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

$50 billion, I think, Senator, has been the investment to date—something like seven times the Snowy River scheme. In relation to my home state, I see there are some other senators from Queensland here, and no doubt when they make their contributions today they will acknowledge the coalition government's investment in my state: $6.7 billion on the Bruce Highway. And of course there is our magnificent range crossing, which takes me up to my lovely place at home on those few occasions I get there each month. So I am going to go with that. That is a big green tick on that slogan—we have an infrastructure Prime Minister.

'We are going to arrest the decline in the budget.' That decline would be the structural deficits that were put in place and were going to continue, in the forward estimates under Labor, to take us to nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in deficits. We have not heard the word 'trillion' here; we are in the phase between billions and hundreds of billions. We would have had deficits of $0.7 trillion.

'We are going to stop the boats.' That is what we said. It is not about stopping the boats—I love the words of former Prime Minister John Howard: 'We will determine who comes to our nation and on what terms they arrive.' That does not reflect on any part of the policy other than to say, 'We will have secure borders.' Australia is blessed in the world with having some ability—a better ability than most—to manage our borders. They are not particularly porous. As a result, there is a slogan: 'We will stop the boats.'

Another slogan: we said we would restore the live export trade. Think about that. Your mob brought the live animal export trade to a standstill, sending tens of thousands of families in my home state and across northern Australia into bankruptcy, in effect. They have never recovered. Third and fourth generation farming families, grazing families, ended up going to the wall.

I am pleased to see that the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—obviously she has been watching me on the television—has come down to pick up a few points. I will go steady so that you can take some notes, Senator Wong. You raised the issue of jobs. We said we would create more jobs. Indeed, in just under two years we created 335,000 jobs. That is 335,000 more people in work in this country than was the case when we took office.

I will stay around agriculture, because it is one of my favourite subjects. We have free trade agreements with Japan and Korea and of course the pending free trade agreement with China. I predicted yesterday that the effecting legislation for that agreement will pass through this place when Labor finds a way to roll itself over and look like it has not capitulated. It will create tens and tens of thousands more jobs around this nation. Those opposite want to talk about jobs and the FTA, but it is about two bob's worth of jobs that they think are going to be taken under some anomaly in legislation introduced by the Labor Party during their term.

One of my all-time favourites is the reduction in energy costs for small businesses across the nation and some big industries. It got right into our households and it arrested to a certain extent the decline that was happening in manufacturing under Labor. It has allowed people to get on with their businesses and to get them back into a profitable form, where they employ more people. It is right of Labor to raise the topic of jobs. Historically they were the party for jobs, job seekers and workers. I think it is fast evolving not just that the coalition have the reputation of being good economic managers—and I thank those opposite for raising the opportunity to discuss that—but that we are the party for the workers. We are the ones who are creating jobs and giving people a future, growing wealth and getting their personal circumstances into shape. This was a wonderful opportunity for you to raise these matters.

My final bit is about dysfunction and division; in three words: Rudd, Gillard, Rudd. You want to talk about dysfunction and division? Rudd, Gillard, Rudd—three prime ministers in 20 minutes. The ink was not even dry on the letterheads around there—but fortunately, as a savings measure, you were able to whip out the couple of thousand letterheads that were left, and put the Gillard ones in storage, in case we had another turnaround. And of course you did have one more attempt at that; we all know that. You had more attempts at elections. You had more elections over there than they have at my bowls club.

So I want to thank you. You are not even listening to me, ladies. I am genuine in my appreciation of you for having picked the topics of broken promises, slogans, dysfunction and division. Those were perfect topics for us to talk about the failures of the Labor Party during their six-year term.