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 the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Brandis and Birmingham today relating to the carbon tax.

Surprise, surprise, shock horror! In trying to sell their great, big, new carbon tax to an unsuspecting and unwilling public, the government has failed to comply with its own financial management regulations. Do you believe that, Mr Deputy President? Well, they have. I understand that in one particular case tenders were open for 1½ hours. It does not sound to me like the Prime Minister's much lauded, 'Let the sun shine in,' and, 'Accountability is the foremost goal of this government,' assurances have been met. Not a very good start, I would say.

The Auditor-General also found that the campaign has not been very effective. There would not be anyone in our nation who is surprised to hear that. It is like trying to sell a dog's breakfast, yet it is a dog's breakfast that the Prime Minister said would never be served up to the Australian public, and it has not been successful.

Apparently, as the newspapers tell us, the campaign thus far has cost about $20 million and there is about another $10 million to spend. As you know, Mr Deputy President, I like to be helpful. I suspect it might assist the government not to spend the final $10 million and instead to put it into trying to pay off the budget deficit. That is what I would be doing with the extra $10 million. Of course, none of this money—the $20 million or the $10 million following—comes any­where near the cost to this country of the most expensive carbon tax in the world. The government's carbon tax will raise $7.7 billion in the first year, and that is at $23 per tonne of carbon. But, by 2014-15, it will cost $9.2 billion a year.

What do Labor love? Labour love three things: they love taxing, they love debt and they love the churn. You have heard me on debt before, Mr Deputy President. There has not been one federal Labor government since 1901 that has left government with more money in the kitty than there was when they came in. Since 1901, they have always put Australia further into debt. So Labor love taxing, they love debt and they love the churn. These are the three steps to social democracy. But social democracy has failed in western Europe, and it will fail in Australia.

Many mischievous arguments have been put in favour of the carbon tax. Perhaps the most mischievous—and the most pathetic—argument, which has been put by too many people in the Labor Party, including the minister and the Prime Minister, is this: irre­spective of whether other countries introduce a price on carbon, it is in Australia's interest to have one. I say that again—this lot says that, irrespective of whether any other count­ry on earth has a carbon tax, it is in our interest to have one. Who in this country except this lot believes that absolute rubbish? They believe that, even if no other country on earth prices carbon, it is in our interest to pay more money for energy and for our cost of living to go up. If it were such a sterling idea, don't you think that some other nation would have come up with this brilliant brainwave? They would all be running to do it before us. The United States, Canada, Brazil, Russia, India and China would all be running to do it before us; yet not one of them has done so. That is because they know that moving first in the world on carbon is a mistake. It is a mistake because it is against their national interest, just as it is against our national interest.

The greatest disgrace of this government is this: they want to be heroes overseas—to look good at the UN and elsewhere—and they are quite prepared to sell out Australia's national interest to do so. That makes me sick.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Now that Senator Mason has taken his seat and stopped shouting through this chamber, as he has for the last five minutes, we can perhaps put some sense back into the debate and respond to some of the misleading statements he has just made, which are right in line with and follow on from the thinking of his leader, Mr Abbott, who has also been found to have misled the Australian people.

The ANAO report which has now been released has stated clearly that the govern­ment's advertisements were not misleading at all. Yet Mr Abbott has made a range of claims that they were inaccurate, and his allegations have now been found to be untrue. No wonder Senator Mason has to shout his way for five minutes through another diatribe of misleading information in this chamber—he is following his leader. Senator Mason loves misleading and lying to the Australian people on climate change, because we know that he does not believe in climate change. Senator Mason and his leader, Tony Abbott, are in denial of the fact that we need to act on climate change, which is exactly what the advertisements were all about.

Even though the ANAO report has identified that there were some concerns with the processes, we should not confuse this identification with a finding that the ads were inaccurate; as I said, the ANAO report found no such thing. The ads were not misleading, and I am startled by the hypocrisy of the opposition's talk about misleading people through government advertisements. We know full well that when they were in government the ads they aired to the Australian people were misleading—in fact, they were a complete hoax. They told Australian working people that having their wages and conditions reduced by Work Choices was going to make them better off. That is what you call misleading, not the government's ads, which have now been cleared and found certainly not to be misleading or inaccurate by the ANAO report. Yet Tony Abbott has continually claimed that they were. The Work Choices ads of the former Howard government were misleading to working Australian families. They suggested that the wages and condi­tions of working Australian families were under threat and proposed Work Choices as a solution. How dare the opposition come into this place and say that our ads were misleading when they clearly were not. They are the misleading opposition, and their leader, Mr Abbott, should apologise to the public servants involved for saying that the government's ads were inaccurate when they were not.

Clearly the opposition have lost the plot and completely given up, as Mr Mason showed us during his five minutes of shouting and screaming. They are the ones who are misleading the Australian people. They have lost the plot and given up. They have given up and we have only to look at the economic management side of their responsibilities to see exactly how they have given up. When it comes to economic management they have no real policies; no real costings—and now they have walked away from the surplus that they once said they would try to deliver; no real savings; no real bottom budget line—in fact they have a budget black hole of $70 billion; and no real leadership. What we have seen from Senator Mason in his response today to taking note of answers is another example of how he is continuing Mr Abbott's misleading claims which have now been proven to be unfounded by the ANAO report, which found that the factual statements in the government's clean energy future advertising campaign of last year were supported by evidence that shows the opposition have been dishonest and discredits Abbott's scare campaign on carbon pricing. (Time expired)

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given by Senator Wong to questions asked by Senators Brandis and Birmingham. The clean energy future package is a grubby and expensive exercise of Labor spin. It is the carbon tax that is going to make things worse for Australian workers, but the government is so bound by its agreement with the Greens and Independents to retain power that it had to pull off the carbon tax at any cost. The shouting that Senator Singh referred to as coming from Senator Mason could be more accurately described as outrage on behalf of the Australian people, Australian workers and taxpayers as a result of this government's economic management.

Workers will pay with their jobs, especially workers in the regional areas. To add insult to injury, those same workers have paid through their taxes the $20 million it has taken to fund the advertising campaign mentioned in the report we have been speaking about. It is a double whack, from the front and the back. They were dudded by a government that cannot use the resources of the media to get its message out. Its good news on carbon tax ended up being no news for the Australian media. A case of no news is good news, maybe. So aware of its own incompetence of getting the good news out, it designed a $12 million advertising cam­paign, which was increased by another $8 million. That is $20 million. Senator Cash mentioned a lot of projects and programs that that $20 million could have been better spent on. Is it a reflection on the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mr Combet, that he is unable to sell the government's message, which he could not get across to the media at no cost to the Australian taxpayer apart from his time, to tell us the benefits of the carbon tax? Minister Combet issued numerous media releases in July extolling the details of the price on carbon, but that obviously was not considered enough. In fact, ministers were out and about all around the countryside spruiking. Any media conference that Minister Combet calls is usually very well attended, so it is not as if he was talking to walls. Why did the media not cotton onto the great news of the carbon tax and sell it to the Australian people?

The Gillard government, which normally prides itself on its ability to spin a good story, used the excuse it had limited time to convince the Australian people of the benefits of the carbon tax—limited time on a policy initiative that was in committee for months to decide on. It ran a tender process for a $2.7 million contract for 36 hours and then wanted quotes updated in just 90 minutes. We wonder whether Minister Combet consulted with the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, on the tender process. Glossy brochures and ads do not make good policy and there was a fraction too much fiction for the Auditor-General, Ian McPhee, who raised concerns in his report about key claims of the campaign that he was not able to find. I quote:

... a clear line of sight between 52 statements presented as fact in the campaign and the sources cited in the matrix to support those statements.

One instance may be considered careless, two reckless, but 52 indicates an endemic level of incompetence that washes through everything this government touches. Senator Wong decided to bring WorkChoices into her answer, but there are so many instances of where this toxic tax will cause distress to Australian workers, including regional workers. In fact, it will be the regions that are affected the most.

Today in my home state of Victoria there are reports that Alcoa is to review the future of its Port Henry aluminium smelter at Geelong. The Prime Minister may think it is disgusting for Mr Abbott to scaremonger about jobs, but it was the Managing Director of Alcoa, Alan Cransberg, who confirmed that the carbon tax would increase pressure on his company. He is quoted on page 1 of the Australian as saying:

Post July 1 we have obviously got another challenge to overcome and we're very keen on doing that.

The government may say the high dollar and low metal prices are affecting the company's decision processes, but as Victoria's largest consumer of electricity the Alcoa smelter is obviously going to be under increasing pressure come 1 July and is going to be looking at 600 jobs—that is, 600 regional Australians who will be affected by this government.

The first point of a good financial manager is that you have to comply with financial regulations and the ANAO report found seven breaches of the government's own Financial Management Act. The second point is that you ensure you get bang for your buck. Being strategic and prudent about the spend, using accurate data, is something this government needs to start doing. (Time expired)

Matt Thistlethwaite (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When Labor came to office in 2007 we promised the Australian people that we would restore confidence to government advertising in this country. We pledged that government campaigns would be properly and independently reviewed, properly targeted, nonpolitical with the intention of informing the community about government policies and programs. We have delivered on that commitment. The proof is in the administration of government adverti­sing arrangements audit process. It proves that we have delivered on this commitment. But the question must be asked: why did Labor have to pledge this to the Australian people in the lead-up to the 2007 election? Why was this reform of government advertising and oversight required here in Australia? The answer is quite simple: because the Australian public had lost confidence in government advertising during the years of the Howard government. For proof of that we need look no further than the government advertising associated with the goods and services tax campaign and, particularly, the Howard government's shonky advertising associated with Work Choices, a $55 million waste of taxpayers' money. It was blatantly party political advertising used to soften up the public regarding the harshest elements of the total realisation of Work Choices.

Not only was this advertising associated with Work Choices blatantly party political; it was also wrong. Some of the information contained in those ads was completely wrong. There is no greater example of that than the fact that the ads associated with Australian workplace agreements claimed that workers could move onto Australian workplace agreements where they received 'fair' compensation from their employer. Having dealt with a number of Australian workplace agreements I can tell you, Mr Deputy President, that the compensation was not fair at all. In fact, in many respects there was no compensation for forcing young workers in particular onto agreements that stripped away weekend penalty rates, shift allowances and other important leave entitlements. But those ads also claimed that if people had questions about moving onto Australian workplace agreements they could seek advice from an organisation called the 'workplace authority'. Everyone scratched their head and thought: what on earth is the workplace authority? Then it was discovered that there was no workplace authority at all and that the closest thing may have been the Office of the Employment Advocate.

But the greatest example of the Howard government's failure with respect to the Work Choices advertising campaign came in early August 2007, when the Howard government was actually forced to withdraw their own government advertising. Why? Because an actor who was playing a 'concerned father', concerned in this ad about the fact that his two sons might be forced onto Australian workplace agreements that cut conditions, had been accused by two young workers who had worked for him in his painting business of ripping them off. Life writ large in a Howard government ad! It said everything about Work Choices. Is there any wonder why that particular ad was withdrawn?

The government welcomes the ANAO report on its Clean Energy Future package. The report was tabled in parliament and it suggests that the government's transparency and accountability framework for campaign advertising is operating well. Again, we made the promise and we have delivered on that promise. The report finds:

Additional Treasury evidence supported the statement that more than 9 in 10 households (92 per cent) were estimated to receive some combination of assistance, lending support to the statement in the household mail-out.

That is, lending support to the statement that this household mail-out was true. The report also says:

The campaign did not contain any overt promotion of party political interests, party slogans or bias …

It is an independent report verifying that the government system of advertising is working. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Singh's contribution to this debate was typical of the deceitful and dishonest approach by the Australian Labor Party to most things these days. Senator Singh claimed that this report of the ANAO criticised Mr Abbott. I challenge her, by way of interjection, to identify for me in the ANAO report where that had occurred. She could not do it because it did not happen, and it is typical of the deceit and dishonesty of the ALP to continue to verbal the Auditor-General on that particular aspect. Indeed, the Auditor-General's report clearly shows that the Labor Party has been caught at it again.

I will give some advice to the Labor Party. You can spend as much money as you like—it will never be your own, of course; it will be the taxpayers' money, because one thing the Labor Party is good at is spending someone else's money. But let me give you this advice: it does not matter how much money you throw at spin and deceit, it does not work on the Australian people. The Australian people are not mugs, in spite of what the Labor Party think of them. They know that this carbon tax is an absolute crock. Most Australians know, without a very expensive advertising campaign, that the climate of the world is changing and most of them understand that it has been changing for eons—for millions and millions of years. As I have always said, of course the climate is changing, and all Australians know that it has. But is it the fault of humans that this is happening? That, to me, is a question on which leading scientists every­where have different views.

On that point I just might mention that Mr Bill Kininmonth, who was a director of climate change in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and is a very distinguished Australian and a very distinguished person in the meteorological and climate area, is a recent signatory along with a dozen other very senior scientists in challenging the view on the human impact on climate change. I will ask Senator Wong at estimates which of those scientists she considers are the flat-earthers, as she so rudely and inaccurately called them at an estimates committee hearing a few years ago. I would like her to repeat to Mr Kininmonth and to some of his colleagues from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology her claim that he is a flat-earther. Mr Kininmonth is a far better scientist than Senator Wong will ever be a politician or a minister.

The Australian public know that this is a crock. They know that you cannot fix the troubles of the world by dealing with Australia's less than 1.4 per cent of emissions when nobody else in the world is doing anything serious about it. We have seen in the last couple of days reports in the papers that Chinese and American airlines are saying to the Europeans: 'We're not paying your carbon tax, because it is all rubbish.' But the Australian airlines have to pay it. How can they remain competitive? You have to look no further than to the aluminium industry difficulties that are happening now. How can Australian manufacturing compete with Chinese, American or, indeed, Euro­pean manufacturing when Australian manu­facturing is taxed enormously whereas these countries have no, in the case of the United States and China, or very low, in the case of Europe, carbon taxes.

That is why the Auditor-General was correct when he said that, whatever was spent, this advertising was completely ineffective. You cannot sell to the Australian people, people who are cleverer than the ALP gives them credit for, a proposition that they know is inherently wrong. There is nothing that the majority of Australians will accept out of the Labor Party's use of their money to try and brainwash them into a huge tax that is so typical of Labor. I commend the ANAO report and urge the government to do something about it. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.