for in this context—it is being used either to justify a broken promise or as an admission that the promise in the first place was deceitful. When the Prime Minister says, ‘I might have said no tax but I said we would have a carbon price,’ that is an admission of the very deceit that you are being accused of right now.

Then we hear the argument about the new parliament, the parliament where one or two members of the House of Representatives, the place that forms government, campaign on the carbon tax but the leaders of both major parties actually outline how there would not be one. This is code for honesty being no price for power, that there is nothing the modern Labor Party would not sell in order to stay sitting on the right hand side of this chamber. But does it mean the Greens run the show? Is this an admission that to stay sitting to the right of the Speaker the Prime Minister had to actually give the Greens and Senator Brown what they asked for?

We do not have a European style democracy here where the people get to vote for a party list and then the decisions are taken by party leaders behind closed doors. We have a voting system in the House of Representatives that gives people the power to choose who represents them, yet we have a Prime Minister coming in and saying afterwards: ‘A very explicit promise I made days before an election, decided by fewer than 2,000 votes in a couple of seats, does not count. The election was close.’ In fact, that betrays the very purpose behind her speaking those words because Labor always has an excuse.

In 2008 we heard more about the inflation dragon. Who remembers the inflation dragon—the inflation genie, as the then Treasurer also called it? This was the excuse to justify broken promises on health insurance, on the baby bonus, because apparently inflation was the biggest problem. But by 2009, a year after everyone else in the world, they realised they had to find another excuse and here it became the GFC. The GFC was the excuse for everything, the excuse for broken promises again on private health insurance when it was put up again and the excuse to go nowhere near any remote attempt at achieving a balanced budget. Now we have the hung parliament as an excuse. I am not sure whether the Prime Minister wants us to blame the Greens or to blame her, but the truth we have now is that we simply have another excuse.

The elephant in the room is Labor’s honesty. In the vain hope that people forget what this Prime Minister said word for word, they are just following the Labor play book. We saw it with Bob Carr and no tolls in 1995. We saw it with Steve Bracks and no tolls in 2002. You hope that people are going to forget.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And no GST.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That went to an election. I will take that interjection, Senator McLucas. I dare you to take this to an election. You will not. You are hoping that the people forget. You will wear this like a ball and chain. You are scared, and that is why you are talking more about the opposition than your own agenda. You can tell when Labor is scared. You see it in New South Wales now. You saw it in Victoria with John Brumby last November. When Labor talks about the opposition rather than itself, you know it is running scared. The ghost of Julia past will haunt the present and the future of this government, and those words will ring in people’s ears until the next election day.

I briefly move on to the issue of debt and deficit, which was so blithely dismissed by a previous speaker from the government side. I grew up in the 1990s in Victoria in the aftermath of Cain and Kirner, the intellectual and spiritual forebears of the current New South Wales Labor government and the recession that we had to have, told to us by the then Treasurer, Paul Keating. But debt and deficits are nothing less than deferred taxation. The ultimate irony of the BER is that the kids in those very school facilities are going to pay higher taxes and have fewer opportunities in their working years to pay back the debt that funded those facilities. This government is guaranteeing higher taxes and fewer opportunities for future Australians. If anyone in this country could not think of a better way to spend $16 billion on our education system, then they are not trying. Ill-designed, shabbily built school halls that take over playgrounds are not education reform.

You can use the word ‘revolution’ all you want so it sounds fancy—that has nothing to do with education—and your defence is that it was stimulus. It is still being spent now. The Reserve Bank is putting up interest rates and you are still spending stimulus. It shows you how farcical this was and the defence is to say that only three per cent of projects had a problem. I remember when a few hundred million dollars was serious money and the only defence this government can come up with is that it had to shovel the money out the door so quickly you would expect a few hundred million to be wasted. This side of the chamber takes its responsibilities much more seriously.

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

Here we go again with the opposition—the confected anger, the argument that they were great economic managers. It is just beyond all plausibility. Senator Ronaldson does confected anger as well as anyone—maybe not as well as some on the other side but he doesn’t do a bad job of confected anger. Then we had Senator Ryan, whose heroes are displayed all over his office walls and windows: Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Back to the past, back to Maggie Thatcher, back to Ronald Reagan—that is Senator Ryan. It is Reaganism and Thatcherism. There is no role for government to protect workers, no role for government to protect the environment and no role for government to protect families. It is Thatcherism and Reaganism. It is no wonder Senator Ryan is on his way out of the chamber, because it is an absolutely abysmal approach, an old-fashioned approach and an approach that he should be ashamed of—Thatcherism and Reaganism. That is the so-called modern Liberal Party. There is all this confected anger, all this angst. All this pandering to the worst aspects of any society is a problem.

I have to say, I think the political debate in this country over the last couple of months has probably been at its lowest since I have been a citizen of this country, since I came here in 1973. What we have is an attempt to grab power, an attempt to grab government. The anger and the angst that the opposition are displaying are because they did not get a mandate from the Australian public. They were not seen as an alternative government by the public and they were incapable of negotiating with the Independents to form government. Labor formed government for some simple reasons. We were looking forward. We were looking at what is important in this country and we were determined to make sure that future generations in this country have modern jobs, a good economy and an environment that is sustainable. That is the difference between us and the Liberal coalition.

It is quite interesting that the member for New England, Tony Windsor, let the cat out of the bag last week when he said the Leader of the Opposition was prepared to do anything, to promise anything, to form government. But I think the Independents had the Leader of the Opposition pegged. They knew that the Leader of the Opposition, as he said on The 7.30 Report and as Senator Hurley said here, would actually say anything in the heat of negotiations, but unless it was written down you could not take it as the gospel truth. That is the Leader of the Opposition. Let me tell you why I think the coalition could never form government and convince the Independents: because not even the so-called eminent elders of the coalition accepted that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, could play a leadership role. It is clearly understood that he has no economic capacity.

The opposition are fond of quoting the former Treasurer Peter Costello. I think Peter Costello was a bit lazy. I do not think he had much courage. I don’t think he actually did the right thing by the Australian economy. After years of boom, he left us in a pretty precarious position to build for the future. We had money rolling in but he completely capitulated to the former Prime Minister John Howard and just spent it on political bribes. That was the wrecker, the Hon. Peter Costello. But Peter Costello did get it right. He got it wrong economically, but he got it right when he was describing the current Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. Let me quote what he said in The Costello Memoirs. I suppose you have all read The Costello Memoirs. This is what he said:

Never one to be held back by the financial consequences of decisions—

and he is talking about the current Leader of the Opposition—

he had grandiose plans for public expenditure. At one point when we were in Government, he asked for funding to pay for telephone and electricity wires to be put underground throughout the whole of his northern Sydney electorate to improve the amenity of the neighbourhoods. He also wanted the Commonwealth to take over the building of local roads and bridges in his electorate.

So much for the economic competence of the current Leader of the Opposition. Again in The Costello Memoirs the former Liberal coalition Treasurer said:

He used to tell me proudly that he had learned all of his economics at the feet of Bob Santamaria. I was horrified.

‘Horrified’, said Peter Costello—horrified about the current Leader of the Opposition’s economic underpinning.

Niki Savva, in her book So Greek: Confessions of a Conservative Leftie, said:

So, by December 2003 … Costello has pretty much had enough of all the talk about Abbott as frontrunner for the deputy’s position. Costello was hugely unimpressed by … Abbott’s dismissive comments about economic management.

Let me just stop there. This is the man who is arguing that he has got the economic capacity to lead an Australian government. But Peter Costello basically said that he was hugely unimpressed by Mr Abbott’s economic capacity. Niki Savva continues:

Costello handed it to me to file away for future reference, with a key paragraph underlined. In the article, Abbott was quoted as saying he would probably run for the deputy leadership; however, he scoffed at the notion of becoming Treasurer.

I think that any potential leader of the government of this country—any Prime Minister—who is so dismissive of economic management and so derided by his own party is not sustainable as a leader with any economic management credentials at all. Laurie Oakes has written:

Now we know. If Peter Costello had become prime minister, he would not have wanted Tony Abbott as his deputy.

Costello believed Abbott’s dismissive attitude to economic management made him unsuitable.

Do not come here lecturing the Labor Party about economic management when your so-called guru on economic management, Peter Costello, had absolute disdain for the current Leader of the Opposition. It is quite right that he should have had that absolute disdain because the Leader of the Opposition has no economic credentials. Tony Abbott is Leader of the Opposition now—why? Do you know why he is there? Because the extremists in the Liberal Party have taken over—the extremists who are opposed to climate change, who do not believe climate change is right and who put up policies that they describe as ‘Direct Action’. This is again an example of the complete failure of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, to understand economic issues. He talks about direct action, but it has been revealed today that ‘Direct Action’ will cost the Australian public $30 billion. That means there will be a black hole of $30 billion in your budget, and it will cost the average Australian family $720 a year to work under your policies.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whose policies?

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

Your policies, the coalition’s policies—$30 billion. These figures demonstrate that ‘Direct Action’ is so environmentally ineffective that it will deliver only 25 per cent of the carbon pollution abatement required for the coalition to meet the bipartisan target of five per cent. If you cannot meet it with your policies, you will have to go out and buy permits on the world market. If you buy permits on the world market—you will have to buy 75 per cent of your abatement in permits—it will cost $20 billion. That is the economic irresponsibility of the coalition. That is the economic irresponsibility of the Leader of the Opposition. That is the economic irresponsibility that will make sure you never form government. You have said in this debate that we are running scared. Let me tell you one thing: there is no running scared from having a proper policy debate on environmental issues and carbon pollution in this country—absolutely none.

Senator Fierravanti-Wells questioned my commitment to working people. She questioned my commitment to doing what is in the interests of the economy. I have challenged her and will lay the challenge down again. I am prepared to debate Senator Fierravanti-Wells in Wollongong, which is where she has her office, on jobs, climate change and financial responsibility because this is a debate that we can easily win. We will win that debate easily because we are the government who have actually dealt with the global financial crisis and we are the government that are seen around the world as having been the most effective in keeping our economy out of recession. How did we do that? We acted in a timely, targeted and temporary manner, and we looked after the funds of the Australian public. I go back to eminent economists like Joe Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economists, who say the priority during these situations is to make sure you keep your economy running—you do not destroy your communities and you do not destroy workers and their families’ futures. That is exactly what we did. If we had listened to the economic approach of the coalition, what would have happened? We would have sat back and waited to see what happened. That is what you were proposing. Using the same policies that resulted in the Great Depression—government having a hands-off approach, not acting in a timely, targeted and temporary manner and walking  away from the community—is the position the coalition would have us adopt. It is a coalition that is economically incompetent, it is a coalition that has no environmental credentials and it is a coalition that would put this country into $30 billion of debt through an environmental policy that is absolutely unsustainable. They want to keep the miners on side. We know the Western Australian senators are absolutely under the control of Twiggy Forrest and his ilk. We want to look after the public; not the big end of town. We will look after the nation; not the big end of town. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘The Gillard government’s continued pattern of broken promises, maladministration, waste and debt’—never was a truer statement made. But where did it all begin? Did it begin with the election in August last year? No, it did not. It started in November 2007 under the Rudd-Gillard government where, as the gang of four, they were joined by the Treasurer, Mr Swan, and Mr Tanner. Ms Gillard was at that time the Deputy Prime Minister and, as the then Prime Minister fell off the rails, where was his deputy? Where was the person who should have kept him focused? Where was the person who should have stood between that Prime Minister and the Australian people? She was missing in action.

At that time, the plot had started. She showed no loyalty to him. She showed no loyalty to the Australian people. At the time when the dogs were barking that challenge, the question was asked of her and she said, ‘There’s a better chance of me playing full-forward for the dogs than there is ever a chance of me leading the Labor Party.’ The Western Bulldogs could do something for her and for the nation now—

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who do you follow, Chris?

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Eagles are who I barrack for, Senator. The Western Bulldogs could put her at centre half-forward and put the rest of us out of our misery. As we know, Copenhagen came and that was the end, unfortunately, for Mr Rudd.

We move forward then to Ms Gillard as the Prime Minister. On 16 August she said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.’ On 20 August, the day before the election, poetically and historically she again said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.’ That was of course backed up by her deputy, the Treasurer. He said, ‘We reject the hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax. We have made our position very clear. We have ruled it out.’ That was a lie. Ms Gillard went to the people on a lie and her deputy did the same thing. If she wants to resurrect herself in the eyes of the Australian people—

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Back, it is not parliamentary to accuse other members of lying.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In which case I will withdraw it and move on to those days after the election when the now Prime Minister argued, bantered and bartered and got to be the Prime Minister. It would be best defined as power without glory. One should reflect for a few moments on the qualities of leadership—the creation of a vision, inspiring loyalty, focusing on what is good for the organisation but not the individual, open to change in changing circumstances, seeking a mandate for change, promoting honesty and integrity, seeking the truth, concern for what is right and not always being right, and focusing on leading people rather than preserving one’s own leadership position. I think what the Prime Minister will find when she reviews the elements of leadership is that what she has sewn she will reap. It is not necessary for me to go back and look at those characteristics of leadership except perhaps for one, and that is to reflect on the fact that when there is a need for change leaders foresee that. Leaders will recognise changing economic circumstances and, in the case of a company, they will go back to their board or shareholders if they believe there is a cause for change. After stating there would be no carbon tax, a leader of government in our country should go back to the people and seek a mandate to introduce that. We have certainly not seen that.

In the time available to me it will take too long to record the waste of this government: the $2 billion of pink batts; the billions wasted on the BER, a lost opportunity for education; two out of 31 GP superclinics built; one out of 2,650 trade training centres built—and the list goes on. As we have heard from Senator Ronaldson, there are even cutbacks now to the War Memorial in this city such that it may not be able to operate every day of the week. We can reflect on the debt of this government. Sitting and listening to Senator Cameron talking about the responsibility and the economic management of the Howard-Costello government when he overlooks conveniently the fact that that government inherited a $96 billion debt from the previous Labor government and paid it back by 2007, including $5 billion a year of interest, one is blown away. We all know that this government was left with a surplus of $22 billion, no net debt, historically high employment and the best economic circumstances this country had ever been in.

We talk about the need for stimulus spending. Let me contrast the wasted $1,400 in 2009 to keep Q2 out of recession and the $900 given out in March of 2010 to save us from recession in Q3. Certainly Senator Johnston and Senator Eggleston will relate to this analogy. In the 1890s when the colony of Western Australia was on its knees the then Premier John Forrest, in the face of tremendous economic straits, decided to put a water pipeline through to Kalgoorlie. In so doing he opened up not only Kalgoorlie and the mining areas of our state but the wheat belt as well. That is what an economic stimulus package is. That is what the Rudd government could have done. We can see the benefit to the state, the people of WA and the people of Australia. Imagine if John Forrest had wandered around Western Australia giving out £5 or £7—what benefit would there have been?

This government is absolutely bereft of policy. It is bereft of honesty. Time really does not permit me to reflect on what the impact of such a carbon tax would be. Why would you tax your manufacturers and your exporters to make it more economic and more competitive for the high-carbon competitors overseas to take away our business, our trade, our terms of trade and the benefits that 150 to 200 years have yielded for this country?

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

We are here today to debate the broken promises of Prime Minister Gillard from the last election campaign. Let us first of all look at what the Prime Minister made in the way of commitments to the Australian people and whether she is honouring her election promises. In an interview with Jon Faine in March 2009, she said:

If the reputation of this government is that we are stubborn in the delivery of our election promises, that we are stubborn in keeping our word to the Australian people, then I’ll take that. I’ll take it as a badge of honour.

She also said:

We’re always there delivering our election promises. That’s important to us. And we’re always there acting in the national interest.

That on 16 June 2009.

Let us now have a look at how well that grand commitment has been kept. First of all, what did Julia Gillard and Labor used to say about a carbon tax? They said on the eve of the election that there would never be a carbon tax. And what happened? Just recently—in fact, last Thursday afternoon—the promise made by Prime Minister Gillard on 20 August 2010, which was, ‘I rule out a carbon tax’, was broken when she announced that there would be a carbon tax.

What about the education revolution? There was the Building the Education Revolution. During the 2010 campaign, the Prime Minister promised that she would publish all costings as per the recommendations of the Orgill taskforce’s interim report. Has this been done? The answer is no. Nothing at all about the costings of the Building the Education Revolution program has seen the light of day publicly.

Putting aside the broken promises on the carbon tax and on the Building the Education Revolution, I would like to focus on the Prime Minister’s broken promises on health reform. In 2007, Kevin Rudd said that he would fix the hospitals by 2009 or take them over. We know that that did not happen. In fact, Mr Rudd said in 2010 that hospitals should be locally run and nationally funded. Now it emerges that they will be neither under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Gillard. Under Gillard’s deal with the states, the federal government will not be paying 50 per cent of the cost of all hospital services, which is what they promised and implied that they would do. The government’s promise only relates to growth, not to existing hospital costs. The Commonwealth will in fact offer to pay 45 per cent of the growth costs in the 2014 year and up to 50 per cent in 2017-18, a far cry indeed, you would agree, from the financial takeover promised by Labor in 2007. In fact, it will be 10 long years between the time that Kevin Rudd first announced that Labor was going to fix our public hospitals before this so-called 50 per cent funding will flow in 2017. That is 10 wasted years for patients, doctors and nurses around this country. Once again in this area of health, Labor has overpromised and failed to deliver.

The National Funding Authority that was lauded as the centrepiece of accountability and transparency under COAG agreement mark 1, was unceremoniously dumped within weeks of that last COAG health agreement, with the health minister arguing that it was not appropriate to have a second funding authority. The whole history of the Rudd-Gillard government has been a litany of broken promises and unreal expectations that have proved undeliverable. This government has an unblemished record, almost, of misleading the Australian people and not delivering on what they said that they would deliver.