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

Another appropriations bill—more money, in excess of $1.2 billion. It is a common theme of this government. Last Friday, when looking at the website of the Australian Office of Financial Management, I was shocked to see the gross debt going to almost $269 billion—an enormous amount of money. Some in the government say, 'Don't worry about that; that is just a gross debt; the net debt is what is important.' That is so wrong because, when you look at the so-called good side of the ledger, we have around $82 billion for the Future Fund. What happens to the money that the Future Fund earns? That money stays in the Future Fund for the retirement of public servants—it has to be budgeted for. How was that Future Fund built? It was built by the Howard-Costello government through good financial management.

Some $22 billion is owed in HECS fees by tertiary students going to university. You cannot charge interest on those fees. When a student completes their tertiary degree, gets a job and starts earning more than $30,000 a year, they start to pay that HECS fee back over time but with no interest. We have around $16.5 billion of residential mortgage backed securities, which earn a little bit of money for the government. I have just mentioned $82 billion for the Future Fund, $22 billion for HECS fees—that totals around $104 billion—and about $16.5 billion for residential mortgage backed securities, so around $120 billion on the good side of the ledger that does not earn the government any money to help pay that huge $269 billion gross debt. That is why we have to pay the interest on the gross amount, because the good side of the ledger is not earning any income.

For example, if you owed the bank $1 million and that was your gross debt, but you had $500,000 in another bank earning interest, your net debt would be $500,000. The interest on that $500,000 you had invested could help pay your debt on the $1 million. That is not the case with this government. We are going to have to fund $269 billion. We heard about a surplus in this financial year. How many times did we hear that? We heard it literally hundreds of times from the Prime Minister; the finance minister, Senator Wong; and the Treasurer that there will be no surplus. Here we are again, with this appropriations bill, discussing what? We are discussing more debt. Borrow, borrow and mortgage our children's future away. That is what the Labor Party knows.

I can go back through the history of my life with Labor governments, state and federal. Take the debt building of the Whitlam era—some say the worst government this country has had since Federation. In fact, Gough Whitlam is the only person laughing about this government because he is no longer regarded as the worst government this country has had since Federation. The current government has rounded up Gough Whitlam's government through mismanagement of funds and wasting of money. That is why the Australian people simply do not trust this government. They do not trust this government to manage money or to run a budget correctly as households and businesses have to do, but not this government under the Australian Labor Party. They do not trust the government to keep their word, whether it be on a carbon tax or private health insurance. Remember those words from Ms Nicola Roxon, 'We will not tinker, we will not alter the private health insurance.' You have upset everyone who has private health insurance.

The mining tax is a farce. My colleague Senator Cormann has highlighted so many times in this place the $2 billion collection of tax from our large miners—those in the iron ore and coal industry—who are making more than $50 million profit and what did we get for the first six months? It was $126 million. But the money has been spent. The government have committed that money. Remember it was going to be superannuation contributions for our Australian workers, for those working families. The money is not there. Once again we see more borrowing, more debt. You just cannot fathom it.

When the government were elected into office in 2007, there was a cap on government debt of $75 billion. Then through that crazy stimulus package of so much waste of money—with the Building the Education Revolution, the pink batts et cetera—that limit was raised to a massive $200 billion. We thought they would not have to raise the limit any more than $200 billion surely. What happened next? They raised the debt to $250 billion. They would have had to have maxed out the credit card at $250 billion but no, in May last year they raised it to $300 billion. Add that debt to the state debts.

We know what sort of a financial shambles and mess Queensland was left in after the removal of the Bligh government, a government that balanced its budget for decades and was debt free. Now we have Queensland with a debt of more than $70 billion. The state of Queensland has just 4½ million people and owes more than $70 billion and is on a course for further debt. Some on the other side in the government say, 'Why is the Queensland government cutting costs, why are they trying to save money?' Well, they do not want to take Queensland down the road of Greece, Portugal, Spain and many other countries that are in serious financial trouble. They are cutting spending because of the huge debt that you financial mismanagers have left that state with.

David Murray, former boss of the Commonwealth Bank and former manager of the Future Fund, has highlighted the debt in Australia. Combine the state governments with the federal government and, in 2015, we are looking at debt of somewhere around $500 billion. Now we are talking half a trillion dollars. We are talking the figures they talk in America where there is $14.3 trillion of federal debt. Give that $500 billion, put that over our $1.3 trillion economy, and what are we looking at? At a guess, it is 35 per cent of GDP. Now we are starting to get the debt up. And who is responsible for it? The Australian Labor Party. They have done that all my life.

I have often spoken in this place about the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Cain-Kirner government sent Victoria broke to a tune of $60 billion, where Victoria had to sell off electricity for $19 billion and use every cent to retire debt. Western Australia was sent broke and South Australia and Tasmania. Then the world's so-called greatest Treasurer at the time, Mr Paul Keating, did exactly the same thing here in Canberra when in government.

I cannot believe how this government has no respect for a budget. We were going to have a deficit of $12 billion for this last financial year. Then it came out to $22 billion in MYEFO and in the May budget of 2011 it came out to be $30-odd billion but the last financial year actually had a deficit of $43 billion. Two years prior to that, if you estimated a $12 billion deficit and it came out at $43 billion, that was not even a good guess. That is such a bad way to manage our money and forecast deficits in our budget. It is not even a good guess.

There was a $12 billion estimation of debt for the last financial year and what did we get with the final budget outcome in September 2012? We got $43 billion worth of debt. What are we facing here in this bill? As I said, more debt, more borrowings, more mismanagement of taxpayers' money in Australia. Where is it going to end? I tell you where it is going to end. It is going to end on 14 September. That is what will bring it to an end, because many in Australia who run their households, their budgets and their businesses know that governments do not have money, that governments take money off the taxpayers and off the companies and off those who make profits or they borrow it. This government is just a legend when it comes to borrowing money.

When I was at a function on Saturday night in Armidale and told the businessmen and businesswomen there that our gross debt was just short of $269 billion, they just shook their heads. We are now looking at a case where next year we will have to find somewhere between $10 billion and $12 billion to pay the interest only. It does not sound like much money when it just rolls off the tongue—$10,000 million but $1 million is an enormous amount of money and $10 million is a huge amount of money. It is 10,000 lots of $1 million just to pay the interest on the debt that this mob have built before we pay one pensioner, before we put one cent in an aged-care facility, before we put one bullet into the weapon of one of our soldiers, defending democracy and promoting peace on behalf of Australia. We have to find $10,000 million. That is the legacy this government is going to leave us. The Australian people cannot be fooled. They will not be fooled. They know how to run their budgets and they see what this government is doing.

These appropriation bills mean more debt. Just put it on the tick for the future. Is that what we are going to do for our future generations of Australians? Leave them wallowing in debt? Just running through the figures from memory through my life, I think the Whitlam era inherited a debt of around $4 billion but when they were thrown out of government just a short period of time later it was $10 billion. We then saw the debt of the coalition government of Malcolm Fraser grow to a massive $96 billion by the Hawke-Keating government. Then what? We saw that debt reduced to zero. Sure there was $50 billion owing on the gross debt because the then finance minister, Senator Nick Minchin, did not want to shut down the Treasury bond; he kept it open and left $50 billion worth of gross debt—I discussed this with him personally—but he also put $50 billion in the bank to neutralise it to zero. That is why this government started off with a $50 billion gross debt that is now $269 billion, because the Treasury bond market was left open instead of being shut down, but the money was put in another account to neutralise it.

Now we are just seeing borrow, borrow, borrow to whatever limit they wish to go and sneaking it through the budget figures. Don't worry about it; the Greens will support you. We know their history of managing money. They just say 'spend, spend' and then shut down half the businesses in this country and say, 'It'll be right, mate'. No, it will not be right. If you do not have a strong economy, then the government does not get money to carry out the services and responsibilities that this government and any government is responsible for. So we are facing a situation of borrow, borrow, borrow.

As I said, all my life, whenever the Australian Labor Party get into power—and I must differentiate the Australian Labor Party from the Democratic Labor Party—they send us broke. At a state level or a federal level. They have done it all my working life. From the end of 1972, when I left school down there in Adelaide, where you live, Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, I have seen nothing but borrowing and debt building and waste from the Australian Labor Party whenever they are given the chequebook and control of the budget. And now we are seeing more and more of it.

They wonder why they are so much on the nose with the Australian people. Just think about who they have upset. They tried to kick the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme out of here a few years ago and we blocked it in the Senate so that elderly people and pensioners could have more than $4,000 worth of dental work carried out on behalf of the taxpayers, which is only good. They have upset all those people with private health insurance. Doing what? Making more people pull out of private health insurance and putting more load on our states' hospital systems, which is already overloaded throughout Australia. They said about the minerals resource rent tax, 'This will be a fair way to tax.' No, it is just digging into state revenues and so they have upset everyone in the mining industry.

They talk about the environment. The cleanest fuel we have is LPG—liquid petroleum gas—and so they go and put a tax on liquid petroleum gas of 2½c, going up to 12½c by 2015. Ninety million taxi fares a year in this country. If you want to get on the nose with Australians, upset the taxi drivers because they talk to a lot of people. So they tax a clean green fuel that happens to be produced here in Australia and not imported and then they talk about the environment, they talk about carbon taxes, putting costs on industries. We have seen the figures today where so many businesses have been put under pressure.

I see Grain Products Australia—I brought their three months of electricity accounts into this place—have gone into administration, they have gone into liquidation, they have just been sold. Of the 68 jobs there, half of them are gone, and then there are people in the transport industry around Tamworth who relied on that business to keep their trucks and the wheels of their trucks and their income coming in. I was challenged to table the accounts. I tallied those three months of invoices: that food-producing, value-adding business averaged $28,000 a month in carbon tax alone on their electricity account. That is around $350,000 a year. How much would that finance? Well, at 10 per cent it would pay the interest on $3½ million, but you would not be paying 10 per cent. Probably $5 million of that carbon tax component of electricity bills for Grain Products Australia based in Tamworth is how much this government put on the cost of that business. Grain Products Australia could not pass it on. They competed against cheap imports from China and other places, with a high Australian dollar brought about by high interest rates in this country compared to those around the world. Brought about by so many purchases of Australian Treasury bonds financing the debt that this government is creating. This is the situation we find ourselves in.

That is why, I say it again, the people of Australia do not trust the government. They have offended almost every sector. And now, of course, Senator Conroy decides, six months out from an election: 'We'll take on the media! We'll bring in the public interest media advisor. He'll shut them down if they say anything wrong. We'll do away with this.' It is just outrageous and he will suffer the consequences, and no doubt he will face troubles getting that legislation through. He says, 'It's got to be through this week; just rush it through.' Yet he was the one criticising a Senate inquiry in the Howard era, saying it was rushed over a few weeks. His legislation is going to be rushed over a couple of days! The irony of this is simply amazing.

I come back to that word 'trust'. That is why the Australian people do not trust the government. That is why the Nielsen poll today is saying exactly that. You cannot treat the Australian people with disregard and disrespect and then expect them to turn a blind eye to the way you govern our great nation. Here is more debt—that is what this appropriation bill is about. 'Just put it on the tick; she'll be right. We'll leave it to the other mob to clean up our financial mess.' That must be their attitude because that is how it has been all of my working life. The Australian Labor Party create a debt, blow the money, borrow up to the hilt, put the Visa card up to the max and then leave it for the coalition to clean up the financial mess. That is how it has been for state governments and federal governments for all of my working life.

And this government is no different. But come 14 September the people will have their say. They will have their say in the seat of New England, where Independent member, Mr Tony Windsor, backed this government—supposedly for regional Australia. Got out to Rooty Hill the other week and here is all his regional development money going into Rooty Hill, a suburb of Sydney. That is supposed to be regional Australia! The government has betrayed Mr Tony Windsor MP. Likewise Mr Robert Oakeshott, the member for Lyne.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they've betrayed their constituents!

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

They have betrayed their constituents, Senator Ronaldson; that is exactly right. They say they are not conservative seats. Have a look at the Senate vote in those seats: 44 per cent to the coalition in the Senate vote. They are not conservative seats: those seats do not belong to politicians; they belong to the people and the people will have their say on 14 September. They believe that their local members have betrayed them and sided with a Greens-Labor government, left-leaning, that has done its utmost to cripple business in this country. Never forget that in a free enterprise economy the nation's wealth is derived from the business sector, and if you strangle that business sector you strangle the nation.

This government has broken its promises. The carbon tax, the minerals tax and the other crazy schemes it has brought in that it thinks will change the planet will not change a thing. China is going to go up to 7.6 billion tonnes of CO2 a year by 2020 and we are going up from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes or even more now apparently. We are not reducing our carbon dioxide output in this country. All we are doing is shifting our industries overseas, like our cement industry, which is put under enormous pressure.

Our government is doing this through crazy policies, crazy borrowing and wasteful spending. All these appropriation bills are doing is topping up the financial mismanagement. That is typical of the Australian Labor Party. As I said, come 14 September the Australian people will be able to have their say and they are very much looking forward to it.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last 10 days I was in an airport—and I will not say where it was because I do not want to place anyone in a difficult position. When I asked one of the longest-serving Labor Party members in the other place how he was travelling, he said, 'It is all a bit surreal.' It is all a bit surreal. When he was talking about it being surreal I am sure he was talking about the quite surreal situation where in the space of five years his party has removed a Prime Minister in a blood coup and then, as a further example of the surrealness of the situation, there is talk about replacing that Prime Minister with the person that she removed. I can sort of understand why this member would describe the situation as surreal.

But it is this inward-looking government that has completely and utterly lost the right to govern that I want to talk about today. When you have a government of whatever political persuasion that becomes more interested in their own jobs than the jobs of the Australian people—and I have seen it before—then you know full well that it is a government in terminal decline. That is the surreal situation that the Australian Labor Party finds itself in at the moment. That is the surreal position that the Australian people find themselves in at the moment.

I want to talk about what I find really surreal. I want to talk about the surreal situation that we now find ourselves in. In October 2007 the current Australian Labor Party government was left with no debt, was left with a strong Future Fund, an education fund and $40 billion in the bank, from recollection, and now in a bizarrely surreal turnaround there is no money in the bank, gross debt is $250-plus billion and net debt is approaching $170 billion. People in this chamber and the other place talk about billions and it just rolls off their tongue. Well, $170 billion is $170,000 million. The cost of servicing that debt, which is still increasing, is approximately $7,000 million.

I have the great honour of being the shadow minister representing the people who have fought for this country. It is an extraordinary honour to be dealing with these men and women. I can tell you what $7,000 million a year could do to assist these men and women who have served this country, these men and women who, regrettably, in far greater numbers are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. We saw that frightening article in the papers over the weekend about the number of people returning from Afghanistan with PTSD.

If this nation abrogates its responsibilities to those who have served this nation at the request of the nation then we stand utterly condemned. When we are unable to meet our responsibilities because of government policies that have wasted hundreds of billions of dollars then what are we doing to ourselves as a nation? I am old enough to remember post Vietnam, old enough to remember that I was probably 12 months off my marble potentially coming up and old enough to remember the way those men were treated when they returned from Vietnam. They did no more and no less than serve the nation at the nation's request.

When you spend the time that I do with these men and their families, you see what was done to them and the ramifications of that. It is not just the men who were there; it is their families and their children—the sometimes forgotten people in that post-Vietnam era. They are the ones who have suffered as a result of what this nation did. These are people who were refused entry to some RSL sub-branches and who were completely ostracised and had only themselves for comfort and support and, indeed, to try to look after themselves in both an emotional and a financial sense.

As honourable senators will know, the coalition is trying to address one particular part of the legitimate demands of the ex-service community for support, and that is in relation to fair indexation. This chamber knows full well, and many in the ex-service community know full well, that we will be addressing the DFRDB and the DFRB indexation issue. As I have said before in forums all over the country, we should have done it earlier. I have done the mea culpa in relation to this. Yes, we should have, but we did not, but we are trying to address it. We took that policy to the last election, and history, of course, shows what happened there and why we are sitting on this side of the chamber and not the other side. We tried again with the fair indexation bill that I moved in this place, and in a day of shame it was rejected by this chamber. We tried in the other place before Christmas to amend a bill, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill, and to refuse to deal with that bill further until the government introduced a fair indexation bill. This was not a matter of going out and having six-month or 12-month consultations. This was not about the parliamentary draftsmen being under enormous pressure and taking six months to come up with the bill, because the bill was there. All that had to be done was for the bill to be reprinted in the government's name, and fair indexation would have been achieved.

Last week in this chamber we again attempted to amend a piece of legislation that had attached to it a schedule which repeated in toto the bill that failed to be passed in this chamber several years ago. Literally two minutes before this bill was meant to be debated, it was pulled. The reason given was that the government had last-minute amendments it wanted to make. History again shows that there have been no amendments circulated since then. There have been no amendments circulated this week. This bill is not back on the Notice Paper for today, apparently it will not be tomorrow, and it will not be the day after that or on Thursday. So the first time that this could possibly be debated is in the budget session—again, an opportunity denied to these men and women in receipt of DFRDB and DFRB superannuation to have fair indexation.

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott, has twice made commitments on this—once in that magnificent regional centre of Bendigo, which is close to that other magnificent regional centre of Ballarat, where I live and my family have lived for some five generations. Ballarat is close to that other magnificent regional centre of Geelong. These are three extraordinarily strong regional centres, all of which have made their mark on this nation's history. In Bendigo Mr Abbott committed the coalition to fair indexation. Last week the coalition again committed itself through Mr Abbott to fair indexation.

There are a number of organisations that have come out and supported the coalition in relation to our announcement again last week that we would be introducing fair indexation in the first budget of an Abbott government. Organisations such as the Alliance of Defence Service Organisations, the Defence Force Welfare Association, the RSL and others have supported this. But what they have said to the government is that the ex-service community will not accept anything less than full and fair indexation for anyone with military superannuation and that any attempt by the government to spin a half-baked solution to make the problem go away will be exposed for what it is. If indeed that is what is being discussed, the ex-service community have made it quite clear that it is no way for halfway, and this government will not get away with bringing in a system and an indexation method that do not match the coalition's.

I want to talk tonight about the impact of that $7,000 million, which is the interest bill on that money—the noose that the Australian Labor Party has put around the necks of Australians alive today and Australians yet to be born, I fear, for generations—because, remarkably, these people have another five months to go before the next election. I fear what the debt might be at that stage.

Those with any knowledge of the veterans' community will understand there are many pressing issues. I know that Senator Back and Senator Nash, who are in the chamber today, have an intimate understanding of what is required to assist these men and women. If you look at the advancing years of a number of our veterans and veterans' partners or wives, you will see there is a sense of urgency on their part in relation to matters that should be addressed. Look at the situation facing war widows. You can have a situation where two sisters marry two brothers who travelled overseas, fought beside each other, came back and lived in the same street. If one of those men died of war caused injuries then his widow would be given a widow's pension and a gold card, but her sister and the man who did not die of war related injuries would not. I have said on the public record in forums across Australia that I think that is grossly unfair. Is this nation in a position at the moment to address that? No, it is not.

Look at the outcome for invalid pensioners following the Harmer review when the Howard government legislated to address an indexation question that had been the bane of the life of many TPIs for a long, long time. That was addressed and it was undone following the government's response to the Harmer review. Is the nation in a position at the moment to address that $700-plus million cost over the forward estimates? No, it is not. Look at the partners of veterans who quite rightly say, 'We need some more support—we need some support with respite; we need other support.' Look at what has been done to the BEST fund for advocacy and welfare services, where men and women who have served or have an intimate understanding of what it is to serve—who understand the uniqueness of military service and everything that brings with it—have been providing advocacy and welfare services to members of the veteran community. The government several years ago slashed that funding. When we are talking about providing support, particularly for those young men and women who are returning from Afghanistan at the moment, the very group of people who could be providing them with that assistance have had their funding reduced. The government stands utterly condemned for doing so.

I have a minute left. I will throw this challenge out to those opposite: if you are to lose the next election then please provide the new government with the ability to address some of these short-, medium- and long-term funding decisions that will need to be made, not just in my portfolio but across the board. If you are going to form government again in September, I throw the challenge out to you to finally, please, in the last six months of your government, not let down the people of this country again with this wilful spending and disregard for the future not only of us but of our children and our children's children. When I see this utter farce that we have seen in this last week in relation to the attack on the freedom of the press I fear I know where the priorities are. (Time expired)

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

I also rise to make some comments on the piece of legislation before us. Following comments from some of my colleagues who have already spoken in this place, there is absolutely no doubt that this Labor government has no ability whatsoever to manage the nation. My good colleague Senator Ronaldson has just very eloquently pointed out exactly that. The mismanagement that we have seen when it comes to the economy is nothing short of breathtaking.

As I travel around communities and talk to people who are out there going about their daily lives—going to work, going home; they have their mortgage and they are working hard to pay that off—they are absolutely astounded by this Labor government's complete inability to understand that when you borrow money you have to be able to pay it back. All of these people that I talk to, particularly in regional communities where I spend the bulk of my time, actually understand how it works. They actually understand that if you borrow money you have to pay it back. This government shows absolutely no sign whatsoever of understanding that.

We have about $268 billion worth of gross debt—268 billion. We have well in excess of $150 billion of net debt. We are paying $7 billion a year in interest on the money that this government has borrowed—seven billion! Billions seem to roll off the tongue of those on the other side of the chamber as if it was just a few dollars here or there. That $7 billion could give us another 100,000 nurses, another 100,000 police officers, perhaps another 100,000 school teachers, but because of this government's complete lack of ability to manage the economy it is all getting sucked up in paying off the interest on the debt—and so much of that money that has been borrowed has been wasted. I think it particularly galls people when they see this random borrowing. The government has never, ever, understood how to manage money, just like many previous Labor governments; but this one in particular is worse than most of the rest put together because it simply cannot do it—it has absolutely no idea. People are absolutely gobsmacked by the waste that we have so often seen with that borrowed money.

Colleagues often talk about the waste—$6.5 billion now—that the government has spent on trying to get some semblance of order into managing our borders, which it is not doing. We have had something like 580 boats and nearly 34,000 people turn up since Labor came to office. It is just extraordinary that the government simply cannot manage the borders, cannot manage money, cannot manage anything. It is like letting kindy kids be in charge of the country—although that is being disrespectful to kindy kids.

People out there in the community know that this nation deserves a better future; they know that this nation deserves to be able to look to the future and think they have a government that is going to take them to a better place. They know that this Labor government is not going to do that in any way, shape or form. It is really sad. I actually find it really sad, as a wife and mother, to look at the shambles of this government, that my children have to watch, ruining what is the best country on the planet.

As I move around regional communities—and I am sure my good colleague here Senator Ruston will be hearing exactly the same thing in her home state—I find people have no confidence. Money has just stopped moving. People do not have the confidence to invest or the confidence to spend because under this Labor government they have no idea what part of the shambles is going to come next. They have no idea what is around the next corner and they have no confidence to do anything. What is happening in our regional communities in particular? Money has stopped moving around and everything is coming to a grinding halt—and it is the fault of this hopeless Labor government.

This is a Labor government that does not understand rural and regional Australia—no idea, not a clue, nada, nothing. I am not just saying that from this side of the chamber; we can see it. Every day the Labor government prove yet again that they have no idea about regional Australia, about what regional Australia needs now and in the future and what makes it tick—not a clue. It almost seems like they do not want to know. It is almost as if they do not care. Whether they think not enough people out there are ever going to vote for them and we are not worth worrying about, I do not know. Maybe it is just a complete inability to understand it, and not enough sense and sensibility to actually try and figure it out. When we look at some of the actions of this Labor government, it is absolutely appalling the disrespect with which they treat regional Australia and the lack of ability to try and put in place any kind of policy determination that will improve the lives of regional people.

Colleagues, we only have to look at the snap live export ban that the government put in place on the cattle trade to Indonesia. If there has ever been a more stupid decision by a government—no, actually there have been quite a lot from this government so I do not think I can say that, but that one was of note as particularly breathtaking. The government responded to an email campaign from people who so often had absolutely no idea how the live export trade worked, what was actually happening and what those people were doing, particularly in the north of the country. They had no idea, and yet we saw that absolutely knee-jerk reaction from the Labor government to put in place a live export ban: 'Snap! Gee, we'll do that!'—and Julia Gillard and her agriculture minister in the Labor government decimated the lives of so many people across northern Australia. It just seems they simply did not care. And it was not just the cattle producers; this was far-reaching. All those people in the community, all those people who ran businesses that relied on the trade, all those people who were involved in producing hay for people involved in the trade, all those flow-on businesses and flow-on practices—all of them were affected because of the live export ban.

Colleagues, do you know what the Prime Minister said recently at the Press Club when she was asked about this? She made some reflection about having to respond when there is an overwhelming call from the people out there. They are not her exact words—I do not want to verbal the Prime Minister—but they were along those lines. She basically said, 'Well, I had to do something in response,' and she thought it was better, rather than affect the industry long term, to have some 'short-term disruption'. The Prime Minister of this country, having decimated the lives of people and those in the communities around those cattle producers, termed it 'short-term disruption'. That is appalling. If that does not show a complete disregard for rural Australia and the people in it, I do not know what does.

Recently the Prime Minister said that, under the carbon tax, the dairy industry was not only going to survive but it was going to thrive. I do not know if the Prime Minister is completely disconnected from what is happening in rural Australia, just does not care or both, but it is tragic to have a Prime Minister so incompetent as to not actually understand the effect of government policy on different sectors. That is just appalling. And this from the Prime Minister who said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' but then, lo and behold, what do we get? We get a carbon tax. You cannot trust a single thing this Labor government says.

People in regional Australia are feeling so left out, left behind and disregarded by this Labor government everywhere I go, probably no more so than in the area of education. This Labor government have been appalling when it comes to trying to provide some equity for regional students in access to education. I use the word 'appalling' deliberately. I cannot think of a more appropriate word than appalling. When we look at the track record of this Labor government when it comes to regional students, there is absolutely no way that this government can possibly understand the inequity for regional students in accessing tertiary education. Indeed, in 2010 we saw the government make some sweeping changes to the youth allowance system. Some of them were, as I said at the time, good initiatives, but during that process the government came up with a change in policy that treated regional students unfairly. It took a year and a half before this stupid government realised that they had made a mistake and were treating regional students unfairly, finally doing a backflip and reinstating those students in the inner regional areas to equitable criteria when it comes to accessing independent youth allowance. It took 18 months to reverse something that should never, ever have happened in the first place.

I see Senator Back at the other end of the chamber is nodding his head and I will take that nod as an interjection because I know how very clearly Senator Back understands this issue. I know that in Western Australia, like everywhere else across this nation, this issue is burning regional families. Indeed, I got an email from a family in regional Western Australia just a couple of weeks ago pointing out the inequities in the current system and the huge difficulties they were facing just trying to educate their children. The Prime Minister keeps talking about equity in education, but it is clearly yet another thing you cannot believe from this Prime Minister. If she truly meant that then she would have fixed at least some of the problems for regional students accessing education.

The issue for regional students is the fact that so many of them have no choice whatsoever but to relocate to attend university or further education. That comes at a huge cost; the evidence shows it is around $20,000 to $30,000. This is the issue: those regional students who have to relocate have that huge financial burden, but city students who do not have to relocate do not have that financial burden. That, colleagues, is the issue of inequity for the regional students.

This government simply does not get it. I think they somehow think everybody living out in the bush is a rich farmer earning millions of dollars and can send their kids off to uni, thank you very much. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet we see this government put in place a $150,000 parental income test cap on independent youth allowance for those students who go do a gap year, work hard for a year and prove themselves independent of their parents. And the government puts on a parental income test cap. They say to these students who have been out working flat out for a year—or would if they could—'Oh, sorry. If your parents earn $150,000 combined before tax then, sorry, you're not even eligible to apply. Forget about it. Go figure out some other way to get the extra funding you need to go off to university. Oh, by the way: those city students who can stay home? They're fine.' And good luck to them. That is terrific and fine for them, but they do not have that financial burden.

How dare this government say to our regional students, who work so hard going through the proper processes of the only mechanism that is available for them in so many areas to get some financial assistance to go on to tertiary education: 'By the way, we think that, if your parents earn $150,000 combined before tax, they can foot the bill for you.' It is not a welfare measure. Dependent youth allowance is a welfare measure. Independent youth allowance is not. The parental income test cap should not be there. It is illogical. It should not be part of the criteria for independent youth allowance. We are, effectively, talking a school teacher and a police officer in a regional area: their child does not qualify for the ability to go work their tail off for a year to qualify under that criteria for independent youth allowance.

This government has thrown so many regional students on the scrap heap that it is just astounding. When we look at the debt and the $7 billion a year in interest payments because of this government's complete inability to run the country, it is no wonder those regional families are absolutely desperate and gobsmacked that this government cannot find the money to get rid of the cap that they should never have put on independent youth allowance in the first place. It is so wrong.

These regional students deserve better. They deserve a fair go. They deserve a fair crack at the equity of education that the Prime Minister keeps talking about. It is so wrong and not fair. Why would a professional in a regional area stay in that regional area when they have huge costs of having to send their students away? As one professional in a regional town said to me a while ago: 'I've got three daughters. Two of them are off at university. I've got another one coming that's going to be off at university in a year or two. I could move back to Sydney, get paid more and not have the financial cost of having to send my children away to university. Why would I stay in a regional town?' He said, 'I stay here because we love it'. There are so many professionals now talking to me saying exactly the same thing. This is not just an issue of regional students going off to tertiary education, this is an issue of the future sustainability of the workforce in our regions. This government is threatening the future sustainability of our regions every single day.

This government knows having that cap on independent Youth Allowance is wrong. In my view—and in the Nationals' view—we should have a tertiary access allowance so that students have that equity and have that ability to get some financial assistance so they can go to university on a level footing with their city cousins. Why should regional students be disadvantaged simply because of where they live; it is not fair and it is about time this government woke up and realised what they are doing to regional students and their families. People out there in the communities work so hard, and are the backbone of this nation—whether they be on-farm or in small business or working in so many different fields and areas that we see in rural Australia—and yet this Labor government could not care less. I say that in the true knowledge that it is the case, because otherwise they would have fixed it. They are not even going down the track of coming up with a better system for students, which they are crying out for and which absolutely needs to happen to give them some equity of access to education. This government will not even try to fix the mess that they have already created and have already got in place.

Why should these students not have the same fair crack at a decent education that city students do? Only around 33 per cent of regional students go on to tertiary education—compared with 55 per cent in the cities—and all the evidence shows that it is because of the financial burden that these students and their families face because they have no choice but to relocate; it is not rocket science. I simply do not understand why the government cannot get what they are doing to these regional students and their families. When we see this government do things like selling the parliamentary billiard tables for $5,000 and then spend $102,000 determining whether or not they got value for money, it is not surprising that these families are despairing of this Labor government ever understanding regional or rural Australia. It is no surprise that there is no confidence out there in those communities. Rural Australia has the most amazing opportunities ahead of it; the people in those communities have the most amazing opportunities ahead of them as well. Rural Australia is the most fantastic place in the world to live, and people out there can only hope that they will eventually have a government that will see that and finally give them some vision to a decent future.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2012-2013 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2012-2013. From an economic and fiscal perspective, I think that the government's primary purpose is to make sure that we have got an economy that is able to generate income so that we can afford to have all the things that a socially responsible society seeks to deliver to its people. To be spending money that we do not have, or to spend money that has been borrowed without any sensible plan for economic growth, seems to me a very irresponsible way to be approaching our fiscal and budgetary situation in this country. Soon we will be using all of our income to pay the interest on our debt, and that is unsustainable. We all know, from our own personal household budgets, that when you get to the extent where you are paying so much on your loans and your credit cards—and anything else that you have managed to rack up, your department store credits and the like—eventually you get to the stage where you have to do something about what is going out, because otherwise you are not going to be able to achieve any benefits. If we want to be a society that has all of those public and social benefits that should be afforded to a nation that is as rich as Australia is, then we have got to start addressing issues of debt and deficit so that we can start spending the money that we are generating from income on things that are really positive—things that people in Australia actually want to have—and all of those lovely things that I know that I, for one, would like to see happen. I would like to see the National Disability Insurance Scheme funded; I would like to see our dental scheme funded; I would like to think that, for people who are not able to look after themselves for whatever reason, there is enough money in the barrel at the end of the week so that they can get some benefit, because they are not able to have as fair and as nice a life as those of us who have the luxury of having a good job. Unfortunately, if we do not have any money because we have spent it all on interest payments—and there will be, in the future, no money left to be able to pay these things—that is not a country that I want to live in; that is not a society that I want to live in and I am sure that it is not a society that anybody in this chamber wants to live in.

The most obvious example of the lack of productive spending of money that could be put to better use was the economic stimulus package. Australia, and particularly regional Australia at the moment, is crying out for productive infrastructure: roads, port upgrades, water delivery efficiencies—there are so many things that we could be spending money on, in terms of infrastructure, that would easily have great benefit across the whole of Australia. I look back with great pride at the Snowy Mountains Scheme, when that was put in, and I think everybody in Australia was terribly proud of the fact that we were world leaders in our infrastructure development for that particular project. Where are our Snowy Mountains Schemes on the books at the moment? Where are the things that we should be doing and spending our money on so that we can allow our primary producers and our people who live in the regions—the people who produce the income and who are actually productive in this country—to be successful?

As well as this infrastructure, we would also be providing an ongoing legacy for Australia into the future. This would be instead of spending this money like we saw with the stimulus package and a number of other things. It was a quick fix to a problem—an easy vote-buying thing. If you pop $1,000 in somebody's bank account they are probably going to be more likely to want to vote for you at the next election. Unfortunately, at the moment, with times as tough as they are, people only see to the next pay cheque or the next amount of money. And I understand people's response to getting $1,000 into their bank accounts: it is all terribly nice. But what of our responsibility as legislators to try and develop a system where we are actually providing something for the future of our country?

There are a couple of specific issues that I would like to highlight in this regard. For instance, Building the Education Revolution. In the electorate in which I live we have a special school for children who have special needs. For some unknown reason, the South Australian government built this school on the side of a hill. As you would probably all well know, a lot of children with disabilities are actually in wheelchairs, so putting it on a steep slope was a pretty silly place to put it. Eventually, they got an approval to move this school to a flat area. However, they had been given the money for their school shelter. When they asked if they could actually defer the expenditure of the money for their school shelter until they moved to their new site, they were told that they could not. Hence, we have this lovely new school shelter built on a site that no longer houses the children of the Riverland Special School.

Another Building the Education Revolution project that I am very disappointed to say has gone by the wayside was the Queensland School for Travelling Show Children. This is a school for the children of the showmen who provide the sideshows and the rides at all of the shows around Australia. I am not sure if this house is aware, but there are 6,000 people moving around the country each year in the show family—the moving show town that goes around the country. Of these 6,000 people there are actually about 65 children of school age.

A number of years ago there was an amount of money graciously made available to this particular show school by the members opposite—it was a Labor Party initiative—which saw the provision of a prime mover and a classroom so that these people could take their school with them and employ a teacher to be able to provide the education for these students. I particularly draw to the house's attention the need for a teacher to be associated with this travelling school, as opposed to using distance education. That is because many of the people who work on these sideshows are illiterate; the parents will tell you quite willingly that they are very desperate to ensure that they have a teacher with these students because they do not themselves have the capacity to be able to provide the oversight in education for their children.

When the decision was made by the Queensland government that they were no longer in a position to be able to pay for the entire education of all of these show children, despite the fact that many of them did not actually reside in Queensland, we sought to try and find a way that they could keep their classroom, their prime mover and their teacher on the road. The Queensland government generously agreed to provide distance education support for this to continue, but for some strange and wondrous reason the New South Wales and Victorian governments have been asked to stump up $300,000 to pay for the prime mover and the classroom, which have already been allocated to the show school.

One would actually have to question why we have the situation where we have already paid for them and now we are going to have to pay for them again. Right now, as I stand in this chamber, the children of the travelling show school do not have their classroom and they do not have their prime mover. The cost of the teacher who is travelling with them at the moment is being paid by the parents because there has been no provision made in any budget to be able to afford this teacher. I think that is really very sad, because these people have just as much right as anybody else to have an education—particularly given that they have admitted the parents do not have the capacity to be able to help their children through their education classes.

Another area that is of extreme concern to us, and which was touched on quite significantly by Senator Nash, is in relation to primary industries. Australia used to be considered a world leader in innovation and technology in research and development. It was our competitive advantage; it was the reason Australia was so successful during the sixties, seventies and eighties as a primary producer. In the seventies we used to export our irrigation technology to places like Israel. Israel, very cleverly, took that technology and innovation and applied it in their own arid climate, which is very similar to ours, and now we see that most of the irrigation technology that is being exported around the world is actually coming out of Israel and not out of Australia.

This is because we have reduced the amount of funding and the incentives that we are putting in place for people to pursue research and development, innovation and technology within the primary industries sector. I can remember the Loxton Research Centre, which was a research centre in the community in which I live. We were considered one of the most important horticultural research centres in the world. Quite often, some of the findings of the research activity at this centre would lead to the development of new techniques in production and new varietal types that could meet the conditions—particularly things like growing crops with less water. Surely, but surely, the sense of that must have been borne out by the issues with the water restrictions placed on the Murray-Darling Basin in the recent drought. Research and development was such an important part of the history of the development of the primary production sector in this country, and it seems very tragic that we are now seeing that whole sector contract.

Another area that is probably having as much impact at the moment is the cost recovery model as it is being implemented. Along with everybody else, I accept the fact that cost recovery is probably something that we are going to have to live with into the future. As a primary producer I probably would prefer that we did not have it, but if we are going to put in cost recovery measures, at the same time we also have to make sure that our supply chain efficiencies and the application of the things that government needs to do must be absolutely at their most efficient. We are not seeing that. I noted with the introduction of the cost-recovery model from AQIS into the export activities of Australian producers of recent times that $127 million was agreed in order to put in supply chain efficiency measures so that when full cost recovery came into play these measures would offset to a large degree the amount of money that exporters would be required to pay to export product. What we now see, as we stand here today, is that we are nearly at the end of that $127 million. It appears as if the exporters have not received very much in the way of supply chain efficiencies to offset the cost of export. Yet, in a minute, we are going to have to bear the full burden of cost recovery.

It is really important that we understand the value of exporters. We seem to have forgotten somehow that exporters are probably the most important thing that we have in this country, because these guys are the positive side of our balance of trade figures. If we do not support exporters and we end up being a net importer, it does not take very long to realise where all of that ends up. It ends up in exactly the same place as living on borrowed money. We need to generate income in our country and we need to export the products that we are producing so that we can get new money back into this country. That is what has made this country so rich and prosperous in the past and it is very important that we continue to take that economic approach to how we deal with Australian production into the future.

We need to get rid of red tape as well. I have a couple of examples of recent bills—the ag and vet bill and the biosecurity amendment bill, that is currently before us—that have come through this House which were supposedly going to reduce red tape and reduce the burden on industry, particularly on primary industry. I cannot see how a bill that is supposed to reduce the burden on industry, that is going to cost the industry more in a situation of cost recovery, cannot possibly be a burden on industry. It beggars belief that you would actually be bothered generating a bill to try to decrease the burden that, intrinsically, will increase the cost and ultimately increase the burden on producers.

As mentioned by Senator Nash and others before her, a number of things have exacerbated the problem following the knee-jerk reactions we have seen and the changing of government policy which is increasing our sovereign risk. It is starting to get really quite scary in this country in the sense that nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next. You only have to look at the knee-jerk reaction to the ban on live exporting and to the fishing licence of the Margirisor the Abel Tasman. It actually gets quite scary because the problem who is ultimately going to pay? Once again, we have got a situation where a government policy is actually going to end up costing the taxpayers of Australia. I am absolutely sure that the owners of the Abel Tasman are not going to go away without seeking compensation for something that they entered into—a legally binding obligation with the Australian government to allow them to do something that then got changed by legislation. Legally, these guys have got a right to recompense for the costs that have been associated with the change. We need to stop wasting money and we need to start spending money that is productive, money that will actually generate further income and further productivity, and be of benefit to the whole of Australia into the future.

The Prime Minister issued her Australia in the Asian century white paper not that long ago. This morning, I met with Austrade and a number of their Asian representatives, and it is a really exciting story. If you look at the opportunities that reside in Asia at the moment for Australian businesses not just agricultural businesses but service industries and supply industries, there are myriad opportunities out there. Food is one of the very, very important ones. It was interesting to note in some of the conversations how the small percentage of their own calorie requirements is that many of these countries produce. Australia is sitting here with the massive opportunity, with the production ability, with all of the primary resources, with the technology, with the know-how and with the farmers. We could actually take the huge opportunity that the Asian century provides for us into the future if only we started spending our money more smartly and we started investing in the infrastructure that we need to be able to get our products from the farm gate onto the tables of Asia.

Before I finish, I would just like to quickly touch on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and a particular infrastructure project that is currently trying to be progressed in the Riverland of South Australia. I refer to the Chowilla regulator. Only today, it has become apparent that when the Chowilla regulator comes into being—the Chowilla regulator is on Chowilla Creek, a creek that bypasses the main river system at Lock 6 above Renmark—it will actually flood 10,000 hectares of land in Chowilla itself. Chowilla is a property owned by the Robertson-Chowilla family trust and it appears now as if no agreement has ever been reached with the owners of Chowilla in relation to the compensation that they believe is payable to them for the inundation of the 10,000 hectares of land, which they currently use for grazing. Anybody who knows that area of the river will realise that the value of the grazing lands on the floodplain is much, much more significant than the rest of the land that belongs to this particular property.

We now have a situation of a complete and utter stand-off between the owners of the Chowilla station and the government, both the South Australian government and the federal department, in relation to the construction of this regulator. The estimated cost for the construction of the regulator when it was first put in was $43.2 million. It now appears as if it is going to be in excess of $61 million and this is before any compensation is paid to the owners of the property. Once again, surely somebody should be made accountable for the fact that we now have this ridiculous issue of compensation that could have been avoided had it actually been managed properly in the first place.

Another one that is concerning is the Water Industry Alliance—$265 million was promised by Minister Burke just before Christmas and it now seems that $25 million of this $265 million has disappeared. I do not know where it has gone, perhaps it has gone to administration in the department, I am not really sure. It is quite terrifying to see that things are not being dealt with properly in the first place and, in the end, the taxpayers of Australia have to pay for the bungles that have occurred. If they were managed properly in the first place, this situation would never have occurred.

In speaking to this bill, I suggest that a little more efficient and effective management of the government's limited resources and the application of those resources to productive use that actually go to the long-term benefit and the long-term productivity of this country would be a much better use of our resources than spending it on things like compensation. (Time expired)

Sitting suspended from 18:30 to 19 : 30

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is appropriate to be debating the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2012-2013 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2012-2013 tonight because of the significant events that happened in parts of Europe over the weekend. But before I address them specifically, I would like to talk about appropriation briefly. An appropriation bill is effectively a spending bill. It is a bill which governments put forward so they can procure money and spend the money as they see fit. It is in effect an allocation of taxpayers' resources that will determine the demands of government from taxpayers in the future and, if taxpayers cannot fulfil them, they will be demands of the government to borrow money.

In reference to borrowing, there is a significant difference between the debt that is accumulated in the private sector and the debt that is accumulated in the public sector. The private sector has inherent within the system normal checks and balances. The mistakes effectively become self-correcting because over time people recognise that they cannot continue to borrow their way to prosperity. They end up stopping borrowing money because the repayments get too high and they get too much. They reduce their spending or they go broke. When they go broke, there are consequences of that—the creditors lose out and the borrowers lose out. This is exactly what has been happening right around the world within the private sector since the global financial crisis.

Unfortunately, governments around the world, including this government, seem to have a different idea of how debt works. They seem to think that it is okay to continue to borrow and borrow and borrow, which is effectively mortgaging the taxpayer receipts and the taxpayer obligations of tomorrow and the next generation in order to satisfy some needs and wants of today. This is not normal. This is aberrant behaviour. It can only be achieved ultimately by repaying debts. But there is no sliver of hope that this government or indeed many other governments around the world have any chance of repaying their debts without debasing or devaluing their currency.

In the case of the Australian government, it is of enormous concern. We had over 12 years of coalition economic management with $96 billion worth of national debt accumulated by a previous Labor government—and $96 billion of national debt was paid off. The balance sheet, if you will, of our nation was effectively better than debt free. It had no net debt and, as has been discussed, there was the bond market that continued but it was offset for the same amount of money to balance that out. There was also a significant amount of savings through the Future Fund and through a number of other investment assets that we had.

I regret to say that a $20 billion surplus in the final year of the Howard government has now morphed over the last five years into a $50 billion-plus deficit. Every single year of this government and the previous Labor government under Mr Rudd has put forward a deficit. I understand that the global financial crisis did impact government revenues—of course I do—but I also understand that this government's spending has increased at a rate of knots which is almost unprecedented over the last five years.

I am pleased that Senator Wong is here, because Senator Wong and some of her colleagues have made a great deal about the proportion of taxation receipts by this government as a comparison of gross domestic product, comparing it with previous administrations, most notably, the Howard-Costello administration. At the moment the government claims that it is taxing about 22 per cent of GDP, and I will not dispute that figure. Over the 12 years or so of the coalition government, the taxation measures and revenue averaged about 23 per cent of GDP. So notionally it is higher.

But conveniently for the government and for Senator Wong and others, they forget or omit the nearly four or five per cent of GDP which has been borrowed every single year. That is $50-odd billion that is borrowed that the government are spending. If they were not borrowing that money, they would have to be taxing the Australian people and, as a percentage of GDP, we would be faced with 27 or 28 per cent of our national economy. That is simply too high. Even the most balanced economists would say that working towards 20 per cent of GDP for taxation is an admirable destination for anyone to strive towards.

So as the private sector have been reconciling and reckoning with themselves about the over-extension of their own loans and winding them back and deleveraging, as it is called in the economic world, we have governments all around the world, not least of all our own government, extending their leverage. Our government is continuing to borrow on the assumption that they will never have to pay it back. I think we have to go back over 100 years to find any Labor government that has ever paid any of its debt back.

It is a big worry, because it means that if we are having growth in our economy of around two-and-a-bit per cent—sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less, and we have wavered with virtually zero per cent growth—and yet the government is borrowing about five per cent of GDP, you can only draw the conclusion that the government is throwing money at things and getting absolutely no result. We have seen bucketloads of waste and I cannot describe it any better than that—bucketloads of waste. We have seen it with pink batts and school halls and the NBN and on and on it goes, fiasco after fiasco. The government will dress it up in any manner of ways.

They will say, 'We are protecting jobs; we are creating jobs; we are doing this.' The simple fact is that they have wasted tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Tens of billions of dollars that we would not otherwise have to borrow, repay or mortgage the future of our children have been absolutely wasted.

The demographics of this country are such that make this problem far more acute than it might hitherto have been in previous years because we have an increasing number of people who are looking forward to retirement. Of course, we have the government tinkering with their superannuation entitlements and the entitlements they believe they have accrued over of the course of time. We are going to have increasing demands on health care, yet this government is driving people out of the private system into the public system. We are going to have fewer people actually working, as a percentage of our domestic population. That means the burden of providing for all of these services and repaying these debts is going to fall upon an ever-diminishing number of people.

In a global environment where the movement of people is as free as the movement of capital, people will choose to relocate where there is more opportunity, there are lower taxes and more economic freedom without the coercive strains of government. It is extraordinary that, on one hand, the government acknowledge this. Just last year they were talking about how they needed to repay debt and, I think, over 500 times they said that the budget would be returning to surplus. Since then, the refrain has obviously changed, and they are saying that revenue has been diminished. Anyone worth their weight in economic nous knew that the government were not going to deliver a surplus. The denial may not just be a river in Egypt on the other side of the chamber; we confront reality on this side of the chamber.

We have recognised that the government could not lie straight in bed. They do not have any idea about what they are talking about. They will say and do anything in order to cover up their own falsities and naivety. Naivety is a generous word, because I do not think they are naive, I think they are systematically willing to misrepresent and distort the truth. They call savings measures in their budgets extra taxes or they call extra taxes savings measures. They continue to spend more than they earn and say they are doing it under the guise of fairness or equity, which is simply a misnomer. You cannot have fairness, social justice or economic justice when you cannot pay your own bills.

It has been said—I have heard the titters on the other side of the chamber early tonight about Australia's credit rating—that compared with much of the Western world we are doing pretty well. That is because we started in a far better spot. We did not have $4 trillion or $8 trillion worth of debt like the Americas did in 2007. We had none. Now we have about $250 billion worth. We were not like the UK where they had had a decade of Labour. We had had a decade of conservative rule. That meant we had money in the bank and savings for the future. We were not like Europe. Unfortunately, the European experiment was to continue to make the masses dependent upon government and to continue to encroach on their freedoms, economies, family life and determine what they can think and how they can do it. All of a sudden they have realised that they can no longer pay their bills.

What happens in an environment like that? In the case of the European Central Bank, it is now forcing its will upon nations like Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Most recently, on the weekend, we had a fiscal appropriation which, if not done by a government, would be called a crime in any other context. That was in Cyprus when the government unilaterally declared, under ECB direction, that any deposits in banks would be subject to a tax. Deposits under 100,000 euros would be subject to a 6.75 per cent tax. If you had over 100,000 euros in the bank, they are immediately reduced by 9.9 per cent. People had no choice in this matter. It is an upfront, one-off levy for insured accounts, to raise about $6 billion. This is an outrageous transgression on the savings of ordinary people not just those in Cyprus but also offshore investors who have their money in Cypriot banks.

It serves as a glaring warning to everyone around the world who thinks that governments will continue to act in a recognisable, predictable and sustainable manner. They will not as they become increasingly desperate to prop-up their own failings. That is why we cannot afford to have a government that continues to spend beyond its means. What happened in Cyprus may happen in other countries around the world. It could happen, under extraordinary circumstances, in Australia. We have seen a government unilaterally impose levies for any manner of justifications in order to achieve social justice or fairness. But what we are defending when you defend that sort of thing is a crime if it was committed by anyone other than a government. That is something, I think, that should concern us all.

If we are prepared to allow our politicians to ride roughshod over our political and economic liberty, the question is: 'Where will it end?' Unfortunately, the illusion that governments like the one we have in this country sustain is that there is a bottomless pit of money and that they can continue to manufacture and make promises that neither make economic sense or sense in social reform, but they feel that they are doing something and it will keep people happy. Giving people more money only makes them more dependent on and expectant of more money. They believe that they are entitled to things because, over time, the government have systematically attacked personal liberty and individual freedom.

It has done so in Europe, it is happening in America and it is now happening in this country. They were so successful in re-engineering the social and economic compact in this country that people have become very passive. They think that if we are sharing the burden, everyone is paying a bit more and the wealthier are paying a bit more than them, we are better off. It is the same as the illusion of inflation in economics. People think the prices of the assets they own—their houses and things of that nature—are going up but the reality is they are being robbed.

Right around the world we are seeing inflationary policies in the form of money printing. We are seeing inflationary policies in this country in the form of borrowing. The only way we are going to repay the $250 billion debt in this country is to resource some fiscal sovereignty which the government are completely unable to perform. That is demonstrated by the five years of governance that they have had. Other countries are actually printing money and that is a recipe for disaster.

The great challenge for us is not to appropriate more money than the taxpayers believe we should have. The great challenge for all in this place is to say: 'Let's spend within our means, let's not promise taxes and spend money that is expected to be raised from those taxes before it has been brought in.' Our challenge is to reduce taxation, not to increase it, to reduce the reliance on government and increase our trust and faith in the Australian people about their self-reliance and their community reliance. We should be empowering community organisations rather than trying to limit their scope. We should be providing schools, parents and school children with choices rather than dictating what they can and cannot do. The lessons of socialism, whether they are dressed up in its new guise and new cloak or under the guise of old style socialism, are there for everyone to see. Eventually you will run out of money. Either the borrower is going to lose it or the people are going to lose it. In this case, we are seeing a government in this country that really has no respect for future generations. It is only concerned with trying to buy a political fix for its fiscal ineptitude.

That is why I have concerns about the appropriation bills that are coming through. I do not believe that the Australian people believe that their taxpayer money is being spent wisely. I do not believe that they can look at the cost-of-living increases in electricity, water, gas, education and medical and hospital services and say, 'The government should be taxing us more while we are paying more for these things.' I do not believe that the Australian people should be expected to accept a politician promising not to introduce a tax and then put up with a mealy-mouthed excuse about whether it is a tax or not with its introduction just the same, increasing the burden on the ordinary consumer and businesses in this country.

Just today we have learned that 900-odd businesses a month are going into administration, partly due to the carbon tax imposition. We have had these faceless men—the likes of Paul Howes, who promised he would resign if one job was lost due to the carbon tax. Paul Howes is still sitting there in his multi hundred thousand dollar a year job environment and doing his Women's Weekly interviews. This is a travesty. A group of people in this place and outside of it are running the country into an environment that we have not seen in 40 or so years. Every year of poor government, debt, deficit and waste is going to take three years to rectify. That is the ready reckoning that the business community tell me. That is the ready reckoning that experienced politicos tell me. You have to make changes incrementally that are going to be in the interest of the nation.

Let me assure the people of Australia that the coalition is committed to making changes to the way this country is governed. It is not about making radical social reforms or social engineering; it is about producing a prosperous, sustainable economy. It is about looking after the environment in a measured and economic way. It is about supporting the strength of families because government can never—and should never try to—replicate or reproduce the benefits of what a family can provide because we will go broke doing so. Nothing will replace the bond and social support structure a family has.

We will restore the culture of entrepreneurship, the thought that if you take a risk you will be rewarded if it comes off. The reward will flow through the economy by providing jobs to dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of Australians as the pie grows and is shared. In the old days it used to be that you produced something and then you could trade it. Now the government just wants to give everything to people, not telling them they are going to have to pay for it very soon. That pay day and ready reckoning are very strong and they are coming. (Time expired)

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

I rise to bring the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2012-2013 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2012-2103 to a close. I thank all senators for their contribution to the debate. These bills seek authority from the parliament for the additional expenditure of moneys from the consolidated revenue fund to meet requirements that have arisen since the last budget. The total additional appropriation being sought through these bills this year is just over $1.27 billion.

I would like to respond to some of the remarks made in the debate on these bills. First in relation to the spending associated with this bill, I note that, notwithstanding the contribution particularly of coalition senators that they want to stop spending, they did not actually indicate on which aspect of these bills they did not agree with expenditure. I refer to the fact, for example, that a significant component of the spend includes additional childcare payments, support for the childcare system program and increased demand for the Jobs, Education and Training Child Care Fee Assistance Program and the family day care program. The bill also appropriates additional moneys for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations to support increased claims for assistance under the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme. It also appropriates moneys for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, which I thought the coalition were in fact supporting. This is the difficulty with the coalition's position on this bill and generally: they talk tough about savings, but they never actually tell Australians the truth about what their position is on those.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look at our track record!

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

I am interested—the interjection from the coalition over there is, 'Look at our track record'. The track record in this term of parliament is a coalition team that have never once got their costings right. The track record in this parliament is talking tough but voting against savings measures. It is extraordinary; you are actually opposing the savings measures associated with the baby bonus. You are actually opposing that. There is a lot of chest-beating around savings measures, but they do not actually want to tell people what their cuts would actually be.

I think it is important to put on the record, given some of the contributions, which were interesting to say the least, some of the economic facts. We have an economy that is resilient in the face of global uncertainty. By international standards, our unemployment remains low and our jobs growth in this country has been at least twice as fast as any of the major advanced economies over the past five years. The economy is continuing to grow—more than 13 per cent since Labor came to office—and I have made the point in this chamber a number of times: that is against the backdrop of a range of advanced economies that have not even got back to the starting line.

What do all these facts add up to? It means Australia avoided the extent of hardship for families, skills destruction and unemployment that were experienced and are still being experienced by so many during the global financial crisis. But it is the case that the nation faces economic headlands, and one of the big challenges we face in the budget context is continued hits to government revenues. This weakness was demonstrated in the January monthly statements, which I released last week, which showed a continued fall in government revenues with over $6 billion less received to the end of the January than what was forecast in the mid-year review. And for those who follow these matters, the mid-year review itself also indicated a write-down in revenue from what was anticipated at budget.

Now the coalition do not like to discuss this fact, and they like to pretend that this is all an issue of the government. This is an economic policy challenge for the nation that parliamentarians, that parties of government in particular, will have to address and no amount of political rhetoric can push it aside. The figures that I released reinforce the position taken by the Treasurer in December that tax receipts are well below forecast, mainly due to the substantial hit on company profits primarily as a result of the high Australian dollar and falling commodity prices as well as continued global economic uncertainty.

Nominal GDP growth has been below real GDP growth in through-the-year terms for three successive quarters. That is the first time this has occurred in over 50 years. So in the 50 years since the national accounts have been recorded by the ABS—the Australian Bureau of Statistics—we have not seen what we are seeing currently, which is nominal GDP—that is, growth in the value of GDP being below real GDP to this extent. It is a highly unusual circumstance and it is flowing through to lower government revenues and comes on top of the revenue write-downs that the federal government experienced as a result of the global financial crisis, which come to around $160 billion.

The statements also make clear, despite the rhetoric of those opposite, that spending restraint continues and payments for the year to date are in line with the mid-year review forecasts of underlying cash payments. We are managing the budget responsibly. Responsible budgeting means promoting growth and jobs and the government have made clear our plans for a smarter Australia and a fairer Australia and ensuring that we do not leave Australians in different parts of the country, or in different circumstances, behind as the economy changes and adjusts to the Asian century.

Of course the government's clear plans for the future do compare with those opposite. We did find out over the weekend that it appears the opposition have been bunkered down with the right-wing think tank IPA hatching their plans for deep and savage cuts.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, Penny.

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

I will take the interjection from Senator Fifield of 'Hear, hear'.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I said, 'Oh, Penny'.

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

Well, it sounded like, 'Hear, hear' to me, but if I am incorrect, Senator—

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are.

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

I will cop that on the chin. As you know, I can do that—which is something you might want to mention to Senator Brandis on occasion. Cuts that are on the list, which, according to the IPA, are the sorts of things that shadow ministers and the coalition think are a good idea, include: the cancellation of the first stage of the National Disability Insurance Scheme—a bill that I understand the Senate will be debating shortly; the abolition of Fair Work Australia and Safe Work Australia; a reduction in the general research budget by 40 per cent; cutting all Commonwealth housing programs; cutting all foreign aid, excluding emergency aid; and privatising the ABC. These savings amount to $23.5 billion and they give an insight into the sorts of drastic cuts that are being contemplated by the coalition in order to fill their $70 billion budget black hole. The sadness, and the outrage, is that a party that wish to form government are refusing to tell the Australian people the truth about what their plans are. I think Australians are entitled to know that.

This bill, as I said, seeks appropriation authority from the parliament to provide expenditure on the ordinary annual services of government in the terms that I have outlined. I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.