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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Di Natale today relating to industry assistance.

I would like to respond to the answers given by Minister Cormann on the National Commission of Audit, or, as some people have described it, the 'Tony Abbott razor gang'. I actually welcome the comments by Minister Hockey that the age of entitlement is over, that we are going to see an end to corporate welfare and that we are going to have a discussion about whether it is sustainable in the current climate to continue with huge industry handouts. The government have made their approach clear when it comes to the motor vehicle industry. They have also made their priorities clear when it comes to SPC. The impact of those changes in those industries are obviously quite significant to the ordinary workers of Shepparton and, in fact, my part of the country in Victoria.

What we need is some consistency. We have to get some consistency because if we are going to talk about corporate welfare it is impossible to ignore the largesse that exists in the mining industry, for example, where we see a huge range of handouts and tax concessions that enable that industry to continue with its windfall profits. What about the diesel fuel rebate with $8 billion over the forward estimates, and what about accelerated depreciation of assets worth $1.8 billion over the forward estimates? What about accelerated depreciation on exploration worth $4 billion over the forward estimates? There are billions of dollars in the form of corporate welfare to the mining industry and yet we see a government completely silent on the question of how we deal with that, and how to enable us to make the move towards not just a fiscally sustainable but an environmentally sustainable economic blueprint for the future.

What we are seeing is what we have seen right through the debate around corporate welfare: when corporate welfare exists for one of your constituents, it is important for that industry to receive those handouts. Without them, our economy would go to rack and ruin but, if industry assistance is given to one part of the economy that you may not necessarily want to support, then it is corporate welfare and the age of entitlement needs to be over, and so on. We have no consistency in this debate. What tends to happen is that one side of politics chooses who they want to support, another side chooses who they want to support, and we do not have a rational debate about the sort of country we want to be, what industries are deserving of assistance and which industries need to compete on their own terms.

Of course, most of the language at the moment is based on the question of corporate welfare and ensuring that we make substantial changes to expenditure, but it is a very one-sided debate. Completely ignored in the Commission of Audit mandate is the question of revenue. What we have heard through the inquiry into the Commission of Audit—an inquiry that I chair—is that most of the submissions we have received indicate we have a revenue problem; we do not have an expenditure problem. This is the great myth. In the terms of reference of the Commission of Audit is the notion that spending is out of control, we are not living within our means, and the Australian Public Service is bloated and inefficient, when in fact the reverse is true. What we are seeing is an attack on some of the most important services provided to vulnerable people in the country.

We have very low government spending by international standards. It has been stable for a number of decades. The number of people employed in the public service has been declining rather than increasing. In fact, if we have a problem it is on the revenue side of the ledger and not on the expenditure side of the ledger. Instead, what we are seeing is that the idea to float Medibank Private is a way of ripping more money out of the health system. Every cent from that privatisation needs to be returned to the health sector. If we do not, we will end up making cuts based on a lie and heading towards a two-tiered American-style health system where you get one level of health care for the rich and another level for the people who cannot afford it.

Question agreed to.