Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's Budget chaos.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

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

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last budget was a disaster and the next budget will be more lies and more cuts and more chaos. But the problem is this government's approach to the next budget is presenting some very poor signals for Australia's future. We see cabinet leaking and fighting in the newspapers. What amazes Labor is that, even though their political allies, the New South Wales Liberal Party, are fighting an election on Saturday, this mob opposite cannot contain their chaos even for a few days to help them.

What makes it amazing is that we know that Tony Abbott and Mike Baird are great mates—and, to be fair, Tony Abbott got at least invited to this Liberal launch. But of course what we saw, most remarkably, is that they will let Tony Abbott out but they will not let him speak. All I say is that, if you do not let him speak at the New South Wales Liberal convention, why on earth do you inflict him on the rest of Australia?

But this has been a most chaotic week for the government. Not the least of the chaos is the discovery that in New South Wales, if you answer the telephone, you may or may not get some sort of crank call, or it may indeed be a Malcolm Turnbull robocall, automated pleading for a vote. But what is interesting is that the New South Wales Labor Party think an automated Malcolm Turnbull is better than a real Tony Abbott. I am not so sure they are right, but it is an interesting theory to debate.

Of course, this morning on radio we learnt that Mike Baird was asked why the member for Wentworth was being used for robocalls, not Tony Abbott—good question. Mike Baird said: 'Malcolm is very well known.' This is of course the problem, because Tony Abbott is very, very, very well known. The people of New South Wales know all about Tony Abbott. So do the people of Australia.

But the chaos and confusion is not just confined to the New South Wales election and they tactics they are trying to use to put Tony Abbott into witness protection. What we saw is Joe Hockey again repeating earlier styles. They love to hide the bad news before state elections and get it out after voters in a particular jurisdiction have voted. Treasurer Hockey says there is no need for us to reveal the report to Australians, no need to reveal it to the New South Wales government yet, because there is nothing to see: 'Nothing to see! Please keep moving along. Don't look at the scene of the crime.'

Then we discovered today that Joe Hockey produced another thought bubble. That man has a thought bubble factory. He has shares in thought bubble businesses. He said New South Wales would be $206 million worse off. But before the last election, before even the last chaotic budget, Tony Abbott was in Tasmania saying, 'I'll look after GST here.' And then he flew across to Western Australia and said, I'll look after GST here.' These people are all things to all people. The problem is that the music stops and the truth catches up with them; this next budget will be most chaotic.

Of course, there are different ways of dealing with the budget. Julie 'sounds like a good idea' Bishop, in a Chavez style, said, 'Let's cap iron ore production.' Why didn't we all think about a cartel? Oh that's right, we are not the Foreign Minister of Australia! You can just imagine the klaxon and red light in the Prime Minister's office—look out, another minister on the loose! The only question they ask in the Prime Minister's officer is, 'Was it a deliberate attack, an undermining of the government, or was it just another mistake from Julie Bishop?' And, of course, we saw the eye roll from the Foreign Minister about foreign aid cuts.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Oh my Lord, Mr McCormack! This whole government is funny; it would be, except you are running Australia! The Treasurer has ruled out cuts to foreign aid in this budget. We acknowledge that they have already knocked off $11 billion. That was a good day's work for these conservative right-wing ideologues—cutting $11 billion of aid to the poorest in the world! We had an eye roll from the Foreign Minister and the Treasurer ruled out cuts. What I do not understand is why they will not rule out cuts to schools, hospitals and pensioners. Why is it that this government can rule out some things and cannot rule out others.

Mrs Sudmalis interjecting—

I am sure the member for Gilmore, in her private moments, is thinking, 'Good point, Leader of the Opposition.' Then, of course, we come back to the chief problem of this budget—or one of the two: who is Batman and who is Robin in this budget? I do not know. Is it Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey or is it Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott? They both have a problem in that they both own this next budget. We saw the Prime Minister engage in what he is famous for—economics. Actually, he is not that famous for economics! He said that the debt to GDP ratio of about 50 to 60 per cent—

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't misquote it!

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't worry, I won't misquote it. We can't even get the Prime Minister to quote it again! Believe me, nothing I produce is as good as what this bloke does to himself. He said the debt to GDP ratio of about 50 to 60 per cent is 'a pretty good result'. A pretty good result! My Lord! It does make you channel that question asked on radio: 'For a Rhodes Scholar, how come you say such stupid things, Prime Minister?' The problem is that this budget is in chaos and this government is in disarray. Last year's budget was written by the big end of town. It was written by Tony Shepherd and Maurice Newman, from the Business Council of Australia. It was a debased, politicised, ideological process. We saw good public servants sidelined. It was straight from the pen of Tony Shepherd and Maurice Newman. The Treasurer made a dreadful mistake in handing over to the big end of town alone the pen that wrote the budget. Business has a role in forming the budget—of course it does—but a budget should be of the people, by the people and for the people. Last year's budget certainly was not. This government is out of touch. We know that they have no idea how people live their lives in the real world. There are no signs or any hopes that this budget will be any better.

This is a big statement but I think the evidence supports it: the two single worst performers in this government—and there is stiff competition—are the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. If Tony Abbott were smart, he would give the Treasurer's job to someone else. Here is some free bipartisan advice from the opposition to the government on behalf of the people of Australia: you need a new Treasurer, and fast. The problem is that the Prime Minister cannot give away the Treasurer's job because the Treasurer is glued to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister is glued to the Treasurer. They are the modern Thelma and Louise of politics, their fates inexorably tied. The budget they politicised was written by the top end of town with manifest unfairness—a GP tax; pension increases; cuts to the rate of pension increases; higher education changes; and the dreadful treatment of the unemployed, with six months of nothing at all. The problem is that the government could not sell its budget because it is manifestly unfair.

This is a government with no vision of the future. Their vision of the future is starkly ideological. They can never dig themselves out of the last budget hole because they are not capable of doing it. These people have never in their lives tried to fight an argument about the future of Australia These two, Hockey and Abbott, could not go two rounds with a revolving door; they cannot fight anyone. They have no plan in the next budget to make Australia a better destination, a better place for change. They have no view about foreign policy—the change from the West to the East—and our part in Asia. All they have is tired old ideology from the conservative rule book of 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980. They say, 'Let's get rid of bulk billing and then we can undermine universal Medicare.' They say, 'Let's bag working conditions in the safety net for working Australians.' They say, 'Let's freeze superannuation.' This mob opposite have never supported an increase to workers superannuation in their lives.

The only thing I expect to see in the next budget is that they will try and save their own skins. The Prime Minister says that this budget is dull. How does he think that reassures Australians? What that tells Australians is that he and Joe Hockey have given up; they have decided that they want it to be dull because that is the only way they think they can hang onto their jobs. The economic policy of this nation is run by two people's desire for their own job security—Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. The government has not yet done what it should do—dump the $100,000 degrees. Their education minister—and that is a misnomer—is running around saying, 'I'm not beaten; I want to force $100,000 degrees.' Their GP tax they will reinvent with a different name. They are cutting $80 billion out of hospitals and schools. They are cutting billions of dollars out of New South Wales. The retirement age is up—well done! But you have brought the pension down and you have frozen superannuation.

In the next six weeks we in the Labor party will be making sure we talk to pensioners. We will be making sure they understand that Labor will not let Tony Abbott and this mob opposite pocket their pension increases. In the next six weeks we will hold them to account. We will explain to Australians that there will be no touching the pensions and no touching Medicare. We will make sure that we keep this government honest in the lead-up to the next budget. (Time Expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All we heard in the last 10-minute rant was Tony Abbott, Tony Abbott, Tony Abbott. He covets Tony Abbott's job. He will never get it. But, mind you, he has the member for Sydney coveting his job. The member for Grayndler should have it. The people wanted the member for Grayndler as the opposition leader, but, no, the caucus wanted the member for Maribyrnong. We know that the people wanted the member for Grayndler.

I have to say I agree with the member for Maribyrnong when he said that the budget is of the people, by the people, for the people. He is right of course. He is totally right. But if he believes that, if in his heart of hearts he believes that the budget is of the people, by the people, for the people, why did Labor produce so many bad budgets? Why did Labor produce deficit after deficit after deficit after deficit?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's still a couple more.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After deficit after deficit. And they would have kept going, but the people spoke.

Listening to the opposition leader, it was a bit like that annoying voice on your vehicle's global positioning system. We all have GPSs, with their outdated maps. Let us say the GPS is activated even though the driver knows the way. So the driver has the GPS activated, the driver knows the way and the maps are, say, pre 7 September 2013. So we have outdated maps, the GPS is on and it saying, 'Turn back, turn back.' The driver knows they are going the right way—and the coalition is the driver, in this instance—but the GPS is saying, 'Bear left, bear left.' That is what the member for Maribyrnong is like, 'Let's do a U-turn, let's do a U-turn.'

He denies the fact of the election. He denies the 7 September 2013 election result. He is still on those outdated maps. He is still saying, 'Do a U-turn, bear left, bear left.' He is saying, 'Going the wrong way' when the people of Australia know that we are going the right way. The people know that we are getting Australia back on the map, back in the right position.

If anyone has any doubt about Labor wanting to do U-turns, wanting to reintroduce carbon taxes, wanting to reintroduce mining taxes, wanting to take us back to the debt and deficit legacy that it so loves, let's read from the budget speech produced by none other than the member for Lilley. He starts off, 'The four years of surpluses I announce tonight' and on and on and on. Who was he trying to kid? He was like the annoying voice of the outdated GPS, 'Turn back, bear left.'

We know that the coalition are getting Australia back on track. We know we are heading in the right direction. More importantly, Australians know we are heading in the right direction. The people of Australia know they are in for a bit of a tough haul, and that is unfortunate because of the debt and deficit legacy left by the mob opposite—a debt to GDP ratio of 122 per cent if left unchecked. When the coalition came to government, our net debt was on track to reach $5.6 trillion by 2054 in today's dollars, which would been equivalent to one of the highest in the developed world. Under the current legislated arrangements, our net debt has been halved to 60 per cent of GDP. That is because of the good work by the Treasurer, the good work by his new Assistant Treasurer and the good work by the Minister for Finance, Senator Cormann, in the other place. If all of the measures in the last budget were implemented, our net debt would continue to decline and we would start building budget surpluses again.

We are not getting any help from those opposite. They continue to block their own savings measures. It is like that GPS voice again, 'Traffic jam ahead, traffic jam ahead.' And there is a traffic jam ahead; it is called 'Labor in the Senate'. Come on board with us. Get in the back seat and help us to steer this vehicle in the right direction. Stop telling us to, 'Bear left.' Stop telling us to, 'Make a U-turn.' We know where we are going. We know what we have to do. Please help us. Stop trying to correct the vehicle. Stop trying to make us go in the wrong direction.

This coalition government was elected on a policy platform where our No. 1 priority was to get Australia's budget and spending back under control. Incremental savings over time make a difference. Only by achieving these savings and through a concerted effort to repair the budget can government afford the sorts of things that Australians want it to do.

We have made considerable progress in our first budget. The release of the Intergenerational report confirms this. The reform measures already implemented have cut in half Labor 's projected debt and deficit. That is a great start. We are facing up to some of our structural, economic and fiscal challenges, including an ageing population, our exposure to falling terms of trade and the current unsustainable rate of government spending. Those opposite are not telling us what they would do if they had the Treasury benches. They are not telling us. They have no plan for the future.

All the member for Maribyrnong can talk about when he stands up is Tony Abbott. He is obsessed with Tony Abbott. We are pressing on with the task of repealing red tape. It started under the member for Kooyong. It continues under the new Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister—repealing red tape and getting rid of bureaucracy. We are creating export opportunities for Australian businesses and we are investing in infrastructure—$50 billion, the biggest infrastructure spend in Australia's history. Labor left a legacy of debt and deficit.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's all they are good for.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that's all they are good for. Labor had six years governing the country, which demonstrated its inability to make the tough decisions, to make the tough calls. What they did demonstrate was their ability to spend and spend after inheriting a strong budget surplus. No government ever came in, as the Rudd government did in 2007, with a better balance sheet, with a better set of books, with a better set of economic figures. What did those opposite do? They just wasted the golden opportunity that Australia had, the government had, to put the country in a great position.

Under the policy settings that we inherited from Labor, Australia was headed for continuous deficits year after year for 40 long, sorry years. The coalition was elected to make tough decisions. We are doing that. We are spending on all sorts of infrastructure—$500 million to fix black spots on roads, $300 million to construct the Melbourne to Brisbane inland rail.

Today, we had a ministerial statement to cap water buyback at 1,500 gigalitres. The member for Watson opposite did not want to do that. He had charge of water. We had a situation where farmers were desperate for good water policy and he just ignored them. I will admit he came to Griffith and we had thousands of people turning up, worried about their futures. That was emblematic of what was happening all over Australia. This was just one portion of policy failure by Labor, but it was just an example, a microcosm, of what was happening nationwide. The member for Watson saw it. He saw it in those desperate farmers' and businesspeople's eyes. They wanted help but they got nothing from those opposite.

In the dying days of the New South Wales election campaign, true to its form, Labor is resorting to desperate last-ditch attempts to confuse people about the Pacific Highway. Together, the federal government and the New South Wales state government will complete the duplication of the Pacific Highway before the decade's end, and that is going to produce a much safer road not just for New South Wales motorists but for people all over Australia.

The New South Wales coalition government today has established an unprecedented partnership with New South Wales farmers—and I am sure that the member for Watson would appreciate that—through the steady and able leadership of Deputy Premier and Leader of the Nationals Troy Grant. I raise that because we have heard all about how they are very concerned about the state election, as we all should be, because it is an important watershed moment in the history of New South Wales. People should get on board in New South Wales and back the Baird-Grant government because it is rolling out infrastructure. It is doing all sorts of things for hospitals through the minister, as well as for education through Minister Piccoli, who is the member for Murrumbidgee and is running in the newly formed seat of Murray, down in the Riverina way.

Agriculture is front and centre in government policy at a state and federal level, with the centrepiece being the commitment to scrap the Native Vegetation Act 2003. This will certainly be popular amongst New South Wales farmers and landholders. It is monumental infrastructure investment from the Baird government which is creating jobs, hope, reward and opportunity in New South Wales, just as we are doing nationally. We are getting on with the job of fixing the debt and deficit, the mess created by those opposite. It would be absolutely chaotic if they were ever to get the treasury bench in this place again. We are certainly getting on with the job, and I absolutely reject the notion of this matter of public importance.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very sorry to have to disagree with the parliamentary secretary—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because you like me so much!

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do! We agree on so much, but today he has really gone on an adventure!

It takes a very special government to cut health, to cut education, to cut pensions and to cut support for families—$6,000 from the ordinary family—and still more than double the deficit. How do you manage to expand the deficit and expand debt over the next 40 years—it is in their own Intergenerational reportand still be cutting, despite your promises, health, education, support for families and pensions?

I know not many of you noticed, but I was asked to leave during question time today for saying that I object to the fact that this government has a plan—the Treasurer has a secret plan—to cut more than $200 million from New South Wales in GST revenue. I am not ashamed to be thrown out of this place for standing up for the people of New South Wales. They have experienced extraordinary cuts already because of this government's broken promises, with $15 billion cut from New South Wales hospitals, $1.2 billion over the next four years alone, and $9½ billion cut from New South Wales's schools. I am not ashamed to stand up for the people of New South Wales and say, 'No more cuts, and no cut to the GST revenue that New South Wales rightly expects to receive.' Isn't it a shame that Mike Baird is not prepared to say, 'No more cuts to New South Wales'? Isn't it a shame that Mike Baird would rather keep relations good with his surfing buddy than stand up for the people of New South Wales?

We have seen over the last year the most chaotic approach to a budget, ever. We saw that in the first year of government, up until Joe Hockey's last budget, and since then we have seen the inability to get these budget measures through. Here we are lining up for a second budget, with the same chaos reigning. It is really worrying that the foreign minister finds out from the front page of the newspaper that her budget is going to be cut again, for the fourth time in a row. It is worrying that the way she stops that happening is by having a fight with the Treasurer in the chamber, during a condolence motion—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And then leaks the outcome.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and then leaks the outcome. What is extraordinary about this is not only that the foreign minister did not know but that members opposite seem to have missed what was in the budget last May. It is extraordinary that they do not understand that the cuts to legal services will close community legal services and family violence prevention legal services in the electorates.

We heard today from the Attorney-General that that is all fixed. He is a fixer apparently, just like the education minister. We have another fixer, and the Prime Minister is, I think, the other fixer. The Minister for Social Services—another fixer. They are all fixers. So the Attorney-General fixer went out today and said he had fixed the issue of legal services. I called the legal service in my electorate, the Redfern Legal Centre, who have done a fantastic job over many decades, and they said that instead of having a shortfall of about $340,000 they will have a shortfall of about $290,000. A $290,000 cut instead of a $341,970 cut means that they lose half their solicitors, lose three areas of legal practice and turn away 500 people. It means they cannot help the people who go to them normally for help, and that includes the victims of family violence in very large numbers.

On the one hand we have had the Minister for Social Services going out and saying he has fixed homelessness, when he never restored the $44 million they cut in the last budget. We have the Attorney-General saying they have fixed support for legal services for victims of domestic violence, and that is not true. Rosie Batty, the Australian of the Year, said that she was assured by the Prime Minister and by the minister assisting him, Michaelia Cash, that no front-line services to domestic violence victims would be cut, and that is not true. She has returned from Mildura, where they will cut one full-time lawyer, and that lawyer will finish work on 30 June.

We see services cut, the most important services. We have alcohol and drug services that are closing on 30 June, and the Royal Flying Doctor Service's Rural Women's GP Service is also facing closure on 30 June. (Time expired)

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to once again speak on a matter of public importance moved by those opposite about the budget. As with all previous contributions from those opposite, there was not a mention of their record that has put Australia in the difficult budget position it is in, not a mention of their debt legacy and not a mention of what they would do to rectify it.

You only need to go back and look at the figures—and we will never get the figures from them. Those opposite look back on the budget papers and they emotionally airbrush away their period in government. Because back in 2007, it is often said, they inherited no net debt. In fact, they inherited more than that. They inherited $44 billion in the bank. Within a year, they had spent about $30 billion of it. Within another year, they were running up debt. I will read to the House their debt accumulation over those years. They went from nearly $45 billion in the bank to $16 billion dollars in the bank to $42 billion in the red to $84 billion to $147 billion to $152 billion to $202 billion, and today we are at about $245 billion.

If you look at the Intergenerational Report and you look at the path ahead, they were taking us on an ever downward path deeper and deeper into red ink to 120 per cent of GDP from the 15 per cent today. In his contribution, the Leader of the Opposition had not one idea on how to fix it; and in the contribution of the deputy leader, not one idea on how to fix it.

As we finish up this sitting day today, we will come back on budget day and, again, those opposite will not have one single idea to advance. For the Leader of the Opposition to move an MPI on what he calls 'budget chaos' takes some front, not just because he was an intimate part of the budget chaos as an Assistant Treasurer but because of the policies he pursued. The shadow minister for finance is there at the table and not even speaking on it.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am next. I am after you.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are coming next? You are third in line, very good. Well you can talk about the record of the Labor years. Why don't you talk about the unclaimed moneys? I will read out those figures. Labor in government sought more and more desperate measures like seizing $550 million in funds and unclaimed moneys from bank accounts. We have reversed their position to the position that existed, without any acrimony at all.

Opposition members interjecting—

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Casey is entitled to be heard in silence.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister interjects. He highlights his embarrassment over this issue of taking kids' bank accounts, taking pensioners' accounts. This is the fiscal equivalent of putting your hand down the back of everyone's lounge looking for gold coins. That is where you have got to in government. Those opposite come into this House on the last sitting day before the budget, 18 months nearly into this term and they do not have one idea of how they would fix the mess. Their answer is to stay on the debt road. The parliamentary secretary was quite right with his GPS analogy—you will forgive me for not following it; I am not as good an actor as the parliamentary secretary.

That is a very good analogy because Labor got us on the debt and deficit road. They got us from money in the bank to 15 per cent of GDP. They promised surplus after surplus and delivered deficit after deficit. Having created the mess—

Mr Giles interjecting—

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Member for Scullin.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member this Scullin has a guilty conscience, but he was not here for all of it. You do not need to have the guilty conscience. You were not for all of it; you just have to defend the wreckage. You did not create it all; you came near the end.

On budget day, we will see what Labor have to say and I predict it will be the same as what they have been saying for 18 months. (Time expired)

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Isn't it great that those opposite can continue to talk about the last term of government as though the Global Financial Crisis never happened? They will be proud that Peter Costello could deal with an Asian financial crisis but refuse to acknowledge that Wayne Swan could deal with a Global Financial Crisis yet they come in here and say, 'Oh no, how on earth is Joe Hockey meant to be able to deal with a change in the iron ore price?' That is the argument that they come into this chamber with.

The same Treasurer was holding a document which reportedly involved a $200-million cut to New South Wales in GST and refused to release it until after people vote. It is not the first time we have seen examples from this government of refusing to release a document until after people vote. When they had the Commission of Audit report, they made sure that that was not released before people voted in the WA election. Before the federal election, they made sure, before people voted, that they had not released their policies. This is the first government we have ever had that has turned out to release its election policies eight months after the election when they got to the budget. But in doing so, when they have had to reconcile with the broken promises of what the Prime Minister said before the election, they have come up with a new strategy.

The strategy that has been adopted here, no government has ever been brazen enough to adopt. When a broken promise has occurred, sometimes politicians say there was a context or there is a changed circumstance. Never before has Australia had a Prime Minister who thought the strategy was to say, 'No, I did not say it. It never happened.' People talk about this being a Prime Minister from the 1950s. That cannot be true because there was television in the 1950s. This Prime Minister works on the basis that, if he just says he never said it, there will be no record, no-one will know. This is a bit of a problem when people have watched the Prime Minister saying on television that a GDP to debt ratio of about 50 to 60 per cent is 'a pretty good result'. When he is asked a most basic question—when the Leader of the Opposition reads from a transcript and says, 'Prime Minister, did you say these words?'—the Prime Minister cannot answer yes, he cannot answer his own words. There is a debate going on at the moment in Australian politics: on one side are the words of the Prime Minister of Australia and on the other side are the words of the Prime Minister of Australia—and they are both losing in this debate! But it is not the only time the Prime Minister has done it. The government's entire economic narrative is based on a fundamental lie: they argue that they are somehow fixing debt and deficit. Since when was doubling the deficit a way of fixing it? But that is exactly what they did within a few months of coming to office. Having done so, as has been reported in TheAustralian Financial Review, they have since blown out the deficit by a further $80 billion and blown out the debt by $200 billion.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right, within a few months of coming to office they made the decision to make Australia's debt unlimited by doing a deal with the Greens. To somehow defend what they have done the Prime Minister has decided that he is now armed with a document. He has a graph—and the graph has different colours! Here is the problem for the Prime Minister when he refers to the different lines on the graph: the line that he claims is Labor's line is the line that was brought out after the Treasurer, a few months later, had doubled the deficit. There is a line that they refer to as 'previous policy'. They are right, it is previous policy; it is Liberal policy from earlier in this term. The line that they refer to as 'if they could get everything through'—their proposed policy—involves policies that by the time this document was released they had already said they had abandoned. That line includes that the GP tax is here to stay. That line includes that they will not give a decent deal to members of the Australian Defence Force. That line includes that they will do nothing about manufacturing jobs in the car industry. And yet to this day they still argue that they are the things they want to do. On that part of it, on those policies, I agree—they do still want to introduce the GP tax. (Time expired)

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to have a bit of a reset here. I think it is instructive for people listening that the shadow minister for finance has just spent five minutes talking about an intergovernmental report but, interestingly, has not mentioned any of the figures in it. The point is that these guys are in denial. The opposition are in denial. The motion we are debating today—a so-called motion of public importance—was put by the Leader of the Opposition. Where is the Leader of the Opposition? He is not here. There are only five or so members of the opposition here. There are 55 members of the opposition and they are just not here. That is how much they regard this as a matter of public importance.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

An opposition member: It is your motion.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is that it is your motion. I listened very carefully to the Leader of the Opposition's speech. I listened very carefully to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition's speech. Just then, I listened very carefully to the Manager of Opposition Business, who is also the shadow minister for finance. I listened very carefully to what he had to say. None of the three mentioned what their economic policy is. None of them mentioned what their plan is for the debt that they are supposedly concerned about—the debt they created. There wasn't a debt when they came into government in 2007.

As the member for Casey very succinctly said earlier, in 2007, when the Labor Party came into power, the federal government had $44 billion in net financial assets and they blew it completely in the course of two years. According to page 16 of the Intergenerational report, by the end of Labor's six-year period of government we were on a trajectory that was leading to an underlying cash deficit of 11.7 per cent of GDP by 2054-55 and—get this—net debt would reach almost 122 per cent of GDP. How much is 122 per cent of GDP in 2055? It is some $5.6 trillion. What countries would we be compared to if our net debt did actually reach 122 per cent of GDP? We would be compared to Greece and Spain. We would be compared to those countries in Europe that are considered to be basket cases in terms of their economic management. That is the trajectory that we have been on and that is the legacy of the Labor Party.

Opposition members interjecting—

I love the way you guys verbal the Prime Minister. In the last few weeks the Prime Minister has been making a clear and sensible point. He has noted that the Intergenerational report has completely blasted the case of the Labor Party that there was a major debt problem, and, secondly, has shown that in the first budget of the Abbott government we have halved that debt problem. We are now on a trajectory, under current legislated programs, that would take us to a deficit of some six per cent of GDP by 2055 and net debt is projected to reach almost 60 per cent of GDP. That would still be an appalling $2.6 trillion. We did not say that is a great result; we said it is an improvement on what Labor had otherwise locked in with their policy agenda. We have halved that problem, and now we have got to a situation where we now move on, in the next budget and the next budget and, after the election, the budget after that and the budget after that, to get back to surplus, we hope, within the next five to six years. I hope that is the case, because we need to get this under control, because we do not want to be in a situation where we are facing a future like Greece, like Spain, like Italy.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My attack will be based on the chaotic budget narrative, but I will say one thing about the narrative in the MPI debate. The government speakers have all been singularly consistent in forgetting about the global financial crisis. There was a collective amnesia during this period. We know where their leader was during the infamous stimulus vote, after a healthy dinner upstairs—he was asleep. Well, that is the most charitable view of where he was. He was asleep. Where were these guys for the last six years? The whole GFC passed them by. So we have seen collective amnesia between 2007 and 2013, and now we have got a chaotic budget narrative as the replacement.

We have seen the Prime Minister have more backflips than an Olympic gymnast. We have seen Mr Abbott have more positions on the budget then there are in the Kama Sutra. We had a budget emergency, then the budget bushfire, then 'Don't worry; we've passed 99 per cent of the budget, so don't worry about anything.' It is all: 'Nothing to look at.' Then we have had the 'feral' Senate, risking civilisation, although the government have been a bit dubious about who are the ferals in the Senate, depending on whose vote they need. In the last few weeks, we have had the farce of the Intergenerational report, a document that was jury-rigged out of the Treasurer's office, a document that Treasury officials ran a million miles from. But it gave the Prime Minister a prop, a prop that he hid behind like his Real Solutions pamphlet during the campaign—his shield: 'Don't touch me; read what's in this document.' But in the end he stuffed that up, as he did with Real Solutions. I will proudly read his full quote—I have been accused of misquoting—from the press conference on Wednesday, 18 March 2015:

… but a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 or 60 per cent is a pretty good result looking around the world …

That is the full quote. This is a gentleman who said that a debt to GDP ratio of 10 per cent was a budget emergency—but 50 to 60 per cent is a pretty good result! That is the ridiculous position we have got from the Prime Minister.

We have also seen the cabinet leaking like a sieve. We have seen the worst shadow Treasurer in history, now the Minister for Foreign Affairs, endorse an iron cartel. No wonder she got sacked. We had the member for New England's disastrous foray as shadow finance minister—and who can forget that?—when he mistook millions for billions. We remember. He was swiftly sacked, and I look forward to the member for Riverina replacing him at some point. I trust he will get his m's and b's right, so that will be good. We have had the eye-rolling by the foreign minister to roll a cabinet decision. We have had the Malcolm robocalls. We have had a circus instead of cabinet. Unfortunately, it is the Australian people who are paying the price for this.

What we need to recognise is that this is not just an echo chamber debate. This is not a debate that is just full of rhetoric. The concrete results of their failure to cement a budget strategy are paramount in the Australian community. We have seen confidence down, among both business and consumers. We have seen capital investment at a very low level. We have seen very sluggish economic growth. We have seen unemployment at a 12-year high. We have got a crisis of youth unemployment. We have got average hours worked in the economy falling. We have got the highest labour underutilisation rate since 1995, when we were coming out of the nineties recession. Perhaps most concerning of all, we have got the highest underemployment rate since records began. Since 1978, we have not had a period where there has been more underemployment, not even during the eighties recession or the nineties recession.

We are at risk of a huge jobs crisis because of the budget fiasco over there. Their budget is not helping the employment crisis; it is worsening it. That is a great tragedy. The impact in my area is being well and truly felt. In the Hunter region—which I am sure my colleague the member for Newcastle will talk about as well—we have got unemployment above 10 per cent for the first time in a long time. We have seen $220 million in cuts to Hunter and Central Coast hospitals. We have got 26,000 pensioners in my area under attack through the pension cuts—cuts that have already occurred, through the $1.4 billion concession cut. I have got uni students who are worried about the debt they face.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What rubbish!

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear 'rubbish' from the other side. The concessions have been cut.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They have not!

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You do not even understand your own budget, Member for Gilmore. You do not understand your own budget.

As I conclude, this budget is in chaos. They will not be able to reset it in May. What we will see is more chaos from an incompetent government who are only interested in looking after their own jobs. Unfortunately, it is the people of Australia, the people of New South Wales and the people of the Hunter who will suffer the most from this indulgence.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very interesting than the word 'chaos' is being used, because I would like to give some feedback to the other side right now. I had the privilege and the pleasure last night to be at a dinner in the Great Hall and I sat with nine other people, none of them politicians, none of them even a member of a political party, but very importantly—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might actually want to listen to this, because—you know what?—they employ people. Amongst the nine of them, they employ thousands of people. Do you know what the constant theme was?

Ms Hall interjecting—

You might like to know what that feels like, because you would not how to employ people and you would not know how to run a business. But do you know what those people said? They said, 'Thank God you've ended the chaos.' That is what they said. They said that, for years—

Ms Hall interjecting—

Ms Ryan interjecting—

They gave me the examples. They said—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The good members on my left should be in their places if they wish to interject.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They said, 'As businesspeople, we could not afford to invest; we could not have the confidence to invest.' They were giving me the examples. They said the chaos was things like banning live exports overnight after a TV program. The chaos was: 'Let's call an election nine months out. That's a good idea.' That was a chaotic decision. What that meant—

Opposition members interjecting—

You would not understand this, but I will try and explain it to you. When an election is called, businesses stop investing, because consumers get nervous. Consumers think there is uncertainty. That was another example that they gave me. Again, if we are going to mention the word 'chaos', it was really interesting that that was the theme that I was hearing last night. Let us look at the budget. The budget has done a couple of things. Actually, let us stay with chaos and go off the budget for one second. One of the ladies last night said: 'What about the chaotic boat policy they had?' Anyway, we will not go there!

One of the big themes of last year's budget was infrastructure. Let us talk about infrastructure. I will also compliment the Baird government, the New South Wales coalition government, because with the infrastructure program that they are running out in the state electorates, some in my electorate, there is going to be a massive infrastructure spend on hospitals, bridges, rail, trails; there is all sorts of infrastructure spending happening. One of the major infrastructure projects that we are running out—and I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, you are very pleased about it—is the duplication of the Pacific Highway. The other side wanted to cut spending on that. They wanted to lower the Commonwealth government's spend from 80 per cent to 50 per cent. Well, that is nice! That was a great idea! We said we would maintain the spending at 80 per cent—and we will.

Let us stay on the budget. Spending on health, spending on education and spending on welfare are all increasing. There is an interesting little analogy with the budget too, with the increases in all these areas. The people last night were businesspeople who have employed people, people who actually know how the commerce world works. Wouldn't it be nice to have some of those over on that side! As a citizen, not as a politician, I would love to look over at that side and see some over there! Is there anyone with a commercial brain? Is there a Hawke there? Is there a Keating there? God, no. We are in trouble, because there is no-one. There is no economic literacy that comes out from that side.

The other thing the people last night said was: 'Thank you for stopping the chaos, and thank you for the free trade agreements.' Let us look at chaos. Do you know where there is chaos? You love talking about sustainability. Let us talk about sustainability. We could talk about environmental sustainability. That is a good idea. I believe in that as well. But nothing of economic sustainability is ever breathed from that side. It is populism, it is tax, it is spend—and it is populism. It is populism. Do you know what you get from that? You get chaos. You get situations like in Greece or in South America. That is chaos: when you owe money to people and they say, We want it back,' that is when you get chaos.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not unusual to be speaking about the budget in late March, as we are now. It is just that we are normally talking about the upcoming budget, not the one from last year. The chaos and disruption that the government have caused with their ongoing wrathful cuts and broken promises are still reverberating around the country, which is why we continue, day after day, in this parliament to talk about the budget that was—the budget that has never quite been yet and is never going to be.

We know about the hurt that the budget is causing out there to the Australian people and the hurt it is causing to our economy. It has been 10 months now since that last budget, which was described most aptly by an unnamed source among members opposite as that 'stinking, rotten carcass' that hangs around the neck of the government. It has been 10 months, and what do we have? We have wages down and unemployment up. We have growth down and youth unemployment up. We have confidence way down and cost of living way up.

This government of broken promises has torn up that social contract with the Australian public by pushing ahead with its purely ideological agenda for cuts. It is cuts to education, cuts to health, cuts to family payments, cuts to science and the arts, cuts to the ABC and the SBS, cuts to the environment, cuts to the Human Rights Commission, cuts to overseas aid, cuts to social services, cuts to legal services, cuts to Indigenous affairs, cuts to pensions: I do not know where to stop!

In my electorate of Newcastle, when the budget was handed down—the one that was handed down last year—unemployment was 4.7 per cent. In the latest data, it has doubled. Thousands of jobs have been lost and there is no sign of repair, no plan for the future. Rarely a week goes by that I am not fielding calls from distressed local employers telling me that they are having to let more good people go. Just this month, the local shipbuilder in my electorate, Forgacs, announced that they have been forced to sack another 100 employees from their plant—another 100 people with no jobs in my electorate—and they are in danger of losing their entire workforce by Christmas. A few weeks earlier, Downer EDI announced that 59 workers would lose their jobs from their Hunter operations. The week before, steel supplier Martensite Australia shut the doors of their Tomago operations—another 20 jobs gone from the region. Many smaller job losses go largely unreported, but they are no less damaging to the health and wellbeing of the workers and families that are affected.

While not all jobs losses can be blamed on governments, state and federal governments have a very significant role to play in terms of creating the right economic conditions for employers to prosper and operate with confidence about the future. The Prime Minister is too busy fighting Labor, talking about the past and talking about his own enemies in his own internal operations—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thirty-nine members!

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thirty-nine members! He spends so much time focusing on those issues that he has forgotten what he is here for. Prime Minister, here is a thought: how about fighting for someone else's job, rather than your own? How about fighting for hardworking Australians; for students, pensioners, unemployed people looking for a break and Indigenous Australians; and for our national future? How about fighting for the Forgacs shipbuilders? How about mapping out a long-term plan for a rolling build of Defence contracts? How about fighting for the lawyers who work for Aboriginal legal services and who now find themselves without jobs, despite record incarceration rates of Indigenous people in this nation? Listen to what these people are saying in the community. How about fighting for our renewable energy industry and our scientists at CSIRO?

Your cuts have led to 161 job losses at CSIRO in New South Wales this year alone. Where is this Prime Minister? Where is the Premier of New South Wales? Can they not make a guarantee to the people of my electorate that there will be no job losses in the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle? No, they cannot, because all they have done on their watch is make cuts to jobs. (Time expired)

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to address this MPI today on budget chaos, which we inherited from previous Labor governments. I start by taking the member for Charlton to task a bit that we 'don't mention the global financial crisis'. The Rudd government was not the first government to experience external shocks. In 1997 Peter Costello and the Howard government had to deal with the Asian financial meltdown. In 2001 we had the dotcom crash. So governments in the past have certainly had to deal with external shocks. On the point about the global financial crisis, in conjunction with that we saw a massive boom out of China. Through the period that the previous Labor government handed down massive deficits we had the best terms of trade this country has seen in 100 years. I want to put that into perspective, at the start.

If you want to talk about budget chaos, I have a long list of achievements by the previous government. We all know them, but I will run through them because they do deserve a mention: pink batts; school halls; the previous Treasurer, Mr Swan, standing at the dispatch box predicting that the next four budgets would all be in surplus; and the mining tax was announced, which had massive spending initiatives attached and ended up raising very little revenue and had to be adjusted eight times, before they finally came to the wrong conclusion.

There are others that do not get mentioned often. One of these is the $1.8 billion fringe benefits tax, which led to almost immediate job losses in the car and other retail sectors. Cash for clunkers is another absolute beauty. And there is GroceryWatch. Probably the daddy of them all is the NBN, which was put together on the back of an envelope on a VIP jet on the way to Darwin. That is a project—

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the back of a beer coaster.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand corrected; it was on the back of a beer coaster. My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, if I inadvertently misled the House there. That is a project that started out as $4½ billion on the back of a beer coaster and it manifested itself up to a $70 billion project. Our minister for Communications, Minister Turnbull, has done a magnificent job in pulling that back into a somewhat reasonable project. We are all guilty of it in this place—we tend to try to score points. I guess that is what this MPI is all about.

Today I want to talk a little more about things that touch the people in my electorate, the things they really care about not, so much the point scoring that goes on in this place but the things that affect lives. I want to touch on some of the achievements of this government in economic policy areas since we won government in September 2013. Probably in my electorate the most important policy initiative has been the restoration of the live-export trade.

People underestimate the damage that the decision by the previous government did to the psyche of people across regional Western Australia and across regional Australia more generally. It was not just the economic damage that it did to their livelihoods. It was the message the government gave them—that they did not care about them. They did not care about their industry, they did not care about their families and they did not care about their jobs. Ultimately, they did not even care about the livestock that these people cared for, because it created some massive animal-welfare issues for those people to deal with. If they had been in the car industry or some other unionised industry, there would have been an industry-recovery package or an industry support package.

People in that industry got no support whatsoever from the government. I am very proud to stand here as part of a government that has restored that live-export trade. I have some numbers here.

An incident having occurred in the gallery—

We have a system where cruelty to animals is—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for O'Connor. The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The honourable member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.