Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister asks how we came to the $50 million figure. That was the figure that I was prepared to fight for and win in opposition. This was an effective advocacy that I was able to make that you were incapable of making. That is my first point. From opposition—where we did not have the resources of Treasury, we did not have knowledge of the extent to which you had blown the budget and spent like drunken sailors and we did not have an appreciation of the extent to which you were going to drive inflationary pressures as high as you did—we had to try and create an environment in which we were not only signalling a commitment to enhancing a scheme that you had run down but signalling an important down payment.

As for the question of the application of the scheme, our changes will apply from 1 July and exporters can plan next year with confidence. Exporters know that the funds have been provided in the budget for 2009-10 to cover eligible expenditure incurred in the next financial year. So what we are doing is covering expenditure from now on.

Let me make this point: you pay a price when you elect a government and get a dud one, and that is what the people who made application under the EMDG Scheme found to their disadvantage when the former government changed the guidelines in 2006 but put no money in to cover it. With their having made the first tranche of payments, there was no money left in the kitty for the second tranche of payments, except 15c in the dollar—and now they have the gall to try to suggest that that is our fault. What we are dealing with is the second tranche and the availability of money under their watch, because they did not provide money from 2006 onwards when they changed the guidelines, and they provided no money in the forward estimates. We inherited a scheme that was fundamentally being undermined because the previous government was not prepared to put money in. So, when the shadow minister asks me why we have underpayment in the EMDG this year, I say: blame the previous Liberal government; it all happened on their watch. I must say I have had great pleasure—not pleasure; that is the wrong term, although I am having pleasure here making the point in terms of our political opponents—

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