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

A letter has been received from Senator Moore:

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

The failure of the Abbott Government to release recommendations of the Commission of Audit and reveal its program to savage cuts to the Australian people.

Is the proposal supported?

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

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

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

I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance, 'the failure of the Abbott government to release recommendations of the Commission of Audit and reveal its program of savage cuts to the Australian people'.

It has become obvious for all to see that those on the other side, on the Liberal-National government benches, do not wish to tell the Australian people what their real policies are. It has become obvious for all to see that Mr Abbott's government wish to hide behind a so called 'independent panel'—the nasty, petty cuts that they always wanted to make. They did not tell the Australian people of the cuts that they plan to make, because they are not in our nation's interest, nor in the interest of most Australians. These cuts are in the interests of the Abbott government's mates in business. These cuts are in the interests of the Abbott government's ideological masters, who are so petty that they wish to take from the least well-off in our society, while they themselves get rich from unfair tax concessions.

The Australian people deserve the truth about what exactly this government has planned to cut, the truth they did not get told before the September election. Surely, the people of Western Australia deserve to know what is in Tony Abbott's Commission of Audit report before the WA Senate election, so Western Australians know what his government has in store for them.

Mr Hockey has had the 900 pages of the draft report, the 900 pages of cuts, since mid-February. Mr Abbott must release the report before 5 April—and well before then; he has a couple of weeks—so that the good people of Australia and the good people of Western Australia can see what he is going to cut.

And why shouldn't he release this report? If these cuts are really about Mr Abbott showing what a great economic manager he is, he should proudly reveal these cuts to the Western Australian people so that they can judge him. But he will not tell anyone before the Senate election, because he knows these cuts are going to hurt Australian families. These cuts will hurt the elderly. These cuts will hurt veterans, and their children—like Mr Abbott's stated plans to cut payments to children of ADF veterans who have been killed or injured, including children who have been orphaned. What a disgrace.

Mr Abbott and those on the Liberal-National government benches should be ashamed not only for their attacks on the most vulnerable in our society, but also for the fact that they do not even have the courage to come forward and tell the truth about which vulnerable Australians they are going to hurt and how they are going to hurt them. They should be deeply ashamed.

We, in this place, have a responsibility to govern for all Australians—not just for millionaires, not just for our mates, but for all Australians. The senators of this place, and the members of the other place, must make laws in accordance with the values held by the Australian people. Australians are a generous and caring people. We help others in need. We work hard and want to build better communities. We enjoy our weekends with friends and family, our annual leave and our sick leave. We believe everyone should have the right to high-quality health care and high-quality education—not just the rich, not just those that can afford to pay for it, but everyone—no ifs, no buts, no maybes.

This Liberal-National government believes in nothing but entrenching wealth and privilege. They want to destroy the basic social safety net that all Australians hold dear. They want to cut penalty rates, remove overtime, and hack at other basic conditions to drive down wages so their mates in business can profit further. They want to get rid of universal education and health care so those that have succeeded in society do not have to make a fair contribution back to the society they owe their success to. Unless you are rich enough to make a donation to the LNP, they do not care about you.

So what will these cuts entail? As those in the government refuse to tell us, we can only speculate. It has been reported by the Brisbane Times that the Commission of Audit has told the government to tackle the cost of the seniors card, which allows self-funded retirees to access discounts for medicines and GP visits, regardless of super income. Is this government really so heartless that they want to attack health benefits for seniors? Unfortunately they are.

The commissioners have also clearly said they are investigating the privatisation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Before the federal election, the Liberal Party said they were lock-step with the then Labor government on the NDIS, a scheme which has taken decades of hard work to develop—and now they are looking at privatising it! There was talk before the Griffith by-election in Queensland of the Liberal-National government introducing a $6 GP tax for every visit to the doctor. This mysteriously went away during the by-election and in the lead-up to the Tasmanian and South Australian elections, but I am willing to bet it will come back after the WA Senate election.

The Liberal and National parties do not believe in universal health care and they will do everything they can to undermine it. Senator Cormann says the government have no plans to sell off state assets apart from health insurer Medibank Private, although the Commission of Audit may recommend other such sales. It seems to me that the Commission of Audit is just a convenient cover for a fire sale of government assets without the Liberal-National government openly admitting that this is what they planned to do all along. Australians deserve to know what other assets will be sold.

While we can only speculate on what will be cut and what will be sold, I can tell you what the cuts will not entail. Dale Boccabella, Associate Professor of Taxation Law at the Australian School of Business at University of New South Wales, explains in his article on The Conversation website what will not be looked at by the Commission of Audit. He explains:

... there is no express reference to tax expenditures, and secretariat Peter Crone has confirmed that it will not deal with them.

... the generous tax treatment of discretionary trusts (family trusts) is not included in the tax expenditure statement… The negative gearing loss on rental properties and share investments is not included either. For 2012-13, the Commonwealth has around 280 tax expenditures ... worth around $100 billion. This is around 6% of GDP. Direct expenditure of the Commonwealth for the same period was around $360 billion, which is around 24% of GDP.

The terms of reference mean that the so-called Commission of Audit will not look at $100 billion of generous tax concessions, while cutting from the least well off.

This Commission of Audit is a sham—and we have known that all along. This is nothing but a commission of cuts and should be exposed for exactly what it is. The Australian people expect and deserve fairness from their government. They expect that, if the government are looking to cut funding to schools, to sell off Medibank Private and to install a GP tax to undermine our Medicare system, they would at least look at $100 billion of generous tax concessions that are cross-subsidised by low-income Australians.

The Australian people deserve to know why the government should give a tax offset to people wishing to minimise their tax through a family trust, while hospital services are cut. The Australian people deserve to know why none of these excessively generous tax concessions are under consideration but the Liberal-National government are ripping money away from orphans of veterans. If the government were genuine about governing for all Australians, these tax concessions would be included in the Commission of Audit's terms of reference. They were not, and the government are refusing to be open about their planned cuts.

The government are scared to tell the Australian people prior to the Western Australian Senate election what they plan to cut, because they know it will significantly reduce their vote. They did not tell them before the federal election, they did not tell Tasmanians or South Australians before those state elections, and they are not going to tell the people of Western Australia before the Western Australian election. When Western Australians go to the polls to elect their six senators, they should ask themselves one simple question: what they are voting for? Are they voting for cuts for the most vulnerable? Are they voting to begin the dismantlement of Medicare? Are they voting for the privatisation of the NDIS? If the voters of Western Australia do not know the answers to these questions—if the Liberal-National government will not tell them the answers to these questions—they should not vote for the Liberal-Nationals. It is that simple.

As I said, it has become obvious to all of us that those on the other side do not want to tell the Australian people what their real policies are. We saw that in question time here today when we could not get straight answers out of Senator Nash, and we have seen it continually in the failure of the Prime Minister to explain the Commission of Audit report and let people see what is in it. We know that the government do not want people to see what is in it, because we know that they know that if people know what is coming they will lose votes in the Western Australia Senate election. So the government are simply seeking to keep the details hidden until after that date. (Time expired)

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very, very brave exercise on the part of the Labor opposition to send a Tasmanian senator in to talk about what Western Australians should be thinking about on Saturday, 5 April. Let me share with you just a few things—

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

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I was not sent; I volunteered.

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

That is not a point of order; that is a debating point.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And a brave voluntary effort it was. I might be able to share an insight into what Western Australians might be thinking about as they approach the Senate election on 5 April. They most definitely want an improvement in the National Broadband Network. We saw a hint of the deplorable rollout of the National Broadband Network in Western Australia when my colleague Senator Fifield answered a question today from me.

Secondly, they want a carefully considered rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. There is no doubt that we are all committed to improving access to disability services for all Australians. You only have to look at the report that was released on Thursday or Friday last week that shows that more work needs to be done to get it right sooner. That is particularly important in my home state of Western Australia, where we will roll it out on 1 July this year. In addition to that—and you will have heard it very, very often because it is very, very true—they want the carbon tax repealed, they want the mining tax repealed and they want our borders strengthened. On the last three measures, the coalition government has a clear plan.

Labor have got it very, very wrong. When Western Australians hear talk about the National Commission of Audit and taking waste out of government, what do Western Australian say? They say, 'Yes; three cheers!'

There is no more powerful demonstration than Labor's focus on the National Commission of Audit to demonstrate that they do not understand Western Australia. At a time when Western Australians feel aggrieved for making such a hefty contribution to the coffers of the Australian government, Labor comes in here and says that the new government should not be reviewing expenditure. That is a very clear demonstration that they should visit Western Australia before they start talking about Western Australia.

I would just like to focus on what I call the five great myths that Labor, in their matrimonial union with the Greens, are prosecuting in regard to the National Commission of Audit. The first myth is that there is no problem in our country that we need to address through the National Commission of Audit. That is blatantly untrue, and I will come to that in one second.

The second myth is that the coalition is the only one that had a plan to reduce Australian Public Service jobs—not true. I will also come to that in a moment. I can demonstrate to you that Labor had a plan, late in its final stages of government, to reduce Australian Public Service jobs.

The third myth is that it is only the coalition that is using the efficiency dividend across the Public Service to drive greater efficiency—not true. For many years, prior to the election of the new government, the Labor government had an efficiency dividend and, what is more, on two separate occasions it had a one-off increase of two per cent. And I will come to that point in a moment.

The fourth myth is that somehow, in some way, this new government is keeping the 900-page document a secret. As we know, from the Henry tax review and from other matters of government, it is not unusual for governments to take their time to consider reports or inquiries. What will be unique about this government's timeliness in addressing or inquiring into this National Commission of Audit is that it will feed into the May budget process. It is just 48 days until we see the first coalition budget. What is more, Labor's leader in the Senate, Senator Wong, said only last week that, yes, they took time to consider the Henry tax review. Why? Because they needed time to consider it.

The fifth myth that is being prosecuted by Labor and the Greens is that the only way to address our budget dilemma is to raise taxes. I do not know about you, Mr Deputy President, and I do not know about others, but I would like to look at ways of correcting our budget emergency in this country other than slugging Australian families and Australian businesses with more tax.

So let me go to the first myth, and that is that there is no problem. That is blatantly incorrect and ignorant and blind to the facts. What we know is that in our country real incomes have been falling since the second half of 2011. What we know is that there are declining terms of trade for our country, which means there is a slowing economic growth rate. More than that, we know that not I and not my parents but certainly my nephews and nieces and future generations have been handcuffed by the structural deficits that have been put in place by the former government. There is clearly a problem.

Kevin Rudd boasted, in his first 100 days when he was Prime Minister, that he was: 'setting up a razor gang to comprehensively review each Commonwealth government department and cut wasteful spending'. Why is it okay for Kevin Rudd to have a program to examine government expenditure when he is elected but not okay for our new Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to have such a program? The one difference between Kevin Rudd's program and Tony Abbott's program is that Tony Abbott will make it work, will make it work sensibly, and will manage people's expectations very well.

The reality is that our economy is in a historic transition. I think this was best put by Paul Kelly in the Australian newspaper earlier this year, when he said:

The daunting strategic task facing Abbott and Hockey now emerges: they seek to impose off the Audit Commission a vast fiscal and public sector efficiency reform on an economy that is fragile and facing great investment uncertainties.

These are the realities we are dealing with. These are the realities that some people in this place would prefer to ignore, would prefer to be blind to, would prefer to put their heads in the sand about. So these are significant challenges.

We know that the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Office, found that health spending was increasing by 4.8 per cent a year but our GDP growth was increasing by just three per cent. We know that real government spending has grown by 3½ per cent over the five years to 2012-13 and will grow over the medium term to 3.7 per cent. Cataclysmically, we are facing, already, this day, interest repayments annually of $8 billion. So when people talk about the need for improved funding in health care, when people talk about the improved funding in education, there is $8 billion that we are sending out the door on interest payments that could be put to better provision of health and education services.

The Labor Party in the Senate, aided and abetted by the Australian Greens, are alone. Not even their former leader Bob Hawke and not even their former leader Paul Keating disagreed that a national commission of audit—

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

Sorry, that would be Senator Di Natale, the Australian Greens senator from Victoria, walking hand in glove with Labor senators, denying that there is a problem, denying that there is a budget emergency, and wanting to defend Bob Hawke and Paul Keating—I might have that incorrect, Senator Di Natale.

So what did former Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating say? They urged the new government in January to act quickly to repair the bottom line damaged by Labor. Keating has said that the government should 'earnestly pursue the remedies' that this situation requires. He says that the government must understand the situation and it must be prepared to make hard decisions. Certainly, in regard to the second test, they have met that.

So the first myth is that there is no problem. There is clearly a problem. Our respected political commentators say there is a problem; our former Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating say there is a problem; the evidence in the budget documents says there is a problem. We know—we live with the uncertainty in the Australian economy that is happening as a result of our economy needing to be more globally competitive. There is much to be talked about and there is a great urgency, but some people in this place want to deny that there is an important issue that needs to be addressed.

We are still going through our Senate inquiry into the new government's Commission of Audit, but at the hearing on 15 January it was interesting to hear what the chairman, Mr Shepherd, said:

Australia faces the challenges of an ageing population, poor productivity performance, a persistently high Australian dollar, high energy costs, heavy reliance on the resource sector, and a volatile global political and economic outlook.

There is much to be concerned about. (Time expired)

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

I have spoken before about the culture of secrecy that lies at the heart of the Abbott government. Mr Abbott promised that he would lead an open, honest, transparent and accountable government. Yet, on the big issues, this government has been a black box. We have a Commission of Audit process which is potentially one of the most important pieces of work to be done by a body at any time this year. It is a piece of work that will inform the federal budget in May. It is a piece of work about which we know from the commissioners themselves that everything will be on the table: Medicare co-payments, cuts to the national disability support pension, the privatisation of Australia Post and huge cuts to the public sector. The list goes on and on.

Yet people are being deprived of that report. We do not shy away from a debate on the Commission of Audit process, but it has to be an open, honest and transparent debate, a debate based on facts, and a debate that clearly outlines the sort of country that we want to be. We have heard a lot of talk from this government about debt, deficit and the ongoing budget emergency. No claim has been too outrageous. According to the then opposition, the country has been drowning in debt, we are on track to mirror modern-day Greece, we are an international pariah and we have a third-world economy. Last year the Treasurer went so far as to say:

The cupboard is bare, there is no money left in the till.

That is essentially saying that we were bankrupt.

It is in this context that the National Commission of Audit was established. We saw the Business Council being represented with Tony Shepherd as the chair. It is remarkable that there was no space for people from the community sector, the health and welfare sector or from the union movement. We also had a brief from the government to the commission that was based on two assumptions: that there was a structural deficit that must be fixed—and this could only be achieved by cutting government expenditure—and that we could not add to the already high tax burden, so we had to make deep cuts, starting with Australia's public sector.

All this might sound okay at face value, except it is based on a lie. I am not sure where Senator Smith has been. He is part of the committee and has heard evidence that Australia's debt crisis is a myth. Our level of public debt is very low. Compared with other OECD countries, we are near the bottom in terms of public debt. Far from being in crisis, we are the envy of most other governments across the world. It is a confected emergency. We also learnt through the inquiry that Australia's deficit makes good sense when we have low interest rates, when infrastructure is so desperately needed and when we have a softening jobs market.

The evidence through the committee process gave lie to the fact that we have a crushing tax burden. As it happens, Australia's tax take as a percentage of our overall economy is below OECD averages and well below where it was when the Howard government was in power. We learnt that the Public Service, far from being bloated and inefficient, is actually very efficient by world standards. There is very little fat to be trimmed there.

The real picture about the Australian economy is at odds with what the government is saying. Economists by and large agree that government spending is low, debt is manageable, we are a relatively low-taxing country, the cost of living is not spiralling out of control and we have an efficient public service by world standards. Unfortunately, what we have is a Commission of Audit process where the rules have been rigged and the players have been hand-picked in order to achieve a predetermined outcome. That is a debate that serves our country very poorly.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will start off where Senator Smith finished—that is, on the last words in your speech where you said that there is much to be concerned about. There is definitely much to be concerned about, but not much of it is what you raised in your speech. I think what we have to be concerned about is the political ideology of the extremists in the coalition government who would have you believe that everything will be okay if you simply let the market rip, that there is no role for government and that the market is the determining factor for anything that happens in the economy.

The problem with that is it belies the reality that we do not live in an economy. We live in a society and a society needs support. It needs mutual support, it needs government support and it needs business support. Society itself provides support to both government and business. So this is not about an argument, in my view, that if we simply have a free-market economy and if you allow all the free-market ideology to run amok, then suddenly there will be this magical transformation and everything will be okay. You only have to look back at the global financial crisis to understand that that is the situation—that governments play an important role in the economy. Yet, we have this coalition approach, which is called the Commission of Audit.

We have had a number of commissions of audit over the years. We had the Howard government's commission of audit. What were the outcomes of the Howard government's commission of audit? They used that commission of audit to slash expenditure in higher education, the area that everyone realises now we should be investing in for the future. Higher education got belted under the Howard government because they did not like some of the academics who may have argued different political points from the Howard government. There was a huge price to pay for those academics and the higher education industry because they dared to critique the Howard government.

We had the Howard government commission of audit, which laid the framework for what was described as 'the need to improve productivity'. Improvement of productivity from a conservative coalition is simply about ripping away at workers' wages and conditions—another outcome of the commission of audit. It also introduced Work Choices and introduced a system that denied workers the right to collectively bargain. Over the time of Work Choices, what did we have? We actually had a decline in productivity in this country, because you do not improve productivity by taking away workers' rights. You improve productivity by a sophisticated approach, one that deals with the issues of quality, logistics, research and development, management systems and work organisation—but not one that simply tries to crush workers' rights.

The latest commission of audit was the Costello report in 2012 for Queensland and, by any analysis, when you put a failed Treasurer—a former Treasurer, one of the worst treasurers this country ever had—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hardly a failed Treasurer!

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, let me give a little history lesson in relation to the structural deficit. Do you know who brought the structural deficit in? The Howard government brought the structural deficit in, and Peter Costello was too weak and too jelly-backed to do anything about it. He was one of the weakest political operatives we have ever seen in the Treasury in this country, but maybe that will be superseded by the current Treasurer. He was too weak to actually deal with the structural deficit; he left a structural deficit of huge proportions. You then have to look at how you deal with these reports. The Peter Costello report of 2012 said that we were living beyond our means. That was not very original at all. When you have a weak former Treasurer, who left a structural deficit, trying to tell Queensland how they should run their economy, then I think you have a problem. The problem is that you run with the same old arguments.

I am sure we will hear the same old arguments. There was an inadequate financial analysis in the report, but does that actually surprise anyone? When you have an inadequate former Treasurer doing an audit on a state, you get an inadequate outcome. What does it mean? It means you get a push to destroy jobs in Queensland—20,000 Public Service jobs in Queensland. These are decent people trying to bring their families up, and they were just dismissed by the coalition in this country. The conservatives think Public Servants are simply a figure to be dismissed; they are not human beings with families, with debts, with problems and issues they have to deal with. They are simply a number; they are simply a tool to try to reduce the bottom line of coalition governments.

You will no doubt see much of this under the coalition's Commission of Audit—bad analysis, analysis that is based on ideology and not the facts. That is what we are going to see in this Commission of Audit. It will be laid out to try and deliver the coalition's agenda, which is to weaken collective bargaining in this country, to reduce the role of government, to give markets a free hand to do what they like. Then we will end up with another smaller equivalent of the global financial crisis in this country, because the market is running the show. That is not good for this country and it is not appropriate. We certainly should not have any faith that this Commission of Audit will do other than deliver on the ideology and the policy parameters that have been laid out.

The Business Council of Australia is already telling the coalition what they want them to do, and that is smaller government, fewer payments, no dealing with intergenerational issues—just let it rip. If you look at the BCA report, it says that without policy change Australia will reach a combined annual deficit of five per cent of GDP across Commonwealth and state governments by 2050. But a policy change from the coalition is about ripping away at health, ripping away at welfare and ripping away at education. That is the policy position from the coalition. It is not our policy position to do that. We will look after this country in a substantial way. You are just— (Time expired)

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is funny, you know, Mr Acting Deputy President, when I hear these speeches from Senator Cameron. The cancer destroying the Western world is public debt. And you wonder why people on the conservative side of politics are so disgusted with the Australian Labor Party and with the Greens, who supported them, when they spend money that this country did not have and that our children and our grandchildren will have to pay back. It is a disgrace for the Australian Labor Party to come in here and talk about intergenerational equity to the party that put it on the agenda—a la the Hon. Peter Costello, the greatest Treasurer this country has ever had. What a disgrace that Senator Cameron should come in here and lecture to this side of the chamber about young people. Every dollar that the left in this country want to spend is money that we have to borrow—and borrow from where? It is from our kids and our grandkids. The heads of those opposite are looking down, because they do not have an answer to this question.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we do!

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, sorry, the Greens have an answer for how we are going to balance the budget. I am so sorry, Mr Acting Deputy President, the Greens are going to balance the budget. They are going to save the next generation. I am so sorry! The Greens are not going to actually tell us anything—they never do—about economic responsibility.

Let me just say this: the Labor Party act like spoilt teenagers. They ran around for six years spending money on the credit card—spending money that this country did not have. When the public finally said, 'Actually, we've got to start paying back some of that debt'—do you know what?—the Labor Party squealed like spoilt children. The Labor Party created the bloody problem that the world now has, and when we come along and try to solve the problem they blame us. They created the problem. People like Senator Cameron have no idea about how to balance a budget or make responsible economic decisions for the next generation of Australians. It is disgraceful. For someone like Senator Cameron to come in here and cast aspersions on our side of politics about young Australians is a disgrace.

For six years the Australian Labor Party lived beyond their means. They were getting record tax revenues, but even that was not enough. They had to engage in record borrowing to finance their record spending. I am assuming—and perhaps this is a bad assumption to make; perhaps I should not assume this—that everyone believes a government should manage its spending. Maybe I cannot assume that. But I am assuming that people, the current generation, think that Australia should live within its means. I am assuming that, but I know that the Labor Party never say much about this—and the Greens certainly will not—but we on this side of the chamber believe that for economic and moral reasons our generation should live within its means. They never say that. They have not got the guts to make that commitment. This is so disgraceful!

In the chambers of the parliaments throughout the Western world since the 1970s, economies, lives and futures have been destroyed by governments that could not live within their means. I cannot say it any more clearly. I just wish to God that the Labor Party and the Australian Greens would learn that lesson, but they just cannot learn the lesson that generations should live within their means. It is simple. Sure, you might have some infrastructure spending—and I accept that—but that is not the problem in this country. It is actually recurrent expenditure which is the problem. We are simply living beyond our means.

There are only three options. It is not that complicated: you rein in spending, you increase taxes or you keep borrowing money. Mr Acting Deputy President, do you know what the left say? It is always 'keep borrowing' or maybe 'raise taxes'—but it is usually 'keep borrowing'. Why? Because the electoral pain is actually very small. The democratic incentive is always to put more money on the credit card. That is the easy choice. It would be so easy for the coalition to say: 'We'll just borrow a bit more. We wouldn't feel it. We'd hardly feel it. It wouldn't matter much. The exchange rate wouldn't change much.' But you know who will be stuck with the bill, don't you? We would be all right. It is okay for me: I would be fine. But the bill would be paid by our children and our grandchildren. It is so disgraceful to hear that Australian Labor Party basically do not care. They talk about 'ripping it out from higher education, health and welfare'. I accept that difficult decisions are going to have to be made. I accept that; I do. Someone has to make those tough choices. That is what good government is about. It is not always easy. It is so much easier just to keep borrowing money and maybe tax a bit more. That is the easy way out.

Do you know what? I can prove it is the easy way out, because every country in western Europe did it, and North America also did it. Look where they are now. They are buggered. Their economies are buggered because they simply have no idea about how to pay back the debt. It is absolutely disgraceful. And they do not mind. Do you know why? Because they are really concerned about the voters of today, not the voters of tomorrow. They want to somehow win votes, so they do not want to cut too much, so basically they will borrow a bit more money, in a sense to support their vote. Our children and our grandchildren do not get to vote yet. By the time they do get to vote, governments will have come and gone, and yet the debt will remain.

I say again: the greatest contribution that Peter Costello ever made to this country was not being a successful Treasurer, balancing the budget and doing all those wonderful things he did; in my view, it was highlighting to a generation of public policy analysts and policymakers that intergenerational inequity is intergenerational theft and that, if we do not live within our means, if we do not raise the money, the taxes that we need to live on then we are stealing from the next generation. Sure, you could quibble at the sides about infrastructure—I accept all that—but that is at the sides. That is not the problem the Labor government had and it is not the problem that the Western world is faced with.

The great, depressing fact about this debate, every time we have it, is: the Labor Party and the Greens never learn. That is what gets me. It is not that it has happened; it is that they never learn. Since 1901, every time Labor leaves office we are further in debt. Because we have an ageing population and productivity is not rising sufficiently, it is going to get worse. There are more and more claims upon the public purse. My friend Senator Fifield looks after the National Disability Insurance Scheme and other schemes, many of them worthwhile. I am not suggesting for a second it is not worthwhile, but we just cannot afford everything we want. That is my point.

Every time I hear Senator Cameron or someone from the Labor Party or someone from the Greens whingeing about savage cuts, I think: how savage is it to cut the future, to cut the prospects of our young people, our children and our grandchildren? How savage is that? What they are doing to the kids of the future is far, far worse than any cuts that might be made by this government, because at least if we make cuts we are answerable at a general election. That is true. The Australian people can say, 'We don't like that,' and they can vote us out, as they should be able to. There is a problem, though, with the Left and the way they operate. Do you know what they do? They put it on the credit card, and the people that they are harming do not get to vote yet. That is the great horror. That is the lack of democratic incentive in the entire approach that the Left have gloried in since World War II. They have absolutely made a mint out of this process. Why do you think social democracy has been so successful electorally? Because the current generation that is spending the money does not foot the bill. If we have to cut, at least we will be accountable for it. When they spend money we do not have, they are not accountable for it and our children's futures are affected and in some cases destroyed. (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on this matter of public importance. The biggest run-up on our credit card in this country is the government's denial of global warming. The biggest debt that we are condemning future generations to is the impact that climate change and global warming will have on future generations, across the country. Yet again today we see more predictions about the extent of the impact of climate change. It is hypocrisy for the coalition to accuse this side of the chamber, the Greens, of not wanting to look at how we can raise revenue, when they were in this chamber this morning debating getting rid of the mining tax. They want to repeal the mining tax. On the one hand they say, 'Oh, you're so stupid; you arranged a mining tax that isn't earning any money,' and on the other hand they say, 'It's killing the industry.' Get your lines right. What is it doing? Is it killing the industry or is it not raising any money?

The Greens had a proposal to raise $21 billion out of a mining tax that, if applied properly, would have meant that Western Australians and Australians could actually get the benefits of the resources that are exploited in our state and other states around Australia. Then we would not be getting letters like I have received today from housing and homelessness service providers in Western Australia. For example, I have had a letter from Saint Bartholomew's House in Western Australia, which I have visited. They have a brand-new, fantastic facility. They wrote about the fact that they have not yet been told whether the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness is going to be re-funded, and they are expressing extreme concern. They say: 'There is considerable evidence to demonstrate that the 14 programs and 81 services that are part of the partnership agreement in Western Australia have enjoyed considerable success. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates in excess of 20,000 individuals, including thousands of children, have been assisted by homelessness service organisations in WA alone.'

I have another letter, from Centacare in Western Australia, which says: 'Our 22 employees involved in these services are becoming increasingly nervous about their future. Some are already approaching our manager seeking direction as to what do.'

Then I have a letter from Shelter WA, also talking about the agreement on homelessness, that says: 'The uncertainty regarding the future of the partnership has left homelessness service providers and their clients in an invidious situation. Already key staff are being lost and services to new and existing clients are being undermined. At the same time, services have been informed by WA funding bodies not to take on new clients after 31 March and that social housing will not be provided to clients accepted after that date.' This is a tragedy for homeless people in Western Australia. These letters are from just three service providers in Western Australia. There are dozens more.

I have an email from Jane Parker, who manages the Wyndham Early Learning Activity Centre. Last year I raised the issue in estimates that they were on limited funding, and they got funding again. However, the email I have says: 'It's getting near the end of the financial year and we have no idea of funding. This year we have no funding agreements at all.' They have up until now had Stronger Women funding, through the ICC, and they have also had funding from Communities for Children. This is an area that this government says that they care so much about—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and, in particular, children and early learning, which across the board, I think, it is acknowledged that we need to be putting funding into. Here is an essential service, in a building that cost $1.4 million to build. So now we are going to have a lovely, empty centre, basically a white elephant, if they do not get funding.

There is a list a mile long of programs that are waiting to know whether they are going to get funding: financial counselling and emergency relief, family relationship services and programs under the partnership agreement, Link Up services, a lot of health programs. These programs are all going to be cut, which will wipe out the community effort that so many people in Western Australia rely on. It is outrageous that the Prime Minister will not guarantee that these programs are going to continue to be funded and these services are not going to be losing staff. (Time expired)

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

Once again, here we are, two months after the deadline of phase 1 of the National Commission of Audit, and the government still has not released the draft report or recommendations to the electorate or this parliament. We keep hearing, 'It will be released next week,' and, 'It will be released next month,' but the end date keeps dragging out. The coalition government delayed releasing it before the Griffith by-election and the South Australian and Tasmanian state elections, and now it looks like they are going to delay it until after the Western Australian Senate election. What are those opposite trying to hide? Why is the plan so secret that they are not willing to come forth and explain to this parliament and to the electors of WA, or anyone else for that matter, to explain what this Commission of Audit—or commission of cuts, as most of us refer to it—is going to deliver?

Since coming to government, Mr Abbott has done nothing but cut. Thanks to the Labor opposition in this place, a range of measures introduced by the Labor government, including the schoolkids bonus, the instant asset write-off, low-income super contributions and the Income Support Bonus will still be in place after the MRRT repeal bill is voted down—and I am assuming that that will be the case if people in this place have the decency and common sense to know that those measures should be retained. I have mentioned all of these before, but they are still important and well worth mentioning again: the Regional Development Australia Fund grant has been cut; the Tourism Industry Regional Development Fund grants, cut; the National Crime Prevention Fund, cut; childcare and aged-care sector pay increases, cut; the NBN rollout, cut; the Building Multicultural Communities Program, cut; payments to the children of veterans who have been killed or injured, cut. This is just a small snippet of cuts by the Abbott government, and it is frightening to think about what other cuts they may have planned.

Being a Queenslander, I am able to stand in this chamber with some experience of cuts from an LNP government, and I use the example in Queensland of the Newman government—in particular, following the release of the report by Peter Costello's Queensland Commission of Audit. It is recommending a number of measures, including opening up public assets to private enterprise, and future investment into the public service. Also, an article on the website of the Courier-Mail, that old, reliable tabloid up there, has the title 'Costello's commission of audit report urges Newman government to sell off Queensland's assets'. That is dated 1 March 2013 and says:

"There is a need for greater workforce flexibility and mobility so that resources can be readily redirected to areas of highest priority—by removing restrictive workplace practices which add unnecessary costs without delivering improved output …

"Industrial relations and enterprise bargaining arrangements should not fetter the ability of managers to manage."

In other words, more jobs are on the chopping block, and some entitlements could be given the flick as well. The article also went on to report that they found the government could get its AAA rating back by selling government electricity assets, including Energex and Ergon, as it states this would raise between $25 billion and $35 billion, or by selling off some of its other corporations, including Queensland Investment Corporation and SunWater.

Premier Newman has also told Queenslanders that he would be taking the issue of asset sales to the next election to seek a mandate—a bit different from what he has said previously. The website of the state member for Mulgrave, Curtis Pitt, has identified that by collecting a range of quotes from Premier Newman regarding asset sales, including:

The poles and wires transmissions stuff, I believe, should be owned by the people because they are natural monopolies …

In November 2012 he said:

My vision for the electricity sector is that we have a government-owned, world's best practice, efficient operation owned by the people of Queensland. That is what I would like to see.

In April 2013 he told parliament:

So let me be absolutely clear today that we decided to not consider divestment of Energex, Ergon or Powerlink to pay down the debt … and we certainly will not be seeking any mandate to undertake a sale of those assets at the next election.

Let me tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President Ruston, that is already happening in the community cabinets. They are going around the countryside on a listening tour, explaining to people how they are going to cut those assets. That is why people in WA should be extremely concerned about this Abbott government and the effects on the economy as a whole.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that financial relationships between the states and the Commonwealth government have changed radically since the federal Constitution was written and the Commonwealth was established. Clearly, the problems which now exist need to be reviewed. In the original Constitution, it was the states who had income tax powers, and they were handed over to the Commonwealth as an emergency measure during World War II. While this meant that some states got more money than others, nevertheless, that was the system that existed. But, when Malcolm Fraser sought to hand the income taxing powers back to the states, there was no agreement to do so because the less wealthy states did much better under the Commonwealth system of collecting taxation and then distributing it on the basis of some sort of horizontal fiscal equalisation than they did relying on their own resources.

The fact remains that the states do have enormous responsibilities for education, health services and infrastructure. In Western Australia, for example, where I come from, although we only have 10 per cent of the Australian population we have 33 per cent of the land area—a third of the area of Australia—so we have a need for extra finance for important infrastructure, such as roads, and because Western Australia is so vast. Almost in every town you have to duplicate schools and hospital services because regionalisation just does not work with the great distances between these centres.

John Howard introduced the GST as a funding stream for the states, but this has not assisted, because of the formula under which the money is distributed. Under that formula, Western Australia—again, taking a very parochial Western Australian point of view—has missed out. Premier Colin Barnett has said that he is dismayed by the share of the GST allocated to Western Australia. He said that if the projections did not change he would have no choice but to significantly raise taxes in Western Australia, which would be an added burden on the people there. At this stage, Western Australia only get 45c in the dollar of our GST. The Northern Territory, for example, would be getting more than Western Australia—while we in Western Australia have 10 times the population of the Northern Territory, Mr Barnett said.

So there really is a need to review Commonwealth-state financial relations. It is not an argument which is sustainable to say that this audit of Commonwealth finances should not go ahead. It is quite clearly the intention of the Abbott government, with this audit, to take a root-and-branch look at the whole spectrum of Commonwealth-state financial relationships and the way that various services are funded in this country. This can only be regarded as a very laudable objective.

We should look around the world at what other federations do. In Germany there is a totally different formula for the distribution of money to the states, which seems in many ways to be a fairer system than we have in Australia. In Canada, where they have provinces, as we have states, the distribution of funds from Ottawa to the provinces seems to be fairer and more balanced than in Australia. Not only do we have to consider the needs of the states, but, as has been said today already, we have the problem of the ageing Australian population and the implications of needing to care for a country in which something like 25 per cent of the population will be over 70 within a few years. We also have to think about the repayment of the huge debt left by the Labor administration.

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

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.