Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to all questions without notice asked today.

It is amazing that we have the most failed finance minister in our nation's history now sitting in this chamber. I want to go through Minister Wong's record. On 10 July 2010, it was suggested that the deficit for 2011-12 was going to be $10.4 billion. Then, in the MYEFO of November 2010, it went to $12.3 billion. Then in May 2011 it went to $22.6 billion. The December MYEFO had it at $37.1 billion. We are going to get the truth soon. When I was at uni, we had to give discount factors to the statements of certain of our colleagues. Any time that they said something, we had to give a 20 per cent discount factor to it. Some of them used to really stretch the truth. There was one bloke called Angus—I will not give his last name—who we used to call '97.3', because that is what you had to discount anything that he said by. But this minister is '400 per cent'. Everything she says has a 400 per cent acceleration factor. They are out the back door. Everything that they say is about 400 per cent wrong. It is a farce. I do not know why we use up oxygen to listen to them.

She came in here today and lauded the economic credentials of a government that has given us the biggest deficits. Every time that they say something, there is only one thing that you can be sure of: you can be sure that it is wrong; you can be sure that it will be worse. We are currently $233 billion in gross debt. We are nearly $17 billion away from bouncing our cheques. And that has all happened under the guidance and tutelage of Senator Wong. Senator Wong: Miss '400 per cent out the back door', who cannot get anything right.

Then there is the raft of complete and utter misleading statements that they make. Misleading statement No. 1: the mining tax will pay for the superannuation increases. No, that is incorrect; that is a mistruth. That is something that even Pinocchio would be proud of. That is an incredible statement, because it will not. Mr and Mrs Smith, Mr and Mrs Jones, and Mr and Mrs Small Business across our nation will pay for the superannuation increase. They will pay for it out of their wallets and if they cannot afford it they will reduce the amount that they are spending on salaries and they will reduce employment. And this has been done under the guidance and tutelage of this minister, who is now leaving the chamber because she does not really care.

Then there is misconception No. 2.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. That is most discourteous. The senator knows that I am not on chamber duty. To make a political issue about me leaving the chamber for an appointment is really discourteous and not what is usually done in this chamber.

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

Your point is made, Senator Wong, but it is no point of order.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is completely true. She is not staying here to listen to the issues. With only two minutes to go, I think that she could wait; she could last for another two minutes. But no, out the door she goes; she has gone; she has bolted.

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order—exactly the same point. This is extremely discourteous of Senator Joyce. I ask him to desist.

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

There is no point of order.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us go to the next issue. The next issue is the small business tax deduction. But that is not the truth. What do you call something that is a deliberate untruth? This time the discount factor is 70 per cent, because 70 per cent of small businesses will not get the tax deduction because 70 per cent of small businesses are not incorporated. Maybe we will give the 70 per cent discount factor to Mr Swan. We have the 400 per cent acceleration factor on bad news that we can attribute to Minister Wong. We also have the 70 per cent discount factor on the truth that we can attribute to Mr Swan. This is what is happening to our nation as we go piece by piece through the back door.

These people are so incompetent that they have done something that I did not think was possible: they have come up with a tax that costs us money. How do you come up with revenue that becomes a cost? They have rewritten the book on accountancy 101. They now have an income that is an expense. It is easy: all you have to do is have the competency of the imbeciles that currently occupy the Treasury benches and these things become possible. We are going out the back door.

In trying to redeem themselves—in trying to extract themselves from this situation—they have attacked Australian agriculture, no better exemplified than in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. In that plan, we are borrowing money from overseas to remove productive capacity. We are borrowing money in order to make our capacity to pay that debt back worse. Why? I do not know. It is just one of those things. They do not believe in infrastructure—infrastructure is too hard. They just want to buy things back, send people broke and send them out the back door. They just want to turn everything into carbon credits and send them to Rwanda. That is the Labor Party policy: they are going to send the whole nation off as a carbon credit to Equatorial Africa and that is where it will all end.

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

What an absolute torrent of unintelligible garbage we have heard from the other side of the chamber! This is the king of the doormats with his fan club this afternoon, trying to make some point about the answers that the ministers before me today have provided.

This, mind you, is the senator who appeared in this chamber this morning for prayers with no tie on. He could not be bothered to get dressed properly to get into this chamber this morning—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order—a clarification. I am just trying to work out which standing order I have breached by reason of me not having a tie on. Because if I breached one, hasn't Senator Crossin breached it as well?

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

Order! There is no point of order.

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

This, of course, is also the senator across the chamber who refers to my learned colleague in front of me all the time as 'Miss' rather than as 'Senator' or 'Minister'. He does not even courteously provide her with her proper title. And he is well aware that at the end of question time there are certain people allocated to be on duty in this chamber and that other people then have other duties and are required back in their offices. So to have an outstanding go at the ministers before us who are not in this chamber to hear them take note of their answers—why would you want to waste Minister Wong's time listening to that unintelligible claptrap that comes from across the other side of the chamber?

Why would you want to waste her time? She is one of the best ministers this country has ever known when it comes to the complex issues that she has handled in her four years as a minister. Not only did she negotiate the climate change package and the bills to a point where that legislation came through both houses of parliament and was endorsed by both houses of this parliament—of course, they were not endorsed by the doormats across the road here—but she then was elevated to one of the Treasury portfolios and is now a pre-eminent person in our caucus, in the ministry and in the cabinet, and she has dealt with the most complex of legislation and complex of issues. She was there day after day during the global financial crisis, is there negotiating the minerals resource rent tax, is there heading up our ERC process and is there making sure that we have a budget that comes in on time and on the surplus.

This is a woman that I think all Australians can rightly and proudly acknowledge as being one of the best people we have had in our Treasury team. I am more than happy today to stand up and try to make some sense of the unintelligible question that was asked by Senator Joyce. I noticed, in fact, that Senator Joyce had such difficulty today in getting his question out that he had to rush it through because he was not going to get it asked in a minute. If you were actually sitting on this side of the chamber, in his rush to get the words out there was just mumble and jumble in there. I am surprised that Senator Ludwig was able even to find the words 'food security' in there somewhere in Senator Joyce's rush to try to get out a question that was almost unintelligible. I am not sure if people listening to it on radio would have had any idea what the senator was asking whatsoever.

What is this really all about? This is all about the fact that Senator Joyce and his party have no alternative policies. In fact, I do not think they have any policies at all. They are very happy to line up behind the Liberal Party and just say 'no' to everything. I cannot believe that after yesterday's debate they have turned their backs on a package that will deliver huge investments in infrastructure in this country. When he purports to come from outback Queensland he would well know that one dollar extra towards infrastructure is one dollar he ought to be putting his hand up to grab with enthusiasm. I cannot believe that he sits on the other side of this chamber and does not put his hand up for tax breaks for small businesses; for the little businesses that sit in rural and regional outback towns, that probably struggle day after day and that will actually welcome an immediate write-off of 6½ thousand dollars in assets. They will welcome the tax breaks that the minerals resource rent tax will provide to them.

I cannot believe that if you are truly the party that represents rural and regional Australia that you have not put a tick beside assisting small business and you have not put a tick beside extra money for infrastructure. You would rather just stand behind the Liberal Party and say 'no' to everything. You have no creative bones in your bodies and you have no creative ability to come up with any new and original policies whatsoever.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is no wonder that people across regional communities and right across this country keep coming up to me and saying, 'Will this government please tell the truth! Every single time we turn around we get another mistruth from this government.' People out there are getting mighty sick of it. Today, in answers to questions, we have seen yet more of that.

Let me take the chamber to a comment by the Treasurer just this morning, talking about the estimates for the RSPT and the MRRT. The Treasurer said, 'Well, we don't do those 10-year estimates.' Let me just repeat that: 'Well, we don't do those 10-year estimates.' Guess what? Apparently, they do. Because here in this document, when I turn the page, is the 10-year estimate from Treasury. So on this hand, Treasurer: 'We do not do the 10-year estimates'; on this hand, the document: yes they do.

So the Treasurer is either completely inept or he was misleading the Australian people this morning when he made that comment. He said, 'That is a figure that has been bandied around by all manner of people.'

Senator Cormann interjecting—

I will take the gesture interjection, thank you Senator Cormann! Arms up in the air in despair! Is the Treasurer completely inept or, simply, does he know he is misleading the Australian people and he does not care? 'That is a figure that has been bandied around by all manner of people'—what sort of comment is that for the Treasurer to make about something as important as the costings for the RSPT and the MRRT? 'Being bandied around,'—it is here right in front of us on the page from the Treasury documents that were provided under FOI on 14 February last year, and placed on the website. What on earth is this Treasurer doing? If he cannot get something right which is as simple as a question about whether or not 10-year estimates were provided, how on earth can the Australian people trust him to be in charge of the finances of this nation? They cannot.

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

They can't.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Boyce; I will take that. I will have to write that to Minister Wong as well. How can anybody trust this duo—it is a bit like Laurel and Hardy—to actually run the economy of the country? They simply cannot. When we heard the minister, Penny Wong, talking just two days ago, just on Sunday—this is not a long time ago—about the estimates, about the costings for the RSPT and the MRRT, she said, 'We don't release 10-year costings.' Clearly, according to the RSPT and MRRT review of estimates document I have in my hand, they do release 10-year costings. It is black and white. How can they be so inept or misleading? How can they continue to tell untruths? I do not know which one it is but of any of them or all of them are completely unacceptable. How can the minister, Penny Wong, say, 'We don't release 10-year costings?' If she did not know that only 12 months ago this document was released to the public then that is an absolute failing in her duty as a minister.

It gets even better, because when we look at the figures—and there is a $60 billion shortfall once we move from the absolute shambles of the RSPT to the MRRT that the minister did with only three companies, mind you—if the Treasury had actually used the same commodity price modelling for the MRRT as they had for the RSPT, it would have been a shortfall of $100 billion. This is what we are stuck with; this is what we have got: the inept nature of this government, the Treasury team on the other side of Minister Wayne Swan and Minister Penny Wong. It is just extraordinary. There is no way they can explain the fact that they made those comments when that document was available. It was either completely inept or they actually were misleading the Australian people, and the Treasurer and Minister Penny Wong should come out and explain to the Australian people why they told those untruths and if they were in fact misleading, because to the Australian people that is entirely unacceptable.

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

What we have heard this afternoon is some outrageous claims by Senator Joyce and Senator Nash against Minister Penny Wong and our Treasurer, Wayne Swan. These are two members of cabinet, two people with regard to Finance and Treasury, who, thanks to their fiscal responsibility, have been able today to deliver pension increases to Australian pensioners, something that the opposition did not support. They did not support it in 2009 when we started the most historical reform to pensions ever brought into this parliament. They did not support it then, they do not support it now and they do not support support for low-income Australians—no, of course not. That is why yesterday we saw in this place the opposition to the minerals resource rent tax, which will ensure that we spread the opportunities for all Australians in this country. No, they did not support that, because they want to support lining the pockets of some of the most wealthy people in this country—that is, miners. They do not stand up for pensioners, unlike us on this side of the house and unlike the work of Minister Penny Wong and that of Treasurer Wayne Swan, who have both been able to deliver the pension increase that we have been able to give to Australian pensioners today, an historical increase over the life of this government.

On that side of the Senate they instead choose to be defensive and on the attack, because they know they have dug a hole and they cannot get out of it and that hole has a price tag of $70 billion attached to it. Why? Because they do not use the proper costings; they use catering companies to formulate the costings for their policies. We on this side of the Senate use Treasury costings which ensure that all of our policies are costed, as they should be, unlike the opposition who have now dug themselves into such a hole they cannot get out of it. It is no surprise, because we know that the last time the coalition were in government they utterly failed to use the good economic times for investment in Australia's future. They failed to invest in health infrastructure and they failed to invest in education, and that is in stark contrast with what this Labor government is doing through the minerals resource rent tax. In fact, what we are doing is ensuring that we are using the extraordinary profits that mining companies make from the resources, which belong to all Australians, to create a better country, a better future for all Australians.

We have talked in this place about the various ways in which that will be achieved: through increasing superannuation and through giving tax cuts to small business and the like to ensure that this is about making and managing our prosperity for all Australians. The government here is ensuring that all Australians have a fair share of our resources. That is the Labor way that is based on the value of fairness, something that the coalition have no understanding of because their values are completely stark compared with ours. Their values are about increasing the profits of some of the most wealthy miners in this country. We voted to ensure that we can fund more superannuation for all Australians because we know that we have an ageing population. We know that we need to look forward to the future in this country for all working Australians so that your average working 30-year-old in Australia now will have, on the basis of their average weekly earnings, an increase of around $100,000 more in superannuation, which is much needed as they go into retirement. I look forward to opposition senators going back to their constituents after we rise from this place at the end of this week and telling them that they are going to vote against a tax cut for small business. On top of that, they are going to increase company tax if they wish to support their own paid parental leave scheme that they currently have as their core coalition policy. So tax breaks for small business and cutting the company tax rate are supported by this government but opposed by the opposition. That is outrageous and unbelievable coming from the Liberal Party, who claim they are the party that supports small business and tax cuts for small business. It is unbelievable to hear that in this place. (Time expired)

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

I suppose I should not be surprised that Senator Singh seems to have the same issues as anybody else amongst her colleagues in getting things right—I am not quite sure how we on the coalition side of the chamber can be both defensive and on the attack at the same time. Yes, we are defensive; of course we are defensive. We are trying to defend the rights of Australians—not just the union bosses but the workers and the families as well. To suggest that we would somehow be ashamed to admit that we were going to do our damnedest to stop the government from going ahead with aspects of the minerals resource rent tax is just bizarre. Yes, we are going to tell people they will not get that tax cut and that it is not really a tax cut. A tax cut that is based on a great big new tax is a tax con. That is what this government is producing—a tax con.

For Senator Crossin to pretend to be somewhat hurt that anyone could suggest that Senator Wong is not the most brilliant financial mind in Australia is bizarre as well. We had Senator Wong suggesting yet again that there is going to be a budget surplus in 2012-13. If there is a budget surplus in the budget papers that are presented in 2012-13, it will simply be based on the smoke and mirrors that every aspect of this government's ability to undertake proper economic analysis is based on. It will be dodgy; it will be made up. This government not only have produced the four largest deficits in Australian history but have done so serially. They are serial deficit producers; it is all they can do. And now suddenly they are going to bring out a budget that is in surplus. They are saying: 'Don't worry about how we're going to do that—we just will, we can, we know how. We may have lost our 10-year costings. We may not know that not every small business in Australia is an incorporated company and therefore will not benefit from anything we are suggesting. We may not be able to get Fair Work Australia to learn how to read quickly enough to produce a report within four years. We may not even care about whether there are allegations relating to the activities of Mr Thomson, the member for Dobell, outside of the Health Services Union. And we think the wild rivers legislation in Queensland, which destroys any opportunity for Aboriginal owners and occupants of the Cape York area to undertake business or commercial activities themselves, is sensible legislation.'

Of course we have problems; of course we are defensive. We must be, to attempt to defend this country from the ravages of this government, which, in this last sitting week of the truncated parliamentary year that it has developed, is trying to rush through bill after bill, none of it fully thought through and none of it likely to survive more than five or six months. It is frightening and it is disturbing that the government continues to behave as though it actually thinks it will get a budget surplus. We even had the very bizarre procedure during question time of the government refusing our spokesman leave to table a Treasury document. It would not let us table a Treasury document. Why not? Because it might have proved that Treasurer Swan and his offsider Senator Wong are not in fact the best minds in Australia to run a government. They are only useful for running deficits—because you do not have to check on your figures to run a deficit.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very sorry that the coalition continues to overlook the Indigenous people of—

Senator Boyce interjecting—

Senator Boyce might laugh about it, but I spoke to Scott Gorringe, who represents the traditional people—

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

We actually talk to them, Senator Brown; we actually speak to them.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are rudely interrupting. I did not interrupt you, Senator Boyce. I am talking about Scott Gorringe, one of the traditional owners of the Cooper Creek Basin in south-west Queensland, who I did speak to. In fact, I held a joint conference with him in Queensland as they tried to get some recognition of their call for wild rivers preservation in Queensland to be maintained because they are concerned about the rollover of the coal seam gas industry in particular on their traditional lands. But that concern is being drowned out by voices like Senator Boyce, who is now trying to drown me out in this chamber. What a terrible way to treat traditional owners in Queensland!

I also want to speak about the govern­ment's answer to the Australia Institute's report released in Brisbane today showing that the Queensland mining boom is set to destroy 20,000 jobs in the non-mining sectors of the economy, including manu­facturing, small business, tourism and agriculture. I flew over the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland, where Mr Clive Palmer, a big Liberal National Party backer in so many ways, wants to open the Waratah coalmine. His own consultants have shown that that one mega-mine, exporting coal out through Abbot Point with the really dangerous potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef, will suck 2,000 jobs out of the current Queensland economy. So what we have here is the mining barons—and, unlike Mr Palmer, most of them are overseas—making huge profits at a big loss of jobs and a huge damaging impact on the non-mining sector of the economy.

The manufacturing sector in Queensland in this mining boom has already declined by 6.5 per cent and international tourism is down by six per cent. This is hurting small business, this is hurting jobs in Queensland and this is pure Liberal National Party policy to keep it going. It is a very poor outlook for the small business sector, for the struggling small business owners and for those people who are employed in the rest of the Queensland economy.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of an answer given by Senator Bob Carr to a question from me during question time today. I am very disappointed that Senator Carr on the question of West Papua would immediately come to the defence of the Indonesian government and Indonesian sovereignty when that was not the substance of the question. On that issue, it is important to note where that sovereignty arises from. It arises from a huge breach of the democratic process in 1969, where the Act of Free Choice essentially resulted in a number of hand-picked people producing an outcome that was known from the start, and that is that an independent province, the province of West Papua, would effectively be handed over to the Indonesians because it was an area rich in natural resources.

But the substance of my question was very clear. The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in December 2006 handed down a report which made two very clear recommendations that this government and all future governments should pursue—firstly, that this area be allowed access by the media and human rights monitors. We have a situation where a democratic nation refuses journalists entry into West Papua and refuses access to human rights monitors. Here on our doorstep is a situation that, frankly, is untenable. Secondly, the Australian government is financing the Indonesian military and parts of that financing are contributing to human rights abuses on our doorstep. It is simply unacceptable and the recommendations of the committee must be upheld.

Question agreed to.