Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection, because the Labor Party obviously has no idea. I get a question from the shadow minister as to whether it is $20 billion or $30 billion. It is not my job to provide advice to the Australian Labor Party. What I can say to the Australian Labor Party is that it would be advantageous if the shadow minister actually spoke to his counterpart in the Senate and advised him of the cost, because your counterpart in the Senate does not know if it is $8 billion or $9 billion. You could start by telling Senator Conroy what the cost of your proposal is, because it changed from 12 o’clock to four o’clock. Your Senate counterpart did not even know the cost. Between 12 midday and four o’clock it had blown out by a billion dollars. That is the Labor Party’s record—cost blow-outs all over the place.

More importantly, let us get back to the economic management. We know that the Labor Party is straight-out falling at the very first economic hurdle when it comes to good governance for the people of Australia. We know that because the Australian Labor Party intends to engage in a smash-and-grab, as we heard from the Treasurer. We know that part of the funding for this proposal that has been put forward is to steal from future generations of Australians, our public servants, our Defence Force veterans and our Defence Force employees, their superannuation. That is the Labor Party policy: to take $2.7 billion out of the Future Fund.

Why was the Future Fund established? This government was proud to establish the Future Fund on one core principle, and that was recognition that the Australian population was ageing. With the ageing of the Australian population, we have a responsibility to future generations of Australians to provide for the costs that we are incurring today. And we did that, through the Future Fund, by saying that we will provide $140 billion to meet future liabilities of previous governments, this government and governments after us that will have to be met with regard to superannuation expenses. That was the commitment of this government. We said that we would quarantine those funds and put them into the Future Fund.

The Australian Labor Party has turned its back on that principle. The Australian Labor Party is prepared to steal from tomorrow’s generations in order to get elected later this year. The impact of that thievery, the impact of that economic irresponsibility and the impact of the Labor Party’s inability to manage the Australian economy will be felt by every single Australian. So I say to Australians: look through the light show that the ALP likes to hold up and actually turn to the substance. They will see that there is no substance to the Australian Labor Party. If Labor can turn its back on costings in four hours and have a cost blow-out of a billion dollars, then I shudder to think what will happen between now and the election. The price will be borne when they take out any extra money they need from the Future Fund. If the real cost is not in fact $9 billion but rather $11 billion, $12 billion or $20 billion, the people who will pay that price are the future generations of Australians.

We know that the Labor Party has no problem turning its back on so-called Labor Party principles. For so long we heard from the Australian Labor Party that it was intractably opposed to the sale of Telstra. We heard the Labor Party in this chamber, occasion after occasion, say how it would fight to the death to ensure that Telstra was not fully privatised. Yet it turns its back on that at the drop of a hat. Why did it do it? It did it because it wanted to pursue the populist notion of a national broadband network. I say to the Australian people: we know that the shadow minister cannot even keep the costs under control between lunchtime and four o’clock. We know that the costs blew out by a billion dollars. We know the Australian Labor Party does not have detail and that it is willing to steal some $2.7 billion—at the very least—from future generations of Australians. You cannot trust Labor on detail. You cannot trust Labor to keep its hands off the Future Fund. You cannot trust Labor to make the hard decisions about what is economically responsible for future generations of Australians. Australians should look past this light show and turn their backs on an irresponsible policy that would mean economic chaos in the future if Labor is re-elected. (Time expired)

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