Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the previous speaker. This $10 billion bill is one of the grossest wastes of off-budget taxpayers' money that you could ever see. This is the sort of bill where those opposite, after they have voted for it, will need to go and have a shower, because they know that this bill smells. They know that this bill is dirty. They know that this bill is basically a bribe. It is our great negotiator, the Prime Minister's, way of making sure that by any means she continues to keep that faint grip she has on office. But it really goes to the heart of what is wrong with this government. It is all about staying in power and it is not about the long-term interests of the country.

The previous speaker mentioned that the only person who has really come into this place and, with glee, welcomed this bill is the member for Melbourne. We have not seen those opposite from the Labor Party able in all good conscience to bring themselves to come in here and support this bill wholeheartedly—and there is very good reason for that. It is a shabby, shabby piece of legislation. The speed with which it is being rushed through the House demonstrates the embarrassment with which this government holds this piece of legislation. I was called last Friday to see whether I was able to be a temporary member of the House Standing Committee on Economics to examine this bill, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Bill 2012. When I asked why the haste, they said, 'There's two hours for the House economics committee set aside on Monday to examine this bill and the committee must report by Wednesday.' We have had to rush the report out today so that the bill could be voted on. Let us just consider that: there were two hours for the economics committee to review this piece of legislation. We spent the first hour, roughly, dealing with $5 billion in the bill and the second hour looking at the other $5 billion in the bill.

It is sort of funny—and you have to step outside this place occasionally because $10 billion can sort of start rolling off the tongue a little—but then you look at the way this government spends money. That $10 billion will be added to our net debt position, which will be $144 billion by the end of the year. Today we saw the government shut down debate on us trying to bring attention in this place to the fact that the government wants to increase its credit card borrowing from $250 billion to $300 billion. While all this is going on, here we are, having a bill rushed through which will, off budget, commit the Australian taxpayer to $10 billion worth of government expenditure.

It is worth looking at the mechanism to delivering this $10 billion. The government has set up an investment arm to do this with, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. During the hearing that we had on Monday, I asked the Treasury officials whether they remembered an organisation in Victoria called the VEDC, which was an investment arm of the Victorian government that helped send the then Cain-Kirner government broke. Sadly, the Treasury officials could not bring it to mind. They could not come to terms with the fact that there have been previous examples of such investment arms being set up which have lost taxpayers—in this case, Victorian taxpayers—large amounts of money. I remember the VEDC because one of the investment projects that they had was for Lake Eildon. They invested in a catamaran houseboat which was going to do wonders for tourism in the region. That half-built catamaran sat on the shores of Lake Eildon for about five years as a constant reminder of what happens when government starts to take the crazy decision that it will pick industry winners, which is exactly what this bill does.

I suppose if we are to say anything good about this bill it is that there is a tiny bit of honesty in it. It recognises that 7½ per cent, to start with, of the money invested will be lost. If there is any honesty in this bill at all, it is that the government has recognised that this Greens inspired piece of legislation will automatically lose 7½ per cent of the $10 billion investment. It might sound crazy, but at least there is a shred of honesty in it.

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