David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

He was asked: 'Was this an audit of your policy costings?'—and he said it was an audit. But, subsequently—in fact, this is the very reason the firm was reprimanded; because it was not an audit—the member for North Sydney said, 'Well, you know, what's an audit? Obviously I wasn't familiar with a detailed definition of what an audit was.' That is what he said.

So what have we seen since the last election? Of course, after the election we had that period of negotiation for minority government; and the Independents finally exposed the fraud that was the fiscal plan that the opposition took to the last election. They required that that plan be properly costed. It would have been properly costed had they done what the Charter of Budget Honesty requires. But it finally got costed by the Treasury, and what did we find? We found an $11 billion black hole.

It is on the strength of that $11 billion black hole that the Independents decided to form government with this government. So, when those opposite talk about lack of electoral legitimacy and electoral mandates, what they do not tell you is that one of the principal reasons why the Independents supported Labor to be government was that we did not go to the last election with shonky figures. We did not try to pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian people by going there with a plan that had an $11 billion black hole. We did not get some shonky costings from some accounting firm and then try to serve that up as having met our obligations under the Charter of Budget Honesty. But what do we have now? We have an opposition that has not learnt their lesson. They have been coasting along. They think this is all about the carbon tax and winning the next election because the sky is going to fall in because of the carbon tax.

Well, by the next election the Australian people are actually going to ask you to be up-front with them about what it is you plan to do. They will ask you to do that, and if you try to pull the wool over their eyes the way you did last time—or sought to, and got exposed after the election—you are going to come under a little bit more scrutiny this time. Not only do you have an $11 billion black hole, but we know that you have a $70 billion black hole. How do we know that? That is not some figure we have plucked out of some inaccurate newspaper report, like the figures you people want to trawl around with. That figure came out of the mouth of the shadow Treasurer.

In fact, Minister Burke is at the table here and he was on national breakfast television at the time that the shadow Treasurer said that they had a $70 billion black hole. And the shadow Treasurer has, ever since, sought to deny they have that $70 billion black hole, until just a few weeks ago when he went back on breakfast television—this time on the national broadcaster rather than commercial televisions, but breakfast television nonetheless—and confirmed that they still have a $70 billion black hole.

So, we know that they have a $70 billion black hole, but the only thing we do not know is how they are going to fill it. I have spoken in this place before about their economic strategy. Well, it is more of a political strategy. It is about running around to every corner of this country talking the economy down. You just heard it from the shadow Treasurer. If there is any bad news to be found in the national economy, the shadow Treasurer will be there, sniffing around looking for bad news.

But when you look at all of the good news—and there is plenty of it in terms of the strength of the Australian economy against competitor economies in the global economy—they do not want to know about it because it does not suit their political aims. Their strategy is to talk the economy down, tell everyone the economy is so busted and so wrecked that they have to come in and do some nasty things. The only thing is that they will not even tell us what these nasty things are. They talk about this commission of audit, which I will come to in a minute, but once again it is just a mechanism designed to try to kick the can along a little, past the next election, so that they can come back and have a crack and do all of the things that their counterparts in states like New South Wales and Queensland have been doing.

But on the question of the $70 billion black hole—out of the mouth of the member for North Sydney—he actually went on ABC News 24 TV on 19 September and said, 'We will find savings and we have found the savings.' Full credit to him if he has done the hard yards and has gone out and worked out which government programs he intends to cut in order to fill his $70 billion black hole. I think it is only fair that he share this news with the Australian people. He should share his plans for where he intends to make these cuts across education and health. If you look at New South Wales, $1.7 billion worth of cuts have been made to education. We have seen how much damage you can do with $1.7 billion worth of cuts. Imagine what you can do with $70 billion worth of cuts. Is that what he intends to do? I think it is only fair that he share this with the Australian people.

Not only should he tell the Australian people where he intends to make these savings, but he should learn from the error of his ways and should walk down to the Parliamentary Budget Office and get these plans costed so that the Australian people know not only, firstly, what he intends to do—what damage he intends to inflict—but, secondly, whether or not the shonky figures he wheels out before the next election have any credence at all. If he does not trust the Treasury—and we know how much they have talked down the public service; they have talked them down relentlessly and we know they do not trust the public service—we have even set up the Parliamentary Budget Office to give the opposition another option. The opposition should be fair dinkum with the Australian people. They should go and get their policies costed so that we know exactly what the full cost of them is.

I mentioned earlier that they talk about this commission of audit. We all know that what we have seen in New South Wales and Queensland is just a curtain-raiser of what is to come if they ever get their hands on the Treasury benches at the Commonwealth level. We know that, because what is going on in Queensland and New South Wales is fully authorised by those here in Canberra from the Liberal Party. In relation to Mr Abbott, Premier Newman said, 'He is very understanding. He and people like Joe Hockey have been incredibly supportive.' We heard the shadow Treasurer go on and say: 'All strength to his right arm. He is showing incredible courage.' My challenge to the shadow Treasurer is: be courageous and tell the Australian people which programs you are going to cut to fill your $70 billion black hole. Which programs do you intend to cut?

We already know from the last election that they would cut trades training centres and that they were going to cut our GP after-hours clinics. All of these things they said they were going to cut. Tell us what you are going to cut, if you win at the next election, to fill your $70 billion black hole. The only thing they have told us that they will cut is jobs. The shadow Treasurer says, 'I'm deeply concerned about the future of the labour market in this country.' We have 5.1 per cent unemployment; go and compare it with what is happening elsewhere in the world. He says he is deeply concerned with the labour market in this country, just as concerned as he was back when the global financial crisis struck. When we as a government acted, they did a runner.

In fact, the Leader of the Opposition did not just do a runner, he was asleep in his office when the biggest set of economic decisions that this generation has ever had to take were being taken in this place. He was asleep in his office. He missed the vote. So, for all of the talk about the BER and all of these other stimulus programs he, unlike some of his colleagues who are here, did not even vote against them because he missed the vote when he fell asleep—he was napping.

I know he was napping on that occasion.

Some people out there might argue: 'Well, look, he had a rough day. It was late at night. He fell asleep after a few drinks up at the parliamentary dining room.' I know it was reported at the time that that was what had occurred. You might be willing to be generous and forgive him for that—I am not that generous, but some might be more generous than me and say: 'He fell asleep, he missed a vote on one night.' It just happened to be the biggest economic vote that this House has ever taken—certainly in a generation. But he missed a vote. You might say that he had a rough day. Okay.

On several occasions recently I have seen the Leader of the Opposition out there saying, 'When we come to power we will return this country to growth'—implying that somehow we are not growing—totally ignorant of the fact that our economy has had 21 years of consecutive growth, unmatched in the developed world. The only conclusion I can draw is that he was not just asleep when he missed the vote; he has been asleep on the economy for the last 21 years. When it comes to the economy—

Mr Neumann interjecting—

I thank the member for Blair for reminding me that Peter Costello said that Abbott was bored—bored to tears and bored to sleep. Obviously he fell asleep for the 21 years of economic growth. His former employer John Hewson said Abbott was innumerate. These are the credentials of his economic policy, coming from his own side. But do not listen to what Peter Costello says; do not listen to what John Hewson says; have a look at what the member for North Sydney says. He says they have a $70 billion black hole; he says they have the policies that are going to fill that black hole; but he just has not told us what they are.

He said a bit earlier that we should not compare ourselves to countries like Mexico, South Korea and Spain—we are the twelfth-largest economy even though we are the 51st-largest country by population—he says we should be comparing ourselves to others. It is interesting. He gave a speech a bit earlier this year in which he said the same thing. He was talking about the 'end of the age of entitlement'. He was talking about ripping the guts out of the social service system—ripping the guts out of education and health. He said, 'We need to compare ourselves with our Asian neighbours, where the entitlement program of the state is far less than it is in Australia.' That is because he wants a race to the bottom. He wants to cut our social security safety net. He wants to drive us down. He wants to destroy the jobs of so many Australians. (Time expired)

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