Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to this debate on the government’s delivery of commitments. Having listened to that quite extraordinary performance by Senator Cormann, I wonder whether Senator Cormann has a sense of delusion and does not recall that we had 11 years of Liberal government mismanagement around these issues, 11 years of the continual adding of layers and layers of complexity around our taxation system, 11 years of overspending, 11 years of neglecting working families and 11 years of ignoring the issues it was not capable of dealing with. All of the issues that confront us now are supposedly the product of three years of a reforming Labor government. We all know that change comes slowly when you have to deal with complex issues of policy. Eleven years of the complexity of Australia’s taxation system is not something that can be unravelled in just a few years, and certainly cannot be unravelled in the tax summit that Senator Cormann so desperately wants to have before the end of June this year.

Why are we not having a tax summit? Maybe Senator Cormann was somewhere else, but he should know we have just had a major catastrophe in our country. Our efforts are on rebuilding the economy of Queensland and on dealing with the tragedy, distress and destruction that has occurred in New South Wales, Victoria and his own home state of Western Australia. Yet he wants to be caught up in an ideological debate that does not do him or his representation of his state much justice.

Senator Cormann argues that the government has lost its way. Let me tell you that this is not a government that has lost its way, it is not a government that has no direction, it is not a government that does not know what is doing and it is not a government that has no plan or vision for the future. It is a government that has been systematically addressing the neglect and lack of reform that it inherited when it came to government; it is a government that has dealt quite strategically with the impact of the global financial crisis; it is a government that has been delivering crucial services to the people of this country after years of neglect; it is a government that is delivering health and hospital reform and is actually investing in the community services that have been neglected for so long; it is a government that is investing in skills, education and training; it is a government that has invested in our schools, which have been neglected for decades; it is a government that is focused on the future, around the digital education revolution; and it is a government that wants it understood that it is positioning Australia for the future. What do we do? We think about the nation-building agenda of our government and what we have managed to deliver in three years.

Let’s start with the ill-fated Work Choices, that promise that dare not have its name mentioned in this place. Work Choices is dead? I do not think so. We do not have to think about what this opposition would do. If they came back into power, one of the first things that they would do would be to revisit the Fair Work Act and introduce some of the key features of Work Choices. We know that that is on your agenda.