Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received the following letter 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 Abbott Government's Budget of barnacles and broken promises.

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.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the MPI, to talk about the Abbott government's barnacles and their budget of broken promises. It is an inconvenient truth: a promise broken is a broken promise, and, despite the Abbott government's pathetic attempts to outright deny and lie, they have broken promises. Despite their convoluted language—calling cuts and broken promises something else—voting Australians know that the Abbott government has broken promise after promise and that it has made cuts to a range of government services. Voters know fact from fiction.

On the eve of the federal election Mr Abbott told SBS there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS if the coalition were elected to government. There were of course other pledges during the election campaign. Who could forget that wonderful outburst of: 'We are on a unity ticket on Gonski!' But now Australian kids will pay the price of that ripped-up unity ticket, as postcodes will continue to determine educational outcomes—not a fairer funding system. Earlier this week the Prime Minister held his mea culpa media conference and promised us that he would take the barnacles off before Christmas. Despite the Labor opposition asking many questions here in the Senate, one of the barnacles—Senator Johnston, the Minister for Defence—is still here. There are just a couple more sitting days before Christmas if the barnacles are to come off, assuming they require legislation to do so.

The government is not winning. Despite the Prime Minister's mea culpa, the government is not winning. Its harsh, cruel budget has been well and truly exposed, along with its string of broken promises. I think that when the Prime Minister had a closer look at the barnacles, he realised that it is the whole ship that is sinking. Even if he now removes the barnacles—whether that be the Minister for Defence, backing down on the GP tax, backing down on the cuts to the ABC or backing down on the cuts to education—nothing will save the Abbott government ship, because it has become a ship of fools.

Yesterday in this place, Labor, along with the Greens and some of the crossbenchers, let the Abbott government know well and truly that the higher education changes in their bill were harsh and unfair. In fact they were just plain wrong. We voted that bill down. But, completely undeterred—the message seemingly is not getting through to the Abbott government—they have fronted up this morning with a new bill. We are not quite sure where it is up to and when we will see it, but we understand that in that bill the massive cuts to universities remain.

Despite Labor saying right from day one it would not support the cuts to that higher education bill and despite us having a Senate inquiry and hearing overwhelmingly from universities that the cuts would hurt, seemingly the Abbott government did not hear that. So the cuts remain, the new fee imposts for students remain and nothing of substance has changed, and Labor's position remains unchanged. We will not support the government's second, replica, unfair higher education bill.

What we learned from this new bill is the fact that the government needs to put forward the regional transition fund in and of itself says that what they are proposing is not going to work. We have heard in this place senator after senator and the ministers telling us that competition is good, that making a market out of universities is good. Yet what have they now done? They have suddenly realised that, if they want to go down this track, they have to stump up regional universities because regional universities, in fact all universities except the Group of Eight, told us they would not be able to survive without some sort of transitional fund. The government did not call it a transitional fund. Many of the universities told us they would need that additional funding from the federal government for ever.

It was really quite a shock to me and was revealed as an absolute blight on the system when the University of Newcastle told us that, with the cuts being imposed by the federal government, they simply could not recoup those cuts through an increase in fees. That is the Abbott government signing the death warranty of that fine university in Newcastle, a regional university. Yet the Abbott government does not seem to care. Somehow it likes to kid itself that turning universities into a market and making them compete is going to save them, when the evidence we heard at the Senate inquiry was quite contrary to that, with regional universities being very clear about their future, an uncertain future, a future they could not predict. So this nonsense of competition in their higher education market has been exposed.

Surely, if we have to stump up taxpayer dollars to take account of these harsh cuts, that says the government's plan for marketisation will not work. It is a failure right from the word go. Just now Universities Australia have put out a media release. Universities Australia strike me as a fairly savvy organisation. They are often here lobbying. They certainly meet with Labor senators and Labor shadows and talk to us about their vision for universities in the future. Guess what they are saying? That this bill does not quite get it right. Bills are not play things. The government cannot keep putting up bill after bill until they get it right. Voters of Australia demand the government get it right in the first instance. Up until yesterday, Minister Pyne was singing the praises of Universities Australia, telling us how onside they were. Yet today in black and white from Universities Australia we have a media release which says, 'Oops, you haven’t quite got it right, Minister Pyne. The 20 per cent cuts are going to hurt us.'

Finally, whatever Kool-Aid Universities Australia drank when the first bill was proposed has worn off because they are now starting to criticise the government's higher education bill by saying today that this does not get it right, that this does not cut it. And money being put into a transition fund for three years will not cut it either because regional universities have said very clearly that the cuts are going to hurt them. Again this is another broken promise from the Abbott government—'No cuts to education'. We all know there has been a 20 per cent cut to our universities.

One of the other things the Abbott government is quite good at doing—I often wonder which universe they are in. They are obviously in some kind of parallel universe. They do not live in the real world I live in because they like to invent new language for their cuts. Who remembers the increased tax on higher earners, which nobody had an issue with? But it is not an increase in tax; it is a levy. We just use different language because we know that the Abbott government promised no increased taxes. So they kind of think, 'If we call it something else, people will just believe us.' Of course they do not. We can all tell fact from fiction and there is another fiction. It is time the Abbott government realised they are deeply unpopular because their budget is too harsh and cruel on everyday Australians.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President Williams, Merry Christmas.

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

Thank you.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

About seven years ago, when the Labor Party took office, having won the election in November 2007, they inherited the best books, the best set of national accounts ever inherited by any incoming government in our national history. In 113 years of our national history, they received the best accounts ever with billions and billions of dollars in the bank. When we took over government in September last year, we received the worst national accounts in the history of our nation. They received the best; we received the worst and now we are trying to fix them. The horror is not that Labor spent too much on overpriced school halls, the cash splash and the disastrous pink batts; it is that so many of them do not believe there is a problem at all.

It gets worse. They are even, at the moment, sabotaging the government's attempts to repay the debt. We want to do that, and it is being sabotaged. We do know that they have no plan to solve the problem. No plan has been put forward by 'barnacle' Bill Shorten—Mr Shorten—at all. The problem now is not the amount of the debt but the trajectory of the debt. In just over nine years it will reach $667 billion with $3 billion a month in interest. What could we do with that? That is the point.

It gets much worse than that, and this has not been raised in this place. In the history of developing countries, since World War II, no-one has ever repaid a debt of that magnitude. What will happen is that we will become like western Europe and the United States and we will never repay it. We either repay it now or we are a country that is stuck with systemic debt, just like western Europe and the United States. And we will be paying billions of dollars in interest for the privilege. It will become a permanent fixture in our public life. The government will become the centre of the economy—just as Kevin Rudd wished all those years ago.

The Labor Party profess to be the party of social justice. They have this sort of sense about them that they are the party of social justice—with a touch of moral vanity, I might add. They have argued since May that the budget is not fair for pensioners, students and working families. That is what they say: 'it is not fair'. But I will tell you who it is not fair for. It is not fair for the people who will have to pay the debt. The government believe that this generation should live within their means. We believe that the health, the education and the welfare of our community should be paid for by the community—not by our children and not by our grandchildren. That is the disgrace of a party that talks about social justice and equality: they do not give a damn about our children and our grandchildren. It is not only fiscally reckless but also morally contemptible. But there is a reason for it. The Labor Party know that our children and those yet to be born, of course, cannot vote. They know that. We are standing up for people who cannot yet vote. This lot will never, ever do that. They will put more and more money on the credit card, because they know there are very, very few repercussions of that. Every democratic incentive is not to pay back the debt, because when you pay back debt it causes electoral pain. I accept that; we all accept that. We are paying it back because it is fiscally responsible and morally it is the only way to go.

We believe, ultimately, that if pensioners, working families and students think the government is that poor, they will throw us out. That is fine. That is democracy. But what the Labor Party believe and know is this: those who will pay Labor's debt cannot yet vote. They cannot throw the Labor Party out because they cannot yet vote. It is a gutless approach to politics—one that has been adopted by nearly every country in western Europe, including Greece, Portugal, France and Spain, because the politicians of those nations did not have the guts to pay back the debt and they wanted future generations to pay for today's living standards. And that is the solution of the Australian Labor Party. I can put up with the fact that the Labor Party cannot manage a budget. That is a fact.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: I just wonder if we could turn the volume down a little bit on his microphone. You cannot hear yourself think.

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

There is no point of order. Continue, Senator Mason.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all know that Labor cannot manage budgets. They never have, since Federation. They have never managed budgets. But it is morally contemptible to ask our children to pay for them. When I was at university I used to see these signs everywhere from the Left that said, 'eat the rich'. There are no longer enough rich left. Today the Labor Party Left say, 'eat the young'.

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

I rise on this matter of public importance to expose some of the nonsense and the rhetoric that we have just heard from Senator Mason. The Prime Minister has said that he is about removing barnacles. I have to say: it is not the barnacles that are the problem. It is the actual ship. This government reminds me of the political equivalent of the old 'ships of shame' that used to come to this country—rust buckets with people in the bilges, trying to pump the bilges out on a continuous basis. It is not the barnacles, it is the ship.

Senator Mason said, 'merry Christmas'. I have to say that it will not be a merry Christmas for the pensioners who are getting indexation reduced by this government. It will not be a merry Christmas for those who need and rely on the health system, with $50 billion cut out of the health system. It will not be a merry Christmas for kids in needy schools, with $50 billion cut out of schools over 10 years. It will not be a merry Christmas for those students who would have been facing $100,000 a year to get an education if we had not stopped that crazy proposition from this coalition government. It will not be a merry Christmas for those workers at the ABC and SBS who are losing their jobs because the government cannot lie straight in bed. It will not be a merry Christmas for the poor in this country, or the unemployed, or the vulnerable because they are, according to this government, the 'leaners'. They are leaning on people. This is a government with no compassion, no common sense and no economic credibility, and I will not be lectured by the coalition about economic credibility.

This is a coalition that, under Peter Costello and John Howard, just threw the rule book out the door. It was tax cut after tax cut, after tax cut, with no building for the future. There was no investment in schools, no investment in infrastructure and no investment in health. That was not the way for this country to get ahead and look after future generations. It was short-termism of the worst nature—and a lack of political vision, and certainly no political values.

This budget takes from the have-nots and gives to those that have got it. The so-called 'contribution' of a politician or a high-income earner—on three times the average wage—to this government's budget repair is $29 a week. People earning $200,000 or $300,000-plus are paying $29 a week. That is one per cent of their disposable income. But if you are a single-income couple with two school-age children on average earnings—guess what?—you pay $90 a week. That is the contribution of single-income families with a couple of kids at school under this government. That is six per cent of their disposable income. Where is the fairness in that? How can anyone trust a government who does this?

This is a government who did not tell the Australian public about any of the policies they would introduce after the election. This is a government who systematically lied to the Australian public. They told the Australian public that there would be no cuts to health, no cuts to education and not cuts to the ABC, no cuts to SBS and no cuts to pensions. Yet what do they do? When they get into government, they rip and tear at our education system, our health system and the poorest people in this country. They are really the political equivalent of the ships of shame.

It is a government that is forever on reset, forever on reboot, forever on remessage. Now they are on barnacle removal duty. What a rabble this mob is! What an absolute rabble! They are untrustworthy. They have lied their way into power. If the public had known what this government was going to do, they would not be sitting on the government benches now.

The Treasurer only opens his mouth to change feet. His foot is always in his mouth. The government just does not get the message. They have not got the message from the Victorian election. The Australian public are just not buying the budget or the poor sales job. It is not about the sales job; it is about the policies. The policies are bad. The budget is a shocker. The budget is unfair. The government cannot be trusted. This is the problem with this government.

Then what do they do? They rely on the rhetoric from Senator Mason about bad economic management. They just failed to tell anyone that there was a global financial crisis. They just failed to tell people that governments all over the world had to invest in keeping people in jobs. No, that was not mentioned. In fact, they argued here it was only a North American crisis; they said there was not a crisis in Australia at all. Yet business could not get any investment; funds were drying up; the market was grinding to a halt. It was only the Labor Party in government that fixed that.

They are not getting the message. The message is: the Senate is not going to pass your GP tax. The Senate does not like your cuts to health. The Senate does not like your cuts to schools. We do not like you beating up on the poor and the vulnerable. These are the issues that are important to the Australian public. No matter what they are told, this government is completely deaf to the real issues for ordinary Australians. They are completely out of touch. It is a government in utter chaos.

They talk about a year of achievement. It has been a year of achievement for the government! You have chased the autoindustry out of the country. You have trashed billions of dollars of investment in renewable energy projects. You have reopened tax loopholes for multinational tax avoiders. You have doubled the budget deficit, even before your disastrous budget was handed down in May. You broke every promise you ever made. And there is not a South Australian senator in here that stands up for jobs in South Australia, because they are too weak-kneed and jelly-backed to actually stand up to a bad budget and bad decisions by this government.

They have trashed the trust of the voters. That is their achievement. They are significant achievements. They have proved that you cannot govern without ideas, you cannot govern on three-word slogans and you cannot govern if you tell lies. That is what this government is: completely out of touch. They are so out of touch.

The Liberals are out of touch, but the National Party is all at sea. They have gone from being the wombats—you know, the tough guys: the Sinclairs, the Anthonys and the Nixons—to being the doormats. That is what they are. Senator O'Sullivan, you are no Sinclair. Senator Canavan, you are no Doug Anthony. And, Senator McKenzie, you will never be as good as Nixon was at looking after country people. You are the doormats.

Nowhere is that clearer than when you hear Senator Canavan get excited—being from Rockhampton you would think the senator would be interested in things like making sure the agriculture minister's botched handling of the farm household assistance and drought funding was fixed. But, no, Senator Canavan comes in here and makes speeches about Hayekian philosophy. He talks about currency competition. He talks about Friedman. This is awful. I am sure listeners to the Senate broadcast in Central Queensland in Biggenden are glued to the radio, listening to Senator Canavan. Senator Canavan is not representing Biggenden; he is representing the big end of town. (Time expired)

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

It grieves me but I am glad to actually participate in this ridiculous debate where, once again, the Labor Party trots out its tired lines—although I am quite excited about some of the adjectives those opposite have chosen to throw into today's motion. But I think it is actually merely disguising the fact that the Labor Party, straight after the federal election, completely reset the clock on how this nation is to be configured. Those opposite actually forgot about the previous six years, chose to say they did not count. Any responsibility borne for the mess we are now in, they will not be held accountable for. It is an absolute shell, a fig leaf, if you like, that is actually about hiding the facts behind what we are having to deal with as a government.

The fact is that we are delivering on our promises and those opposite do not like to hear it. We were elected to fulfil a most crucial of promises and that was to repair the sea of debris, the oceans of debt and the tsunami of deficits that were faced by this nation thanks to their absolute incompetence. It was incompetence on a scale never before seen in this nation. We had school halls built at triple the cost of anywhere else. Money was thrown out hand over fist. And now they choose to use the fig leaf of the 'financial crisis'. That was not the case. It was actually press release politics on the most ridiculous scale. I cannot believe it.

Let's go to the facts. The facts were that we did not have $50 billion in the bank. We had $200 billion of net debt when we took government 12 months ago and $667 billion of gross debt. The last six years that landed our government in the most precarious of positions. We have been battling against and are achieving against that position for the betterment—as Senator Mason mentioned in his contribution—of future generations.

We are not going to be bound by the political cycle. We are going to be bound by principles, which will underpin the future competitiveness of young Australians who cannot vote. Many of them are unemployed right now. Right through regional Australia there is high unemployment. We are seeking to build a positive future for them and to give them options in education, in training, in trades and, indeed, in higher education to ensure that they can access those opportunities so that they can contribute to increased productivity and enjoy all the positive outcomes that work will provide. The debt of the former government was the fastest accrual of debt in dollar terms as a share of GDP in modern Australia. It was not that it was the highest—although it was by a significant amount—but, man, was it quick. Like a catamaran versus a mirror, it was just absolutely phenomenal.

What this government is interested in doing is delivering on the very real promises we made at the last election to the Australian people that they voted for and that those opposite have continually frustrated in this place. Those opposite continually frustrate in their pious attempts to forget the past. Like deluded adolescents, they forget the past. It was the responsibility of those opposite and therefore those opposite have a responsibility in this place to lend a shoulder to the wheel to help us to repair the debt and deficit that those opposite left us so that we can as a society, as a parliament, build a positive future for young Australians. They were shallow slogans from Senator Cameron, but do we expect anything else?

We have also sorted out the growing regulatory burden, and it is not just on business. Higher education complained of the regulatory burden. The old friends of those opposite, the school sector, the AEU even—I think Angelo got on board—started complaining and bringing to the fore the regulatory burden that the former government placed not only business but on the environment, on higher education, on schools. Right throughout our society, the former government's stranglehold reduced our competitiveness, reduced our productivity and our ability to make productivity gains. Indeed, it stifled this nation to the point of static. Like a yacht with no wind, those opposite were no help.

We have delivered on the carbon tax promise. Help us. Why are you not thanking us? All those workers at SPC Ardmona and all the workers in the dairy industry were so thankful for getting rid of that carbon tax. The people who pay their wages are not having to pay tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs for a carbon tax that was never going to deliver the environmental outcomes that those opposite sought to achieve.

It is not just us. Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access Economics said that our budget is the only road map to structural fiscal repair Australia has. Those opposite do not like to hear it. Those opposite do not have a credible alternative. Those opposite are very happy to carp on the sideline when someone else tries to fix up their mess. It is absolutely disgusting. It is immature and there is no leadership throughout the Australian Labor Party as those opposite sit here and carp on the sideline while we fix up their mess.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to the matter of public importance debate this afternoon about the Abbott government's budget of barnacles and broken promises. I would like to follow on from Senator Mason, who wished everyone a Merry Christmas. While it is a very noble expression of goodwill, it is a shame this government has not demonstrated any since being in power.

I would like to reflect on those people who have lost their jobs in my home state of Tasmania under this government. There have been countless Tasmanians who have lost their jobs. Thousands and thousands of pensioners around this country were lied to before the election. They were told that there would be no changes to the pension, just as people were told that there would be no new taxes—'not under my government', according to Mr Abbott. The list goes on. Those people who are unemployed will face a very bleak Christmas. But with the changes this government tried to introduce, it would have been much darker. This is a government that is heartless and it is harsh.

We know that those people who work with the ABC and SBS and their families—those tens of hundreds of Australians who work for those two institutions—are going to have a very bleak Christmas. This was the government and this was the Senate that tried to pass a budget and has failed to do that since May—and they still have not. Why has the budget not passed? Why have those bills not been passed? It is because the Australian people know that they were lied to. They were lied to by Tony Abbott.

I just want to reflect on Mr Abbott's performance on the Today show this week. It was really quite interesting. It is not a show that I watch that often. But to have the Prime Minister, in a very sincere way and even with a straight face, complain about the Senate being obstructionist towards them! He said that the Labor opposition was in a 'feral mood'. That is the biggest—the biggest!—case of the pot calling the kettle black that I have ever heard!. It is not often that I actually agree with Karl Stefanovic, but I think he hit the nail on the head this week when his response to the Prime Minister was:

With respect you were fairly feral in opposition ...

That is the truth. That is precisely what those people who are now sitting on that side of the chamber were when they were in opposition. They were negative, negative, negative.

If the Today show are scoring important points off Mr Abbott, the situation must be getting pretty desperate. Perhaps it is time that Mr Abbott gave up? Recently, we have also heard that the Prime Minister says he needs to take care of a few 'barnacles' on the ship before Christmas. I think that Senator Cameron was quite right: it is not the barnacles on the ship, it is the ship that is on its way down to the bottom of the ocean, along with its captain and a few of the lieutenants—or should I say 'chief petty officers' on that side? They are going to find themselves in the drink.

Before the election, the government promised and said, 'We're on a unity ticket with the Labor Party. There will be no cuts to education.' But we have seen the first attempt in this government's plan to wreck higher education in this country. Yesterday we also learnt that there was a deal being discussed that would see federal money going towards a revamp of the University of Tasmania, in my home state. Well, that is all very well, but if it were not for the government abolishing the Education Investment Fund in the first place such drastic action would not be needed.

But I have to say that we have not seen any real detail, and I have no confidence at all in the 'three amigos'—the members for Bass, Braddon and Lyons—to be able to negotiate anything with this government to ensure that there is adequate funding going to the University of Tasmania. This government has ripped $30 million out of the university's budget in Tasmania. My colleagues, senators Brown, Singh, Urquhart and Bilyk, and me have no confidence at all in the three amigos. And I know that the Tasmanian community does not have any confidence at all in those three amigos.

But we should not be fooled, because we know that the higher education changes will make a university education inaccessible for many people. As I have said earlier this week, going to university should be based on your talent and hard work, not how big a cheque book your parents have or how big a credit card you have. It should be your talent that decides whether or not you should be able to continue and have the opportunity of a tertiary education. Scraping off one or two of the barnacles will not be enough. As I said, it is not the barnacles that are the problem: it is the ship and the captain. I have to say that this ship is sinking fast, and there is no harbour in sight. I can assure you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that no-one is taking charge.

We have to remember—it has to be 6½ months ago now—that the Australian people listened to the Treasurer bringing down his budget. But they do not buy it: they did not buy it in May, they did not buy it in June and they did not buy it in July, August, September, October or November. And they certainly are not buying it now. We know that this budget was made up of nothing but broken promises—promises that were made, I would have thought, in good faith, to the Australian community. But what we have seen is that there was deception and deceit by the Prime Minister and his Treasurer. Quite frankly, I think it is pretty obvious that they are both out of their depth.

Let us look once again at the proposed GP tax—another tax. But those people on the other side said during the election campaign that there would be no new tax, and that there would be no cuts to health and no cuts to education. The leadership team still do not know: is there going to be a GP tax or is there not going to be a GP tax? One thing I do know is that if they do bring such legislation into this chamber that we will fight tooth and nail to prevent it. That tax will hurt the most vulnerable people in our community. But, no, those on the other side—what did they say?—they said they were going to be the 'adults' in government. They were going to be the adults! I have to say that they are not even behaving as well as children in pre-kinder would, because they have no idea. They have no vision.

We know how heartless they are, because there is not a sector in our community that has not been hit. And there is the uncertainty—because these people do not care. I have heard it firsthand from people working in pharmacies and the pharmacists themselves, saying, 'Older Australians are concerned about whether or not they are going to be able to afford their medication.' They are going to their pharmacists—

Senator Smith interjecting—

This is serious! You may laugh on the other side, but this is quite serious! They are asking in the pharmacies whether or not they need to take all of their tablets. That is serious!

As I said, those people on the other side have misled the Australian people. They have misled them and, in fact, this is not only about misleading them: they have lied. Those opposite can never again criticise Labor for being dysfunctional and uncertain. They can never again launch attacks on internal tensions on the other side. They can never again claim that they are the party of stability. Most of all, they can never again claim that they are a party of no surprises and no excuses, because they have fallen; and how mighty those on the other side are when they fall—they fall very hard.

What is also incredible is that at least some of those on the frontbench, including the Treasurer, are committed to persisting with the GP tax. He wants it to go ahead. As I have said in this place on a number of occasions, this is going to hurt people in my home state. This is a short-sighted tax because it is going to hurt those who can least afford to be hurt. It is going to hit pensioners, it is going to hit low-income families and it is going to hit people with chronic illnesses in particular. No parent should have to decide whether or not they can take their child to see a doctor simply because they do not have a large enough credit card.

It does not stop there. My area of responsibility is aged care, and we on this side know they have lied to this sector. They took away the dementia supplement that was paid to the providers; they said a new scheme would come in, but we have seen nothing of that. The fact that they have changed the way pensions will be indexed will affect the aged-care sector as well. We are still waiting for those in government to come into this chamber— (Time expired)

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A merry Christmas to you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I should say that in case this is the last time I speak here. A merry Christmas to everyone.

The biggest barnacle to getting the budget back under control is the Labor Party. It is the Labor Party that is causing all the budget issues that we are facing here at the moment—the Labor Party and its friends in the Greens. This is the axis of 'just say no'; they are saying 'no' to everything.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just like you did when you were in opposition.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You said 'no' to $5.8 billion worth of cuts that you proposed yourselves. You have done an amazing somersault. The Labor Party should go in the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games or even the Tasmanian games: you would get a gold medal. But in the spirit of Christmas, I really would like to thank Senator Moore for allowing us to have this debate. It was supposed to be listed yesterday, but sadly, for whatever reasons, we could—

Senator Polley interjecting—

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

They needed an extra 24 hours for their argument.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Smith. They need an extra 24 hours for their argument, so they had to get—

Senator Polley interjecting—

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

Order! Resume your seat, Senator McGrath. Senator Polley, I did my best to prevent people from interjecting when you were speaking and I ask you to show the same respect.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor senators have been very naughty boys and girls and, I will tell you what, Santa Claus will not be visiting Labor Party households this year. He is going to be checking his list twice to see whether they have been naughty or nice, and those opposite have been very, very naughty—very naughty. If they are lucky, they will get a nice lump of Queensland coal in their stockings. As for the Greens, you will get some nice gender neutral coal in your stockings to play with. This is what we are talking about. The Greens, who were not happy with just destroying the economic future of Australian children, have decided to try to destroy Christmas for them. They want to take Christmas away from children with their nonsense about having gender neutral toys for children. What do children want for Christmas? Children want a cuddle and they want some toys to play with. They do not want dogma from the Greens; they do not want leftist tripe from puritanical Grinches. Imagine waking up in a Green household at Christmas. You would have some sort of androgynous dalek, you would have malevolent Barbies and you would have a neutered Peppa Pig. I could not think of anything worse than waking up in a Greens household and then getting the presents afterwards.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would be confused.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would be very, very confused. But let us get back to talking about this economy. Let us get back to what Labor has done to this economy. Let us get back to that big, big barnacle known as the Labor Party—the Labor Party that has destroyed this country economically, destroyed it through its poor economic management. It started with Kevin Rudd. He said he was an economic conservative.

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which time?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have had many different Kevin Rudds. I think this was the first Kevin Rudd. I am going to quote lines from a speech on 14 November 2007 at the Labor campaign launch in Brisbane. It is a crime scene where he gave this speech, a pure crime scene. He said:

Today I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop. I am determined that any commitments I make are first and foremost economically responsible.

He made this big show and dance, like a Las Vegas showgirl, about how he was some type of economic conservative. He was anything but.

It is in the DNA of the Labor Party: they get into office and they cannot control themselves. I feel sorry for them; I think they need counselling or some type of help. They get into office and they spend, spend and spend. If you look at the history of this country, it is the Labor Party, now with their good friends the Greens, who constantly destroy the economy. Look at 1931: when we got back in after Joseph Scullin we had to clean up the mess. Look at 1949: we stopped the Labor Party from trying to nationalise the banks—imagine the damage that would have done to the economy. Look at 1975: the damage of Gough Whitlam—Saint Gough. Look at what he did with that three-year Labor administration—compared to the administration in this country between 2007 and 2013, it was probably quite a good Labor administration—the second worst Labor government on record. We had the Hawke-Keating government, which left this country in 1996 with $96 billion worth of debt. We got to 2013 and, once again, the cavalry came along. We had the Liberals and Nationals, the coalition, elected to clean up Labor's mess. And it is Labor's mess. They not only failed to understand how to run a business, how to look at profit and loss sheets, but they also are—

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting —

union barons—thank you, Senator O'Sullivan—who are very good at spending other people's money. When I say 'other people's money' I mean spending their union members' money. So when they get into power it is like they have won Gold Lotto every Saturday night. When Labor are in power they think, 'We've got all this money to spend and we can spend it on all our crazy schemes'. Let us talk about the carbon tax and how that did not work; let us talk about how it destroyed the Australian economy. Let us talk about the mining tax, the world's craziest tax since the Georgians had the window tax. This tax raised very, very little money. The carbon tax was a tax on families who wanted to have things like electricity so that they could operate televisions, fans and turn the oven on—

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

Refrigerators.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and refrigerators—thank you, Senator Smith. It was a tax on the cost of living; it was a tax on families. That is why this budget is in trouble. It is not because of anything on this side of the chamber. It is because of the barnacles that are the Labor Party and the Greens party and the damage they have done to this country. And on that, I wish everybody a very merry Christmas and I look forward to seeing you all in 2015.

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

Can I also share festive greetings with Senator McGrath and others in the chamber.

We have been having a debate this afternoon about so-called barnacles and so-called broken promises. But let us be clear: what we have heard are carping and cliches from the other side. What we have not heard is an alternative. What we have not heard is a different plan. What we have not heard is one new idea from those opposite about how we can put this country on the best fiscal path possible—that has been missing from the contributions of Labor senators today. They would like you to believe that we should erase from our memory the last six years of Labor rule across this country—six years dominated by poor policy, poor implementation and a string of budget deficits. They would like you to ignore that from the current fiscal challenge that faces our nation. They refuse to admit that the country has a debt and deficit disaster. They refuse to admit that it is a disaster of their own making. Importantly, they reject what four Labor leaders have said. And I will come to that in a moment. But let me start with the commentary from a distinguished Australian businessman. Let us hear from Maurice Newman about what he thinks about the challenge.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Thank you, Senator Cameron. I cannot wait for the interjection when I get to the commentary of four former Labor leaders about the budget problems and what they are saying about your failure to meet the challenges of the budget problems that we have. Let us hear from Maurice Newman, a distinguished business leader. He said:

The Shorten opposition still fails to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem. It plays semantic games questioning whether our deteriorating fiscal situation is a genuine budget emergency. It ignores the copious evidence that a political tipping point is reached long before an economic crisis becomes a reality …

He further said:

By playing to welfare dependence, class envy and the notion that there is nothing serious to worry about, the illusion has been created that there is a painless growth option—

a painless option in terms of getting the budget back to surplus. Of course, we know the truth: there is no pain free way, unfortunately, to correct the economic vandalism and recklessness of the former government.

More critically than what Maurice Newman has had to say is Labor's repudiation of what Bob Hawke has had to say, Labor's repudiation of what Paul Keating has had to say, Labor's repudiation of what even Mark Latham has had to say. It is not good enough that they reject the distinguished commentary of Australia's business leaders; they are rejecting the commentary of their own former Labor leaders. Let us turn to that.

What did Bob Hawke and Paul Keating say in The Australian on 1 January this year? The Australian states:

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating—

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

Senator Cameron interjecting—

That is your Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, Senator Bilyk and Senator Cameron—

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating have urged the Abbott government to slash spending and speedily repair the budget bottom line—

things that you are stopping the government from doing—

arguing they faced up to a similar challenge in 1986-87 when the terms of trade collapsed and the dollar plummeted.

…      …   …

You've got to have a prime minister and treasurer, and a competent ministry which understands the issue and is prepared to make hard decisions.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

You are repudiating one of your most distinguished parliamentary leaders. I do not mind saying that the economic stewardship of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating was not bad. I do not mind saying that. I am not too proud to say that and you too, Senator Bilyk, can embrace what Bob Hawke and Paul Keating are saying, and be part of the change that is necessary to get the country back on track.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

What did Bill Hayden have to say, another distinguished Labor leader that Senator Cameron and Senator Bilyk would like to ignore and erase from history? Again, from The Australian, this time just last month, 8 November:

Former Labor leader Bill Hayden has urged the party to be build 'economic credibility'—

he urged Labor senators in this place to build economic credibility—

with the voters and stressed the need to reduce the influence of factions to reform its internal structures and overhaul its policies to regain government.

It is to be expected that Labor might reject the commentary of distinguished business leaders, but when they start to reject the commentary of their own former Labor leaders about the importance of establishing economic credibility, that is the bottom of the barrel. Unfortunately, Labor senators in this place have reached the bottom of the barrel.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just cannot thank Senator Moore enough for the opportunity to draw attention and put the spotlight on the absolutely impoverished government that was the Labor government of the last six years. The interesting thing to reflect upon is that there were three prime ministers in that time—Mr Rudd followed by Ms Gillard followed by Mr Rudd. Two of the prime ministers were actually gotten rid of by Labor's own caucus. They did not even give the Australian people the opportunity to get rid of them; they just waited until 2013 to do that—so hypocrisy writ large.

When you think of Kevin Rudd, what comes to mind? You think of pink batts and the terrible loss of four lives, and you think of billions of dollars. You think, of course, of the $900 and the $1, 200 cheques that were thrown around like confetti. When you think of Ms Gillard, you think immediately of failed memorial halls, many of which are falling down now—another $13 billion of taxpayers' money. Then you have the quinella—the Wayne Swan and Senator Penny Wong quinella, the worst Treasurer and finance minister combination in Australia's history who took a surplus of $22 billion and turned it into a massive debt who took an economy that had no net debt and created $200 billion of accumulated deficits who managed to put us in a position where we are borrowing a billion dollars a month. That is two new primary schools a day, seven days a week. What a wonderful opportunity Senator Moore has given us!

Let me go on. We now think of Mr Shorten. As Minister for Workplace Relations he destroyed Australian jobs and watched unemployment go up as a result of his bad industrial laws. We think of Senator Ludwig, who, with no compassion and no thought, trashed not just Australia's international reputation but the live cattle industry—from which we are yet to recover.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

And then—right on cue, thank you very much—comes Senator Conroy with his failed NBN scheme that of course did not need to go to tender! Certainly in many instances he did not bother going to tender. Then there was Australia's overseas media operation, which is a fair dinkum disgrace, incidentally—Bananas in Pyjamas! Senator Conroy, having set up a tender, interfered in the process. He reversed the tender result and gave it to the ABC—and we know what the end result was.

Why would Senator Moore give us this opportunity? Here we have a past Labor government that operated with the best terms of trade in Australia's history yet managed to run successive deficits. Spend, spend, spend—the whole time. Let me come to this question about the promises of this—

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

Order! Senator Back, resume your seat. Senators, I remind you that interjections are disorderly.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

Senator Bilyk! I remind you that interjections are disorderly. If you are going to make them, they might be a little more interesting at least.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The clock needs to be extended, Mr Acting Deputy President. I will explain to Senator Bilyk afterwards what the significance of my 'Bananas in Pyjamas' comment was—I watched them on television in Singapore recently.

Let us have a look at what we came into government to do. We said we would get rid of the shocking mining tax—a tax that was earning no income. We did it. We said we would get rid of the carbon tax and return money to Australian consumers and return confidence to the Australian electricity system. We have done it. We said that we would turn the boats around and take control of our borders again. We have done it. We said we would repair the budget—and who is standing on the hose of that process?

The question becomes one of how this government is performing. Let me spell it out. We have reduced that shocking projected debt, moving to $600 billion, by $300 billion. With infrastructure, we have committed $50 billion which will leverage up to $125 billion. We are already seeing it around Australia—something Labor was never capable of doing. On the state reforms and asset recycling, which were the first two territories or states to put their hands up for this asset recycling? The Labor led ACT and the Labor led South Australian governments. Isn't that amazing! We have privatised Medibank Private to put those funds back into working for the Australian community. We have got rid of 57,000 pages of red tape, with a saving of $2 billion a year. With Mr Andrew Robb, who is back on a plane now, incidentally, we have managed to put together three free trade agreements with three of our most important trading partners. A trillion dollars of environmental approvals, some 300 major projects, are all now underway. Last time around, Labor could not do it. We have reintroduced an employee share scheme to operate from 1 July—once again giving employees in businesses in this country the opportunity to share even further in the benefits. We have removed 100 Labor tax measures that went back to 2002.

So where are we are now in terms of business confidence? Business confidence and consumer confidence are back at their long-term averages. Retail trade is going upwards. Housing approvals are the best in 10 years. Where are the barnacles? If there are barnacles, who contaminated the waters? Who roughened the hull of this ship called 'Australia'? This mob on the other side did it. We are in a situation now where our terms of trade have deteriorated relative to the terms of trade experienced by the former government. Can you imagine for a minute if this crowd were let back in charge of the purse strings? It would be a catastrophe.

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

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.