Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is easy for you sit there and smile and laugh. We have families out there that might not be able to afford to pay for their kids to go to swimming lessons because of your carbon tax, so don't you sit there and laugh. I would also like to talk about one of the other great policies of this government—its policy to stop the boats.

Government members interjecting—

It is easy to laugh, yes. This is another great policy which I am sure that the member on the other side is quite proud of. Last year, we had a record number of boat arrivals. There were 274 boat arrivals, with 17,270 people. And we know the costs. The cost of these blow-outs to the taxpayer is $6.6 billion. That is $6.6 billion of taxpayers' funds that have been wasted on illegal boat arrivals. That is money that would otherwise have gone to our schools, our hospitals, our roads—all desperately needed. And what has the government actually forecast in the forward estimates? This is where it becomes amazing. Already this year 900 people have arrived illegally. That is the fastest start, the greatest number of arrivals, for any year on record. So it looks like this year will be worse than last year. But let us look at how the government has budgeted for this in the forward estimates. Amazingly, the government has actually budgeted for significant reductions in boat arrivals. In fact, the government is actually budgeting to have savings of $5 billion in reduced asylum seeker costs over the forward estimates, yet there is no change in policy. There is no change in policy and already this year we are seeing the numbers increasing ahead of last year and yet this government forecasts that it can save $5 billion over the forward estimates through reducing costs.

Why does all this matter? It matters because it does not give us the ability to do things that we need to do. In my electorate of Hughes there is a road, Heathcote Road, which is a 24 kilometre section. On that road, in the last five years we have seen 10 fatalities and many more serious injuries. So I am sure the people in my electorate were very excited when they read the press release from the foreign minister, who provided $15 million to rehabilitate 40 kilometres of road—not in Western Sydney or in southern Sydney or in other parts of Australia but on the island of Kiribati. The reason given was that the road had been undermined by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. How do I explain to people who live in my electorate, where we have a road that is 24 kilometres on which there have been 10 fatalities, that this government has no money for this road but was able to find $15 million to fix a road in Kiribati—supposedly because of coastal erosion and rising sea levels. But if we actually look at the tide gauges in Kiribati, we see that there have been no rising sea levels at all. But yet that is the excuse given for using $15 million of taxpayers' funds.

But, as I said, why does all this matter? We heard the member for Kingston talking about delivering for the people. But when this mob came to government they had $40 billion in the bank and a budget surplus, and they have blown the lot—every cent. But that is just the start. On top of that, so far to date, they have borrowed $200 billion to fund nothing other than reckless, wasteful and politically motivated spending. And the majority of that has been borrowed from overseas, from foreigners.

Let us just go through how we are going to have to pay this back. Let's just say we pay it back over 20 years. Including the interest repayments, it is going to cost Australian taxpayers the equivalent of $267 million a week every week for the next 20 years. I will put this in some perspective. Remember the great outcry over the sale of Cubbie Station, the privately owned property. Cubbie Station was sold to the Chinese for $247 million. I want all those who were concerned about the sale of Cubbie Station to think about this. Because of this government's reckless and wasteful spending, every week of the year for the next 20 years we are going to have to give away the equivalent of one Cubbie Station to pay off the debt that this mob have run up in just five years. There will be children who are not yet born who will be paying off Labor's debt. That is $14 billion a year. Just imagine what we could have done otherwise in the next 20 years with $14 billion a year. Australia simply cannot afford another three years of this Labor government.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 13:06

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