Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by Senators Evans, Wong, Ludwig and Carr to questions asked by coalition senators.

Mr Deputy President, you may be surprised, but I actually enjoyed the agony of Mr Swan's budget on Tuesday night. What surprised me was his behaviour. He behaved far more like a conjurer or a magician than he did a Treasurer—far more Harry Houdini than John Maynard Keynes. The aim of Mr Swan's budget was to divert attention from the issues that really concern the Australian people. What are they? One is the cost of living. He tried to divert attention from that. The carbon tax—he tried to divert attention from that. The mining tax and border security—he tried to divert attention from those. Instead he pulled up a white rabbit, including digital set-top boxes for pensioners. He said, 'Hey, look at that; don't worry about the issues that really concern and confront this country.' We now know this budget was framed not in the national interest, not in the interests of the Australian people, but drafted in the political interests of the Australian Labor Party. A story in Tuesday's Australian quotes an anonymous Labor source as saying:

The Prime Minister told a caucus meeting that the budget would be tough but would also provide an opportunity for Labor to broaden public debate from carbon tax and border security.

What does 'broaden public debate' mean? It means to not talk about the issues that really concern the Australian people. It is Labor spin for talking about anything except the things that worry them politically but do worry the Australian people—things like the cost of living. Remember that, Mr Deputy President?

Why have we not heard in months anything about working families? In the lead-up to the 2007 federal election Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard could not say one sentence without talking about the cost-of-living pressures and working families. We all remember that in this place. They could not say one sentence in the lead-up to the 2007 election that was not about cost-of-living pressures. Remember that? Remember the government put up Fuelwatch to watch the price of petrol? What happened to that?

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

What about GroceryWatch?

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right, Senator Boyce. What about GroceryWatch? This was all about cost-of-living pressures for working families. Guess what? Working families do not matter any more to the government. The government cannot even utter the words, words that will not speak their name, because they are embarrassed that cost-of-living pressures have gone through the roof. One of the worst is electricity, and what will happen when the carbon tax hits? According to the government, it does not matter. It is a tax on pollution. But pollution does not pay tax. Companies will pay tax in the end and their prices will go up. And who will pay that? The consumer. Working Australians. Working families will pay that money. That is what will happen.

We have a comparative advantage in cheap energy in this country. It is one of the great advantages of this nation, and this lot are going to give up that comparative advantage unilaterally to the rest of the world. Can you imagine that? Imagine the pressures on every single thing that is created in this country using energy, which is nearly everything. Everything in this country will go up, and this lot are going to give it to the Australian people without extracting anything from the rest of the world. It is an absolute disgrace.

This lot are such great negotiators that it will say 'We will take five refugees if you take one.' These are the sorts of people who are supposed to negotiate our future and look after the future of this country. It is absolutely pathetic. And there is the diversion of the digital set-top box. After the shambles of the pink batts and the school halls, the granddaddy of them all will be the NBN. As they said in the Age today, it will be likely to cause fires. That is what this new digital set-top box will do. It is a farce. In the end, this is not a budget; it is a bandage to stop the Labor Party bleeding.

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

I always enjoy Senator Mason's contributions, whether they be here in the chamber or on the walker in the gym. I find Senator Mason very amusing and entertaining. It is a tragic debate to be having in this country—and, sadly, it has been since the last election—that visitors to our land, this great country, have to listen to this commentary from the opposition. You would think: why the hell would anyone want to live in Australia? Fortunately, we are still the lucky country.

This budget is about one very clear thing, which is very important to not only me but also to every Australian and to future generations of Australians: the budget will be back in the black. The Treasurer, Mr Swan, has said very clearly that this is about getting more Australians in jobs and it is about spreading the opportunity of the mining boom. As one who is lucky enough to come from a state that has had a mining boom and is heading towards another mining boom, and as there is an opportunity for Australians to be put into employment and to enjoy the benefits of the mining boom mark 2, I think it is a travesty that we find the opposition carrying on like they are.

Senator Mason made a wild assertion that Mr Swan did not want to talk about the mining tax. I was listening to the presentation of the budget and I was at the budget dinner after it and Mr Swan made it very clear that the mining tax will give the opportunity to provide some very important infrastructure projects. In Western Australia, probably one of the most important infrastructure projects is the WA Gateway project. Those of us that travel through Perth Airport or that area would understand what a wonderful concept it is.

I also take note of Senator Mason's comment about the cost of living and electricity. In that fantastic state, Western Australians do know the cost of rising power prices. They know darn well that the Liberal Premier, Mr Barnett, has put up the cost of electricity by 49 per cent. So we do get it. It is just a travesty to listen to the nonsense coming out of the other side. We have just gone through some of the most devastating natural disasters that we have had the misfortune of witnessing in this country, certainly in my lifetime. To see the devastation and the destruction and the very sad loss of life in Queensland; to see the flooding in Victoria; in Western Australia, to see our banana and fruit and vegetable growing area, Carnarvon, some 950 kilo­metres north of Perth, devastated by flooding; to see those poor devils in the Perth suburb of Roleystone—72 homes burnt to the ground. We are endeavouring to do everything we can to bring this budget back to the black, but not by kicking the living daylights out of those people who desperately need assistance. I find it very offensive.

We also had the global financial crisis. The Labor government was condemned from pillar to post that we dared move and move quickly to avoid that terrible reality of some 200,000 full-time Australian jobs going. Mr Deputy President, and to those listening, I am so proud to be part of a government that not only saved 200,000 Australian jobs but created another 700,000. To hear the arguments from that side of the chamber, it does you no good at all. It is very, very poor. Through you, Mr Deputy President, you are very good at silly one-liners. It hurts me to say it, but it is Pauline Hanson politics: 'Let's grab a line. What is the last reactionary line I heard as I walked into a meeting?' This is Mr Abbott. 'I will use that.' For goodness sake, what is Mr Abbott going to do? Mr Abbott does not come forth with his projections to build this nation, to make this great nation an even greater nation. There is none of that. It is negatives. I spend a lot of time talking to Western Australians who have had a gutful of the negativity. We should be talking up this great country. We should be talking about jobs and endeavouring to create brilliant futures for our kids that are coming through, whether it is benefits through the mining boom or industries that will hang off the mining boom. (Time expired)

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

I am particularly interested in taking note of the answers given by Senator Carr and Senator Ludwig. Perhaps I should not be gracing Senator Ludwig's response to Senator Fierravanti-Wells' question by calling it an answer, because I do not think it was an answer. He was asked to outline how the Labor government got to $2.2 billion of new spending in mental health. There is no way, when you look through their figures, that this is the case. The only new spending in there appears to be about $583 million—a long, long way short of the $1.92 billion over four years that a coalition government would deliver. The coalition government began the move into a vast improvement in mental health spending with the policies brought by the then health minister, Mr Tony Abbott.

Prime Minister Gillard said in July last year, less than 12 months ago:

I want to be absolutely clear - mental health will be a second-term priority for this government.

That was probably about the same time that she was promising us that there would never be a carbon tax under a government she led. So yet again we have a broken promise—not just a broken promise but a cruel trick of smoke and mirrors with figures aimed at the mental health community and the people who desperately need the funding that they would get under practical, real programs under a coalition government and its $1.92 billion policy.

I would now like to turn to Senator Carr's extraordinary response to questions asked about what he is doing to improve the productivity of this nation. In case he has not noticed, productivity is what really sits underneath any good-quality living that this country has. Yet we have a former CSIRO chief saying that their cuts to the Cooperative Research Centres Program has knocked the stuffing out of one of Australia's most successful and cost-effective research ven­tures. It is about the only program that we actually have that encourages collaboration between industry and academia. We do pretty poorly in that field anyway. It looks as though programs that are aimed at all manner of research, in particular, rural research programs, will simply have to disappear because this government is not interested in innovation and productivity.

It has also cut the funding to the Inter­national Science Linkages program. This is a small amount of money but in fact puts at risk our whole joint project with New Zealand—the $2.5 billion square kilometre array telescope. I must admit that I have no idea what it is, but it is a $2.5 billion project that is probably not going to come here because of the short-sightedness of this government and because we are not seen to be internationally collaborating in areas of research, innovation and productivity. Austr­alian workers are now producing less per hour than they have since 1995. When is this government going to wake up and actually do something about this?

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just amazed at Senator Boyce's criticism of what the federal government is doing in the mental health area. If I were Senator Boyce I would be congratulating the Labor government and Wayne Swan on his budget, but more particularly a very good friend of mine from South Australia: Minister Butler, , the member for Port Adelaide. He has done all of the things that your government did not do in 11 or 12 years in government. He has made a commitment to mental health and to resolving an area that was left untouched by the 11 or 12 years of Liberal government. That is not the only thing that we have done in the area of health, and I would like to go through some of the things that our government have done. Obviously we want to get the budget back into the black, but there are other priority issues that we are dealing with, and health is one of those. I know, Mr Deputy President, you will be interested to know some of the very many good things that the Labor government are doing in the area of health and hospital funding, and I would like to go through some of those. South Australia will benefit through the investment in the Health and Hospitals Fund. The first area is $3.3 million to establish five surgery public dental clinics on the grounds of the Wallaroo Hospital and Health Services. You will be interested in that, I know, Mr Deputy President, because of your close connection with the Yorke Peninsula. There will be $6 million to establish a new oral health centre at the Berri Hospital campus in the Riverland. The Riverland, as you know, has suffered very badly during the period of the drought; it has even had some more bad news in recent times with a lot of the bad weather destroy­ing wine crops up there, so this will be good news for it. There will be $26.7 million to redevelop the health services in Mount Gambier—again, the south-east of South Australia getting a benefit out of our Health and Hospital Fund.

Another area that will benefit from our budget decisions to improve the health of Australians is that there will be $39.2 million for the redevelopment of the Port Lincoln Hospital and Health Service. Another area is $2.3 million to construct four new two-bedroom staff houses and visitor centres in the Pitjantjatjara areas for their communities. There will be $3.5 million for purchase of land and construction of the new purpose-built ambulance station at Mount Gambier. I know that today there are a number of people from the ambulance services in Canberra, so they will be very pleased with that, as will the people of Mount Gambier. There will be $1.3 million to establish a new medical clinic on the grounds of the Naracoorte Hospital. So all of these things are things that we are doing in addition to what we are doing in the area of mental health.

As I said, the budget is all about bringing the economy back into surplus, and that is the objective of the budget. We obviously want to spread the opportunities of the mining boom. One of the things that have not got that much attention in recent weeks, of course, is the visit by the Minister for Defence, Minister Smith, and the Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister Fer­guson, up to Woomera, where of course the federal government is opening significant portions of land which were previously restricted because of defence requirements. I know Senator Feeney has been very supportive of the proposal to allow mining to go on in those areas.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers. What a joke, Senator Farrell. Despite the supposed aspirations of this government, forget about an embarrassment of riches; it is about to become an embarrassment of rags. Unlike the Howard-Costello government, which did the admirable progression from rags to riches in transitioning from past Labor governments to a very healthy Howard-Costello government, this government, the Gillard- Swan team, is intent on dragging this country from past coalition riches right back to Labor rags. Exhibit A: the $308 million set-top box scheme. Master Electricians Australia warns that this is shades of ghosts past, that installers are not being properly trained to install the set-top boxes and that it could result in the deaths of installers—shades of ghosts past. Remember the botched and bungled home insulation scheme. This government has not learnt a thing. The Australian people probably know that we should not bother crying over spilt milk, but they will come to rue the day that this government takes them from riches to rags, and they will indeed come to cry over Treasurer Swan's spilt water.

Question agreed to.