Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today Senators Bushby and Siewert each submitted letters in accordance with standing order 75 proposing a matter of public importance. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Bushby:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's failure to lead the country with integrity and failure to act in the national interest.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the past four years Australians have been subjected to bad government. Wherever you look, wherever you go, there is failure, incompetence and broken promises. The failures of this government are very much the personal failures of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The failures of this government are Ms Gillard's failures. They are failures of character, failures of integrity, failures of judgment and failures to act in the national interest.

Mr Deputy President, you would remember that just over a year ago Ms Gillard stood in front of the cameras and said that she had to take on Mr Rudd for the leadership of the Labor Party because the Labor government had lost its way. There were three problems that Ms Gillard said that she was going to fix. She was going to fix the mining tax fiasco, the carbon tax mess—the climate change action mess—and the border protection fiasco. But let us reflect on how these issues have developed under Ms Gillard's leadership. The first observation to make is that whenever Ms Gillard has to make a judgment—whenever Ms Gillard is presented with a challenge; whenever Ms Gillard has to deal with a particular issue—she focuses on her political self-interest and not the national interest. What she focuses on is how she can protect her own hold on power rather than what is in the public interest. That is how it was in the lead-up to the last election. In the lead-up to the last election, every single decision that was made by the Gillard government was focused on how they could squeeze past the Australian voting public, cling on to power and, despite all of their failures and all of their incompetence, get a second term.

It is no doubt the case that the many failures, examples of incompetence and broken promises under Labor in their first term in government are what led to, for the first time in 80 years, a first-term government losing its majority in the House of Representatives. The people of Australia passed a damning judgment on the bad performance of the Labor government over its first term. And Ms Gillard told us that the reason she had to take on the Labor leadership was that she agreed that Labor had been a bad government in its first term. She agreed with the judgment of the opposition; she agreed with the judgment of the majority of the Australian people who said that this had been a bad government. That is why she put up her hand to take over the leadership from then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

How did she deal with the three policy issues that she identified? First we had the mining tax, an absolute mess of, quite frankly, the Treasurer's making. Treasurer Swan is solely to blame for the mess. Mr Rudd was probably a bit naive to go along with some of Mr Swan's suggestions. If you think about it, Mr Swan sat on the Henry tax review for five months between December 2009 and May 2010 and then said to the Prime Minister, 'You should be announcing this resource super profits tax, because that is one of the recommendations. And let's release the report at the same time as we make the announcement of this massive new tax on the mining industry.' There was no consultation with anyone—no consultation with state and territory governments and no consultation with any of the industry stakeholders. He managed the process completely incompetently. And all hell broke lose, with consequences that all can see. All we got from Mr Rudd and Mr Swan was a lazy tax grab without going through a proper process.

What did Ms Gillard do? Did she decide to pursue genuine tax reform? Did she decide to act in the national interest? No, she did not. What Ms Gillard was to have an exclusive secret meeting with the three biggest taxpayers, BHP, Rio Tinto and Xstrata. Excluding all their competitors, she negotiated the design of a tax that is going to be imposed across the whole mining industry in relation to iron ore and coal. She designed the tax in a way such that it made harder for anyone to compete with the big three, helping to consolidate the market dominance of those big three. She negotiated that in secret exclusively with three taxpayers, excluding all of their competitors and state and territory governments from the process. Is that the way to design tax in Australia—to sit down with a couple of taxpayers and exclude everybody else? Is that acting in the public and national interest? No, it is not. That is a highly improper way of dealing with tax reform. And that is why this is a continuing problem.

This is solely the responsibility of Ms Gillard. She is the one who decided to send out all the public servants. The deal was negotiated without any officials from Treasury or from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The only people in the room were the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Minister for Resources and Energy, some of their personal staff, Marius Kloppers and the managing directors of Rio Tinto and Xstrata. In fact, the deal that they signed was typed up on the BHP computer. That is not acting with integrity; that is not acting in the national interest.

In relation to the carbon tax, we were promised that there would be no carbon tax under a government led by Julia Gillard. We have spoken about this a bit today. We were told that Ms Gillard would seek community consensus before pressing ahead and that she would have a citizens assembly before pressing ahead. None of that happened. And why has none of that happened? It was not because Ms Gillard personally changed her mind but because she was too weak to insist on the course of action that she knew was in the national interest. She lacked the integrity, the character, the judgment, the capacity, the authority and the political strength to act in the national interest.

To make up the trifecta, we have the Prime Minister chopping and changing in relation to border protection. First, Labor in August 2008 scrapped the highly successful Pacific solution, which was introduced by the Howard government. The Labor government scrapped a policy framework that had stopped the boats and that had helped secure our borders. Labor lectured us in this chamber that offshore processing did not work and that it was a failure. Then Prime Minister Gillard arrived in June-July last year and said, 'People who are concerned about the fact that our policies have created porous borders are entitled to be concerned about it and I'm going to fix it.'

What did she say in the lead-up to the election? She talked about a regional solution. She could not quite bring herself to confess that what she was arguing for was offshore processing. I well remember the speeches that Ms Gillard gave at the National Press Club and in other places in the lead-up to the election about creating a regional solution—which, of course, was nothing other than offshore processing by another name. She was going to have the East Timor solution, but she never mentioned it to anyone in East Timor before announcing it. How incompetent is that? Rather than acting in the national interest—rather than acting with judgment, integrity and character—we have a Prime Minister who lets Australia down time and time again. But of course the farce was not over. After clinging onto her failed East Timor solution for months, she finally realised and had to concede that it was not going to work. So what did she come up with? She said, 'Oh well, I now agree we have to have offshore processing'—she started naming it 'offshore processing'—and said, 'We're going to send asylum seekers to Malaysia.' Never mind that, for years on end, Ms Gillard had been lecturing all of us that you cannot possibly send asylum seekers offshore and, if you were going to send them offshore, you could not possibly send them to a country that has not signed up to the United Nations convention on refugees

So here we have Prime Minister Gillard, after all of the lecturing, after all of the sanctimonious tirades, after preaching to us and giving us sermons from the mount, telling us you cannot possibly send asylum seekers who want to come to Australia to other parts of the world, saying to us, 'Not only do I want to send them to other parts of the world—I want to do it in breach of the law; I want to do it thumbing my nose at the High Court, which tells me that I'm about to break the law. And, if that doesn't work, I'm going to say to the Australian parliament, "Let me do what I've always said would be an evil thing to do: send them to a country that hasn't signed the United Nations convention on refugees."' The evidence is in: this is an incompetent government. It is a government that is rotting from the top. It is a government that lacks integrity, that lacks character and that is led by a Prime Minister who lacks judgment.

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

Time does not allow me to go through all the national interest measures we have been able to deliver as a Labor federal government, but I will do as much as I can in the time permitted.

It was only in September last year that we secured a minority government. Since then there is no doubt we have been delivering on our policies. We have been delivering on tax cuts for working families at a time when they need tax cuts and benefits the most. In fact, on 1 January 2011, as a member of the community affairs committee, I was delighted to be part of a government that delivered on paid parental leave, a scheme where parents are able to stay home with their newborns or adopted children for 18 weeks at the minimum wage, while retaining their ties with the workplace and easing the financial pressure on our working families—a policy the opposition leader said he would never implement, until he realised that our government was in a box-seat position to do it. And what did he do with his policy? He was going to put the burden back onto employers; he was going to have major employers pay for his policy, a flaw in his policy that no doubt those major employers are still opposed to.

We began also to roll out the National Broadband Network, which will provide faster internet connections and allow those in rural areas to access high-speed internet through the state-of-the-art NBN connection—something the opposition has left our country behind on. The NBN will deliver affordable high-speed broadband to all Australians, no matter where they live. The NBN is also creating jobs, right here.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

It is already being used in Tasmania, in Senator Bilyk's electorate—

Senator Bushby interjecting—

and in Senator Bushby's electorate as well, and also in Armidale, in New South Wales. A new era of telecommunications is arriving—better services, more competitive prices for Australians and for Australian businesses. The NBN will change the way we live and work and ensure our economy keeps up with the rest of the world. It will give our children access to world-class educational resources. It will provide access to better health care. It will close the distance between our regions and cities and will give local businesses the opportunity to expand into markets anywhere in the world, instantly. And the Prime Minister and Minister Conroy have announced a $9 billion agreement with Telstra on the NBN to provide for the re-use of suitable Telstra infrastructure and for Telstra to progressively structurally separate by decommissioning its copper network and broadband HFC network capabilities during the NBN fibre rollout. This means less disruption to communities and less use of overhead cables. We have also succeeded in separating Telstra in their retail and wholesale communications business.

After injecting money into the economy, we stopped Australia from feeling the brunt of the global financial crisis, something that we shall never, ever forget, and nor will the public—the way we have delivered confidence in the market, something those opposite used to champion. We have stolen that mantle from you now.

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

Oh, Mark—you don't believe that!

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

The community accepts that we have protected them from this global financial crisis. And it does not matter where you go, whether it be a school opening in a hall—and I know, Senator Mason, you love the halls, the science centres and the libraries that we created through the Building the Education Revolution. But I have never seen you turn up with your smiling face and be part of those photographs which are taken at the openings.

Nevertheless, I have seen a lot of other members turn up: a lot of the new members mainly, sitting there posing for a great photograph and taking a great opportunity to recognise that this is a government delivering in an era where the global recession really bit the whole world—and we were protected from it, by giving that support to those communities. I am still doing those openings, and that will continue into next year. It does not surprise me how often I go along and hear the principal, the teachers or the P&C presidents say to me, 'Senator Furner, please go back and tell the Prime Minister and Senator Chris Evans of our gratitude for the assistance you have provided us.' You can understand why when you are standing in a brand new hall, worth approximately $3 million, or a newly refurbished library, or a science centre that has been provided—the greatest gift a government can provide children for the next generation, and that is education. Education is something that those opposite failed to deliver in the period when they were in government.

And no doubt, as a roll-on effect and a result of that injection of $16.2 billion into Building the Education Revolution, there was the creation of jobs—750,000 Australians gained employment as a result of what we delivered as a government during the global financial crisis. In fact, in the past year I have opened more than 100 schools in Queensland and officially opened Building the Education Revolution projects along the lines that I have already commented on in the halls, the science centres and the libraries. For some schools it was the first time they had a multipurpose hall. It was the very first time they were able to fit the whole school into one particular area. And for some it was the first time they had a library. No longer did they have to share a classroom with a room full of books. I have seen new kitchens, as well, created out of this project—the Stephanie Alexander Garden Kitchen Program, another fantastic government initiative. I have seen new music rooms and dance studios. For some schools this is the biggest thing to have happened to them in years—in fact, in the life of the schools.

Principals and P&C presidents come up to me and give praise. Here, for example, is what Judith Seery, principal of St Anthony's Primary School, Alexandra Hills, said:

We are indeed grateful to the federal government for their generous gift to St Anthony. It's an extraordinary privilege. Senator Mark Furner, please pass on to Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the federal government our sincere thanks as a result this funding has assisted local trades people, families and communities to participate in activities to support achievement to develop learning potential …

Principal Belinda Leavers of Loganlea State High School said:

On behalf of the staff and the students and all members of the Loganlea State High school community I would like to extend our very sincere thanks to the federal government for this wonderful facility with leading-edge technologies and modern multi-purpose learning spaces.

So, there you go.

The Gillard government was also involved in providing assistance to those who needed it the most when flood devastation hit my state, Queensland, and Victoria, and also when Cyclone Yasi hit North Queensland earlier this year. The devastation those disasters caused was overwhelming. In fact, just the other week I was out in the Lockyer Valley, on the road between Brisbane and Toowoomba, visiting residents who are still traumatised by the amount of water that came through their valley and devastated their homes. What did we do as a government? We acted decisively. We put in place legislation to levy taxpayers with above $55,000 earning capacity to assist Queenslanders and Victorians, as we do in times of need. However, those opposite opposed that strenuously and they still do. I wonder sometimes: when people are in need, why would you be opposed to providing assistance to them at the most vulnerable times in the their lives?

Not only have we delivered for working families but we are also delivering effective policy. The government has secured the passage of 130 bills through the House of Representatives; the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, has not provided a positive communication to this government since becoming the leader of his party. He is known for saying 'no' to everything, even good policy. I think Senator Cormann spoke about some policy and legislation we were proposing with border protection, and that is another example. Rather than working with the government to come up with a suitable proposal and legislation for dealing with this particular issue, it is quite easy to say 'no'—and the noes will continue.

He also opposed the GP Super Clinics Program, which has delivered quality health care in areas of need. In fact, the superclinic in my backyard of Strathpine there has gone from strength to strength. Since opening its doors the superclinic at Strathpine has had tens of thousands of consultations and has to employ doctors to keep up with the demand. All this on the back of this motion today claiming that we have not delivered for the national interest. I refute that, naturally, because we have delivered and we will continue delivering as a government. (Time expired)

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

After all the tumult and shouting, Australia will now be subject to a carbon tax. I even enjoyed making a quiet and considered contribution to that debate. Sure, as Senator Cormann said, the Prime Minister did lie. Yes, it was an act of prime political dishonesty visited upon ordinary Australians. And in the end ordinary Australians will end up paying for the lie.

We will learn soon enough that this tax is not in Australia's national interest. I do not believe that the Prime Minister's lie, her deceit and her dishonesty before the last election, was the greatest lie in this debate. I do not accept that. Going back for a second, you will recall that the coalition has always argued—we have been arguing it for two, three or four years—that a tax on carbon in Australia is justifiable, but only when there is a sufficiently comprehensive global agreement to support it. If there is, then it may be in our national interest. If there is not, it certainly is not in our interest. That was John Howard's view before the 2007 election. It should never have gone to Copenhagen; that was the wrong forum. It is the sort of issue that should have gone to the G20 and been sorted out there. It never was.

One of the great lies in this debate is that there is a sufficiently comprehensive global agreement. That is rubbish. That is not right. There still is not. Our major competitors, the ones that really count, are the energy rich, trade exposed economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. So often we heard Senator Wong, Mr Combet and the Prime Minister say, 'Oh, the Chinese are doing something.' Yes, they are doing something, but nothing that will stop their emissions from growing 500 per cent between 1990 and 2020. That is the second lie. And, as we know, the United States and Canada, as the latter's foreign minister has so recently made so very plain, have no intention at all of embarking upon a price on carbon.

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

Very few do.

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

Very few do. So our competitor nations, the energy rich, trade exposed nations are not moving on this. It is a lie.

But it gets worse, and this perhaps is the most sinister part of the entire debate. Under great heat Senator Wong, Mr Combet and the Prime Minister, even when the facts are forced down their throats and they finally concede, 'Well, perhaps our competitor countries are not moving sufficiently quickly and perhaps they should be doing more,' they still argue that, even in the absence of a sufficiently comprehensive global agreement, it is still in our national interest. That is the argument that Senator Wong has made over the last week and a half, that even in the absence of a sufficiently comprehensive global agreement, even in the absence of activity by our competitor nations, even if those energy rich, trade exposed nations do nothing, it is in our national interest. That is the great deceit, a deceit far greater in my view than the Prime Minister's lie before the last election. Often under great pressure Senator Wong over last week has said, 'Oh well, it doesn't really matter what other countries do.' Yes, it does, because if other nations do something we just go backwards. We lose our comparative advantage in energy export, we go backwards.

Labor argues fundamentally that it is in Australia's national interest to go first irrespective of what the rest of the world does even when we know it will have no impact on global emissions, which are still rising, and no impact on climate change. That is the debate in one paragraph—magic from the other side. That argument will kill the Labor Party over the medium term. In one paragraph that is the argument. If it was such a good idea to go first in the absence of a global agreement, if it was such a good idea to move straightaway before other trade exposed, energy rich nations, then why didn't the United States of America do something? Why not Canada? Why wouldn't China do more, why wouldn't Russia do more, why wouldn't India do more? Because they know to move first, to move unilaterally, is against their national interest. The bill is now through. The Governor-General will sign it into law. The fundamental bastardry is this—

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I would like to draw your attention to a comment earlier in Senator Mason's presentation. While you were discussing matters with other people, I believe he said something unparliamentary, and I ask that you review the Hansard and call him to withdraw if it is required.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, you have chosen to raise this late in the debate. In light of the fact that it is later, I am sure the Hansard will be reviewed and if any action needs to be taken it will be taken.

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

If it was such a good idea to move in the absence of other nations, to move unilaterally, why don't other nations move first? That simple, fundamental question was never answered by Senator Wong in a week and a half. I listened to her and I received no answer. What does this government know, what does Senator Wong know, what does the Prime Minister know, what does Mr Combet know that President Obama does not know, or the leadership of India, China, Brazil and Russia? What does she know that they do not know? Why does she want to move unilaterally? Those other nations know fundamentally that to move unilaterally rather than multilaterally is against the national interest. That is the great deceit, the great lie, in this debate. That is the one I object to fundamentally, far more than anything else. It is something that Senator Wong and the Labor Party, and indeed the Greens, have never answered in a week and a half of debate. Labor has sold out their own country just so they could form a government with the Greens, and I suppose now the bourgeois Left will feel a lot better about themselves. Isn't that just wonderful? And the possibility of this tax is founded upon a lie. But, as I say, that is not the worst part. It is the fundamental deceit about other countries that I find even more objectionable.

Our carbon tax in the end will have to rely upon carbon markets. As the Canadian foreign affairs minister pointed out the other day, there is not one properly functioning carbon market in the world. Before my friends on the other side say, 'What about the European Union?' which is of course the largest carbon market, that is a corrupt, limp and rife-with-abuse market. It is a hopeless and pathetic carbon market. It spends more time being investigated than it does in operation. What sort of precedent does that set for a carbon market internationally? None at all. Yet again this tax built upon a lie somehow is justified.

Finally, the Prime Minister says the coalition is out of step with the future. Let me make these predictions, and I do not mind putting them on the record. Firstly, carbon emissions will continue to rise for the foreseeable future in Australia and in those competitor countries, the resource rich, trade exposed countries. They will continue to rise. Secondly, this tax will have no impact on climate whatsoever—none, zip, zilch. Thirdly, Australia will be a poorer country because of this tax. If that is the better future that the Prime Minister talks so glowingly about, I do not want to be part of it, because that is the sort of future that just does not work.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the matter of public importance put forward by Senator Bushby. I presume it is just another little furphy that those on the other side have put up so that they can all keep going on and on and on about the carbon tax, about the clean energy bills. I have news for them: the vote happened, you lost—deal with it. Move on. What I do want to talk about are some of the things we have done with regard to acting in the national interest. Of course, those on that side may be a bit surprised because they are in denial about anything we do that is positive. They just do not acknowledge it. We have increased the age pension, and that is obviously of significant importance to a number of people, and we are looking at ways of improving aged care so that older Australians can have more choice and more control about their future. We have introduced paid parental leave—I will not go into all the issues in detail, because I would be here all day and I have limited time—and, once again, those on the other side did not want to support that.

We have also laid the foundations for the nation's first National Disability Insurance Scheme. I would declare that that is also in the national interest. We have put many, many dollars into health. We put money into more hospital beds, more doctors and more nurses. We put $2.2 billion into achieving mental health services, which is, once again, of national interest and national importance.

That is unlike those opposite. Mr Abbott, as health minister, took $1 billion out of the health portfolio. I do not know that doing that was necessarily working in the national interest. It is all about a contest. It is a contest between being stuck in the past under the coalition, listening to their stunts and letting them run their negative scare campaigns all the time or advancing Australia under a Labor government. I know which side of the fence I would rather be on.

There are a couple of other things we have done. As a senator from Tasmania—and Senator Carol Brown is here and I know that she will agree with this; unfortunately, I do not think Senator Bushby, who is also from Tasmania, will—there was the rollout of the NBN in Tasmania. Eventually it will be rolled out across the rest of Australia, which will improve access for all Australians and will move Australia forward.

Senator Bushby interjecting—

Senator Bushby, we know that it has been said that your side will roll back the NBN. I am just waiting for you to come out with a policy on that before the next federal election. As you know, that was one of the downfalls of the Liberal Party in Tasmania in the last federal election. The NBN is really important, not just for entertainment, which is what those on the other side often purport; it has very practical uses and benefits for the whole nation. One of the areas I am particularly interested in is e-learning, or remote learning. To rural and remote students that is of great significance. Students in the city will benefit from the rollout of the NBN as well. Another area where the NBN will be of benefit is with regard to smart homes. Then we have the tele-health area, or e-health, which will obviously be of enormous benefit to everybody, especially for consumers who are aged or housebound and also for the medical profession when they want to talk to each other or videoconference to consult about patient care. And there will be increased benefits with regard to e-commerce, which will allow Australian businesses to participate in the global market in real time. With even those few things, I suggest that we are certainly working in the national interest, which is contrary to what I believe those on the other side are doing. Their rank hypocrisy is amazing; it disgusts me a lot of the time. They are fairly disingenuous because they have a policy-free zone.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Senator Brandis always has to interject when he knows I might be making a point.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you're not making a point at all. You're making a fool of yourself.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is just like a little rude child. Senator Brandis, you must have had an awful childhood.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, order on my left! Cease interjecting. Senator Bilyk, please direct your comments to the chair and not across the chamber.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My apologies, Mr Deputy President. I would suggest that maybe Senator Brandis had a not-so-pleasant childhood. As somebody who worked in early childhood education for 12 years, let me tell you that I have seen bullies, people who have to interrupt, people who are attention seekers, and all the rest. Senator Brandis, you top the bill. You are like a two-year-old a lot of the time.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk, to the chair; not across the chamber.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would allege that Senator Brandis acts like a spoilt little two-year-old a lot of the time, constantly seeking attention and not really being interested in what anybody else has to say—his way is the only way. I think it is fairly childish. It is a bit like a whiny little child, trying to get attention from their parents so that they can win one on their siblings. It would be laughable if it were not so sad.

I would also suggest that the opposition know nothing about the national interest. They know nothing about integrity. We hear Mr Abbott saying, 'You can't believe anything unless it's written down.' I laugh at that one; I still remember that one. How can we take seriously questions about integrity from an opposition that fabricate myths? I will not say 'lies', because I do not think that is a very nice word, but they do fabricate great myths about the government's policies, the government's achievements and the economy and science—and they dare to talk to us about integrity! You want to know about national interest? I will tell you about the national interest. The global financial crisis was the greatest economic shock to hit our economy in three-quarters of a century. While the banks collapsed around the world and unemployment rates in wealthy advanced nations hit double digits, Australia survived relatively unscathed. The Labor government bullet-proofed the Australian economy and kept it out of recession during the worst economic downturn in three-quarters of a century. The most affluent nations across the world are all suffering under levels of debt that are many, many times greater per capita than in Australia. The debt of the United States of America is currently over $14 trillion—that is, around $50,000 for every American man, woman and child. Similarly in the United Kingdom, where I note Mr Abbott is currently visiting his pal Prime Minister David Cameron, public debt is around one trillion pounds. Public debt in Australia is a tiny fraction of that amount. Thanks to this government, our economy's fundamentals have remained strong with outstanding employment growth, a record investment pipeline and a budget position that is the envy of our peers. We have created 750,000 jobs since we were first elected and 120,400 more Australians are employed today than 12 months ago. I think that is in the national interest.

I was reading a quote the other day from the world-leading economist, Joseph Stiglitz. When he was asked about debt in Australia, he replied:

For an American it's totally befuddling. The fact is, your deficit, your debt is very low.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

He continued with this, Senator Brandis:

For me, what I find so ironical, is you have the same people saying we need to worry about the deficit and saying but by the way we shouldn't get the full value of our resources for our future children. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Who are those people he was referring to? It is those people opposite. They do not make any sense. They say that putting a price on carbon is not in the national interest, but we have to remember that the Prime Minister of the UK disagrees, and I hope that Mr Abbott listens to him while he is over there. Prime Minister Cameron has come out overwhelmingly in pricing carbon. He said recently:

We have put a carbon floor price in through our budget and I think other countries are looking at this. If you want to get control of global emissions, if you want to deal with this issue, then the market is an effective way of doing that. It's often not enough on its own.

(Time expired)

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

I also rise to speak on the matter of public importance that I submitted:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s failure to lead the country with integrity and failure to act in the national interest.

I have listened with great interest to the two government senators who have been speaking this afternoon, trying to defend what I think can only be called the indefensible. Both government senators have vainly attempted to defend what can only be described as an appalling record of four wasted years in government. They struggled to find anything concrete in their defence.

Senator Furner started off by talking about the tax cuts that they delivered early on in their four-year term. Those tax cuts were actually our tax cuts that they copied during the 2007 election.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

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

It is true; it is absolutely true. They were identical to ours except you sliced a little bit off the top. Then Senator Furner went on to talk about paid parental leave. The paid parental leave that the government has delivered is nowhere near as good a deal for the people who receive it as what we have promised. Senator Furner raised the NBN. Our plan, which we went to the 2007 election with, would have been up and running for 90 per cent of Australians two to three years ago. That is right, two to three years ago 90 per cent of Australia would have been covered and would be receiving the benefits of superfast broadband. Yet, here we are with the government's proposal and the NBN has taken three years to roll out to a couple of regional areas, including in my home state of Tasmania, and hardly 100 people have subscribed to it right across the country.

Of course, it is important to remember as well that, when they went to the 2007 election talking about the National Broadband Network, it was going to cost $4 billion. That is a lot of money. Not long after they got into government they realised that they had made a huge error and could not do what they had promised for $4 billion. So, they increased the amount of money they were going to need for the NBN to over 10 times that $4 billion to $45 billion. By the time it is actually rolled out across the nation, if it ever gets there, it will have cost a lot more than $45 billion.

It is taking them years to do the rollout and so far, as I mentioned, they have only rolled out a little bit in Tasmania, a little bit in Northern New South Wales and they are talking about rolling out a little bit more around the country. It will be years and years if not decades before they get the NBN out to the coverage they say. In the meantime, what happens to technology advances? The reality is that, even in the last three years since their cost went from $4 billion to $45 billion, the technology relating to wireless delivery of superfast broadband has advanced dramatically so that the speeds now available to use in wireless are catching up to the speeds that Senator Conroy was promising would be delivered with the NBN. In another couple of years they will be overtaking that and the NBN will be redundant before it is even in the ground.

Senator Furner also raised the stimulus package. Australia's performance with respect to the stimulus package had a lot more to do, as Senator Brandis interjected earlier, with Peter Costello and John Howard, combined with the stimulus package in China, than it did to any decisions that were made by the then Rudd government to spend Australia's taxpayers' money on the stimulus package that they put forward. You only have to look at the European Union and the state of finances in Greece and Italy to know that it is not a good idea to take your country into debt in a way that will jeopardise the ability of your country to have flexibility to deal with future shocks.

It is interesting to note that, in relation to the percentage deficits that were delivered by this government over the last two years, had they been delivered by Greece or Italy or any other country that was a member of the European Union, they would have been outside the rules of what was allowable in those countries. Here you have us racking up debt in Australia at a faster rate than what is permitted in the European Union if you are a member of the Euro community. So look at the problems that Greece is facing and the problems we heard about overnight that Italy is increasingly facing; yet, in the last two years, we are racking up debt at a faster rate than would be allowable if we were Greece or Italy in the Euro community.

Building the Education Revolution was raised. Senator Furner talked about the principals and the school communities who are so welcoming of the new buildings. That is not really surprising, is it? If you were offered a new building, which you did not have to pay for because somebody else was going to pay for it, you are not likely to say that it is not a great thing. All schools need new buildings. In fact, there are worthy causes right across the country. Aged-care homes need new facilities to house the increasing number of people who need the services of aged-care providers. There are worthy causes all over the place, but we cannot afford to go out and spend money on all of them. How do we pay for all of it?

The fact is that the $16 billion spent on what have become colloquially known as the 'Julia Gillard memorial halls' was not affordable or necessary. As welcome as it is and as great as it is, it was not the right thing to do at the time, because Australian taxpayers will be paying for that for decades to come. The infrastructure needs of schools will change and they will need further upgrades, but there will be no money for that because it was all spent two years ago. There will be nothing to spend in the future. And that is ignoring the fact that a lot of the buildings, particularly in New South Wales but also elsewhere, were built to a formula and were not what the school communities really needed. In some cases, they knocked down buildings that were perfectly serviceable just to build new ones, and in other places schools were in desperate need of new buildings. For example, a remote school in Western Australia could not get teachers because it did not have suitable accommodation. They desperately needed some new buildings to accommodate young teachers, but they were told they could not have that because the money that was being provided was not flexible and new accommodation facilities could not be provided. They were told they had to have a new sunshade, despite the fact that they got a new one five years earlier. Ignoring all of that, the fact is that the government overspent. It was money that we could not afford to spend and it really did not deliver the benefits that they said it would.

Senator Furner also raised the issue of the jobs that were saved. If you look at the Treasury modelling which showed how many jobs would be saved as a result of the stimulus package and then you divide that by the cost of those jobs in the stimulus package, it works out at about $350,000 per job. Once again, I really do not think that that is particularly good value. Even if you accept that the jobs that Treasury said would be saved were saved directly by the stimulus—and, of course, we do not—it is still a huge amount per job to actually save those jobs.

Senator Furner also raised the government's response to the floods and was critical of us on that point, and queried why anyone would oppose the rebuilding of Queensland after the floods. We did not oppose the rebuilding. We did not oppose the need for government to come in and help. We opposed the flood levy. The flood levy would not have been required had the government not wasted so much money in the preceding years and taken the government from a position of delivering solid surpluses of $20 billion plus a year to a position of delivering deficits year after year—which would have been in breach of the European Union's guidelines for a member of the euro community.

As for border protection, I could talk all afternoon about the government's approach to that issue. Out of pride and for no other reason whatsoever, Labor came in and fiddled with the formula that was clearly working, that had stopped the boats. The number of boats that arrived after the Howard government's policies on border protection were put into effect slowed to a trickle. Merely a handful of boats arrived in the years prior to this government making the changes it did. In 2008, it went ahead for inexplicable reasons other than pride and made the changes, did away with temporary protection visas and closed Nauru—changes which basically sent the people smugglers the message, 'We're back in business.' Since then the boats have just not stopped coming. The message got through loud and clear, and the government has been flailing around trying to find an answer ever since to deal with the problem. The big problem it now has is that it is too proud to actually consider the solutions that will work: temporary protection visas, reopening Nauru or similar facilities in nations that have appropriate United Nations protections and turning the boats around when it is safe and appropriate to do so.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon we debate a matter of public importance claiming that the government of this country does not act in the national interest and the Prime Minister leads without integrity. These claims are as extreme as they are false. Of course, we know that the current federal opposition is the most negative in our history. This is the most negative federal opposition we have seen since Federation 110 years ago. In fact, the current federal opposition has no peer in Australian political history for gilding the lily. It has no peer for hyperbole and histrionics. Its words, I think, are cheap. Its senatorial snake-oil salesmen are cheapened by proposing a matter of public importance like this, using such intemperate and exaggerated language. I am reminded of the words of the eminent American reformer and author John William Gardner, who, in his famous book No Easy Victories, said:

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

He wrote those words in 1968 but, equally, they could have been said about the Liberal Party of Australia of 2011, when it proposes a matter of public importance like this for debate in the Senate today. In my view, the government has shown integrity and the ability to act in the national interest, and it has done so when circumstances are difficult and at a time when driving reform has been unpopular. Australia is confronted with a number of challenges: the challenge of dealing with climate change, the challenge of an ageing population and a decreasing tax base, the challenge of modernising our communications infrastructure so that we remain globally competitive. Meeting these and other challenges does require a government to act in the national interest. Acting in the national interest is not just about telling people what they want to hear to belittle debate around important issues with platitudes and abuse; it is to speak and act while conscious that the need to ensure a vibrant, strong and competitive future for our nation will at times necessitate the courage to undertake reform—and at times that reform can be unpopular—and to make decisions that at times are controversial.

For the first time in our history, Australia will have a carbon price. This has been a long and at times bitter process but it is one that is integral to our national interest. The planet is warming and we must take action. The legislation that we passed today in the Senate ensures that our nation's economic and environmental interests remain secure. On the driest continent on earth, one that is renowned already for its droughts and flooding rains, this legislation points the way to addressing the impacts of climate change. It is integral to our national interest. It also carries on the tradition of Australia being a responsible global citizen.

The national interest requires that the Australian government act to deliver affordable, high-speed broadband to all Australians and Australian businesses no matter where they live and to do it through the National Broadband Network. The NBN will mean better education, better health care and better access for Australian businesses to the biggest marketplace in human history.

The government has also shown it is willing to stand up to vested interests in the national interest. The minerals resource rent tax will mean all Australians benefit from the resources extracted from our soil. It will enable the government to raise the compulsory superannuation contribution from nine per cent to 12 per cent by 2020, and this is critical for the nation's future as our population ages and as the proportion of retirees compared to those of working age also increases. This reform will ensure that our nation's welfare burden remains manageable. It is prudent and it is a forward-thinking measure. It is in the national interest.

Also, in a period of continued global economic instability, Australia's economy remains strong and stable. The government has avoided the worst of the GFC and continues to chart a safe course during a time of relative instability. Nearly 750,000 jobs have been created since Labor came to office in 2007, and 120,400 more Australians are employed today than were 12 months ago.

Isn't it time for some support and acknowledgement for the efforts of the government by the opposition? Isn't it time for the opposition to break from its relentless negativity? You would never guess, Madam Acting Deputy President, that a few days ago the United Nations Human Development Index was made public and that we rank second to Norway in the world, out of 187 countries. Our citizens are amongst the most satisfied on earth. Our life expectancy is 82 years, just second in the world to Japan's. Australians scored first place in the world for non-income human development. Maybe, just maybe, the Liberals complain too much. Maybe, just maybe, Mr Abbott and his team could say something positive about Australia just for once. Maybe, just maybe, that would be in the national interest.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faulkner. The time for this discussion has expired.