Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

the only shareholder—there had to be an independent audit process of what was actually going on within the system. I was privy to some of that audit process. As tends to happen with hung parliaments, certain demands were made in relation to the probity issues and how all that was going to be worked through. So there is some history of government moving in and out of banking activities.

I will not be supporting this legislation. I think it is very dangerous and I think it is misplaced. I think the government is trying to trade on the other initiatives—the stimulus packages, which I have supported. I think they are trying to link the two together, in a sense: ‘Because we have done this, we need to do that.’ In fact, I do not believe we have to. I agree that we need to plug the gap that is there at the moment and try to stimulate the economy. But artificially inflating values, or maintaining values, of commercial property that, in a lot of cases, is very highly leveraged—very highly geared—for the sake of saving jobs is a very, very thin line that we are walking. In fact, I would argue that, if the stimulus packages that are in place at the moment do not deliver the appropriate outcome, this sort of package will not make any difference at all—because we will see the overseas economic meltdown far outweigh anything that we can possibly do here.

I think we have got to start sending some appropriate messages, particularly in relation to the commercial property market. We have seen, on the stock exchange, a commercial message go through to the investor that this was overheating and we were starting to overvalue assets. And we have seen trading activities and profits being made, by people who were really doing very little in terms of productive activity, out of some of those assets.

In fact, it would be very interesting, if this did get through the Senate, to watch who became the recipients of the money and which of those recipients had, in the past, made substantial donations to political parties—to see whether there is some payback being hidden behind this veneer of saving jobs in the commercial property market. In fact, if we are to learn anything out of what is happening around the globe at the moment, we have got to be able to transmit some of those messages back through to the community—that you cannot continually create productive effort out of a trading mechanism.

I also have some comments in relation to what we are attempting to do in terms of the emissions trading scheme. I am not opposed to doing something about climate change or to fairly stringent activity to try to cut emissions. But I think that this insinuation that if it does not fit within a market framework you discount it or rule it out is completely inappropriate in some of those areas.

Here, again, we are seeing what was essentially a market about to be funded by the four major banks and the government. Other members have made some very pertinent points in relation to this. There has been $2 billion from the government, and $500 million from the ANZ, Westpac, NAB and the Commonwealth. So that makes a $4 billion arrangement. But the legislation allows for a $26 billion debt capacity to be put in place. That means that the Commonwealth, as I understand it, has, or could have, a liability of up to $28 billion.

The legislation says that this is for two years. But a lot of things pass through parliament at the start as only interim measures. Look at the first home owners scheme—an interim measure. Look at the baby bonus. Look at what happened in the seventies and I think the early eighties in terms of the investment allowance. A lot of these things were put in place as temporary measures. It may be that governments believed that they were good ideas at the time. But I do not believe that the first home owners scheme is a good idea. I fought against one of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation in terms of monetary outlays that I have ever seen—the baby bonus. For Peter Costello—a man whom I admired in terms of his economic acumen—to defend that and try to put some logic to it in terms of population loss was, I thought, an appalling piece of social manipulation, and I think all members would be seeing some of the detrimental effects of the baby bonus and the impact that it is having. So these things that are put in place, often for the short term, can become part of the mechanisms of governments, and not all of them are positive. Occasionally, some of them are removed. But my message to the current government and to the Senate is that I believe there are some very substantial risks in this legislation. There are risks to the taxpayer and risks in terms of the commercial property market. And, as I said earlier, if the global economic crisis continues, the risks to those businesses anyway will be substantive and will possibly leave the nation and the taxpayer in a much worse situation, rather than accepting some of the messages that need to be sent.

So, as I said, I will not be supporting the Australian Business Investment Partnership. As the member for Lyne has said, and as I think the member for North Sydney and others have said, there are some governance issues here that really do need to be clarified. I do not believe that—just because we have an economic crisis, and just because there may be some liquidity problems with some very highly geared businesses, and just because some of those people may employ some people, and just because some of those people may be friends of the political process and have been quite substantial donors in the past—that is a good enough reason to create what really becomes a people’s bank for commercial activities. I think there are some very high risks.

I am pleased to see that the Treasurer is here in the chamber and, in conclusion, I will just reiterate my position. I supported the government on all the stimuli packages because I believed that there was some logic in terms of what they were attempting to do—to plug a pothole in terms of growth within the economy and to try and stimulate the growth that the normal economic activity, in their view, was going to be unable to achieve. I supported that. I supported the government in relation to the transfer of the $2 billion that was set up by the previous government as the Communications Fund, the interest of which would be spent over the next 20 years to achieve some pothole maintenance of our telecommunications system. I supported the concept of transferring that into a National Broadband Network. And I look forward to seeing those things come forward in the next few months. But I cannot support this structure. It is set up, essentially, to form a government bank. It is a government bank that rules out more people than it rules in, in terms of who can access the system. It leaves it slightly open-ended, so that others can be brought in at a future date. But it is essentially about propping up those—many of whom, as the member for Lyne said, have gone into these activities with their eyes open—who have made massive amounts of money, and who have become very highly geared with a view to making more and more money, when all of a sudden there are some storm clouds on the horizon. I do not believe that you remove those clouds for this particular sector within our economy. In fact, if we do remove those clouds, we do not really address the message that the globe is actually sending us—that you should be rewarded for a productive effort, not just for financial investment and margins at the end of that investment process. So I oppose the legislation.

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