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

I would like to quickly respond to Senator McEwen’s comments about the Building the Education Revolution and say a bit about New South Wales, where 56 per cent of the complaints about the BER came from. I have said I will not go to one BER project opening unless it is a private school because private schools have managed the money far better than the public system has in New South Wales. I am reminded of the school at Manilla, just out of Tamworth, where they spent $1.8 million. Think about this: $300,000 will build a good four-bedroom brick home. So for $1.8 million you should get six good brick homes. What did they get for $1.8 million? They got two demountable classrooms that were brought in on a semitrailer. It gets worse. On election day last year I went to the little town of Kingstown where $300,000 was spent at the school on a building 10 metres by eight metres with virtually nothing in it. That money would have built a good four-bedroom brick-veneer home; it built a hall, 10 metres by eight metres.

This Saturday, 26 March, is election day in New South Wales, where there are four-year fixed terms. I can assure you that when you look at the current New South Wales government, you will think four years is a hell of a long time to wait for an election. I can see Senator McGauran laughing. Senator McGauran, four years in New South Wales is like 50 years when you have to wait for an election to get rid of a government that is incompetent and corrupt, that has former members of parliament in jail and has blown its budget. Let me give you some details. Nineteen high-profile premiers, ministers and members have gone in the past few years. Today we read of another developing scandal: a land deal of over $12 million involving Mr Robertson—supposedly the new up and coming leader for the Labor Party.

Since August 2005, New South Wales has had three premiers, six ministers for police, five ministers for health, five ministers for roads, four ministers for education and three ministers for transport—all in just over five years. New South Wales debt has risen from $15 billion in 2003 to a projected $55 billion in 2014. In 1995, Bob Carr promised to halve hospital waiting lists or resign. Since then they have closed 2,600 hospital beds and the number of people waiting for elective surgery has doubled. It has gone from bad to worse. I live in Inverell, two hours drive north of Tamworth. Our hospital is governed from Newcastle, 4½ hours drive away. When the new government gets in, we look forward to bringing the management of our hospitals back to local people—the local doctors, nurses, solicitors, accountants and volunteers, the sorts of people who ran our hospitals for 140 years and did a great job. But Bob Carr said: ‘They have to go. We’ll let the bureaucrats run them.’ The cost of living has increased in New South Wales. Electricity prices are soaring.

Just prior to shutting down the parliament, Treasurer Eric Roozendaal sold off the electricity in New South Wales for some $5.5 billion. Former Treasurer Michael Costa was going to sell it for around $30 billion. Of course, he pulled the plug and walked out, taking the bullet for then Premier Morris Iemma. Treasurer Roozendaal sold it off for $5.5 billion and Premier Kristina Keneally then shut parliament. Why? Because a legislative council committee was going to investigate the sale. Shut parliament and there is no committee and no investigation. Dirty tricks there.

New South Wales accounted for 22 per cent of Building the Education Revolution projects and was responsible for 56 per cent of the complaints. A national survey shows that 64 per cent of New South Wales voters hold the Keneally government responsible for the state’s transport problems. We can talk about health, transport, law and order, police numbers or roads that are deteriorating; they have failed every category of responsibility in delivering for the people of New South Wales. They have been such a bad government that 500 people a week have been leaving the state and moving to Queensland, moving interstate. Hence, we have lost two federal seats over the past four years from New South Wales that have been transferred to Queensland, where there are now two extra federal seats. That has happened because the government was driving the population out of the state.

Prime Minister Gillard hoisted the white flag asking voters not to give the coalition too big a blank cheque. Already the Prime Minister has said, ‘It is all over red rover.’ I even hear the bookies are already paying out on the result on Saturday. Bob Hawke pulled the pin on them a long time ago. Former Senator Graham Richardson conceded defeat in May last year. Premier Kristina Keneally is saying, ‘I showed 23 MPs the door.’ But she is now getting text messages saying, ‘We resign.’ I would love to read the text messages. There would be some bright language there saying, ‘We actually resigned. You did not show us the door.’

I was in the Cessnock electorate last week. I met two young family men who were irate with Labor. They were electricians who had voted Labor all their lives. They said, ‘Not this time and never again.’ Their roads are an absolute disgrace, and yet that area in the Hunter Valley has returned so much money to the government from exploration licences and royalties from all the coal they are sending out by the trainload—100 million tonnes of coal a year go down that train line to Newcastle for export, and they are going to double that to 200 million tonnes a year within five years. Won’t that cool the globe, Senator McGauran! Imagine that—200 million tonnes of coal; a doubling of exports. They must be going to use it for horse bedding or something, because if they burn it they will be heating the earth or raising the water levels and those sorts of things. So the Labor government of New South Wales says ‘Let’s double the export of coal; it won’t affect climate change’. That is a bit different from what many in this place say.

Three days before the government went into caretaker mode Mr Roozendaal, the New South Wales Treasurer, appointed the vice president of the New South Wales Labor Party, Michael Williamson, to the State Water Corporation. It is ‘jobs for the boys before we go’. The New South Wales government has been an absolute disgrace. There are 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly; let us hope that, come Saturday night, the seats Labor have left are numbered in single digits.

Before closing I want to refer to Barry O’Farrell and Andrew Stoner. Barry O’Farrell, opposition leader and soon to be Premier, is a great coalitionist. His wife was the daughter of a National Party member of parliament, so he says his children are actually coalition children. Barry O’Farrell has done a great job working closely with Andrew Stoner as a true coalition. You will notice that whenever Barry O’Farrell speaks he refers to the Liberal and National parties, and he talks about the development and repair of regional New South Wales. The roads are deplorable; they are disgraceful. As for the hospitals, 2,600 beds have been closed—yet Labor were the ones who were going to fix the health system. In actual fact former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was going to fix the hospital system by the middle of 2010, but that never eventuated either.

Saturday is going to be a very interesting day. The people of New South Wales are angry. They have seen the corruption, the waste of money, the building of debt and the neglect of the people. Labor have put themselves before the people of New South Wales. It is not as though the people are going to desert the Labor Party—the Labor Party has already deserted the people of New South Wales. This Saturday the people of New South Wales are simply going to get even.

It will be a hard job for Barry O’Farrell and Andrew Stoner when they are elected to government. There are a lot of problems and they cannot be fixed overnight. Serious infrastructure funding will be needed, many millions of dollars will be required for our hospital system and police numbers are down in many areas. The other day I met with police in Tamworth. They need five extra police now, just to carry out their duties. Law and order is something we grew up with but it seems to have evaporated over 16 years of Labor in New South Wales.

I look forward very much to the election on Saturday. I know the people on the other side of this chamber are ducking for cover. They have not been out campaigning. You cannot see any New South Wales senators and federal members of parliament—they are staying at arm’s length. They have run up a hollow log like a rabbit with a greyhound chasing it. They are getting out of the way; they do not want to be associated with New South Wales Labor so they are distancing themselves. They are from the same mould, they are from the same party, they are from the same union movements, but now Labor’s federal representatives are saying ‘Take them out, get rid of them and then we might be able to renew our reputation in this place’. That will not happen because they are the same party, the same people with the same policies. Saturday? Bring it on!