Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Where to start on that I do not know, but it was fascinating to hear the member for McEwen's views on the debt ceiling. It is obvious he has a PhD in economics. If the member for Hughes is a creodont then you are a quagga, if I may put it to you that way, member for McEwen.

I am known for my controversial views and my outspokenness. But I want to say to my colleagues that I do not think I am being controversial or outspoken when I say this could be the worst MPI in the history of federation; I think it is probably so. This is, perhaps, a complete joke that the Labor Party has put forward to us today, considering they are talking about listening and learning. At two elections now they have failed to learn or to listen to the Australian people give the clear signal they have been trying to give—that the opposition are completely out of touch with Australian people.

There is no greater sign of that than the Leader of the Opposition who wants to return us to carbon pricing—even though on two occasions, at two elections, the Australian people have said, 'Not before the rest of the world and not in our time.' Not listening and not learning—you should get a medal for it! You really should, because your lessons have not been learnt. When I hear the Leader of the Opposition tell us that his plan, his program, his policy and his way forward is to go for growth, I wonder who you have been listening to and who you have been learning from. We listened to the Australian people and we learned that 'go for growth' is really not a great slogan to win an election with. I would encourage the Labor Party to stick with 'go for growth'. 'Go for growth' should be your next election slogan. Give it a run and see how it goes with the Australian people.

The reality is we have a very serious situation put before us by the Labor Party. The Labor Party has left Australians with $100 million in interest to be paid on debt every single day. They have left us with a reform legacy that would challenge any competent government. There is so much reform this country needs which has been squibbed on by Labor, including important procurement and defence decisions like submarines. How dare they lecture us about making tough decisions on submarines when they squibbed on them for six years! How dare they tell us that we refuse to make a decision about a capability gap in one of our most important procurements for Defence in the last 100 years! That decision was extremely important. You were incapable of making it. Tell that to the workers you brought here today from Adelaide—tell them that you could not make it. You had six years of government to get their contracts for them and you refused to make that decision. Go and tell them that. Go and tell them you are incapable of making those decisions. You simply could not do it because your governments were so dysfunctional. One hundred million dollars a day—it is a deficit and debt crisis.

The Labor Party's answer is that we do not have a debt or deficit problem. Their response is that there is no problem: 'Why do we have a problem? What are the problems? There is no problem.' They say we can just continue to spend in the manner they did when they were in office, which was to throw other people's money away as if there was no tomorrow.

It is clear this MPI is a complete joke because the Labor Party has refused to learn the lessons of its time in office. The lessons are: you cannot spend away tomorrow today; you cannot simply borrow—not just to fund big and important items, but the daily activities of government as well; you cannot just borrow every day to fund every single activity you wish to undertake. You have to have a reasonable and appropriate approach to economic expenditure and ensure you can fund your bills. It is good to see the Minister for Communications at the table because the NBN is one of the worst examples of a government simply having no idea how they could possibly fund a massive enterprise. You could ask the Labor Party, 'Where was the modelling for the NBN?'. They ask us every day, 'Where is your modelling? Where is your modelling for this? Where is your modelling for that?' Where was their modelling for the NBN—the mooted NBN—which was the single biggest item of expenditure by a federal government in the history of the federal government? There was no modelling done or undertaken and no modelling provided to the Australian people. That is the lesson that has simply not been learnt by the Australian Labor Party.

This MPI is a complete and utter joke. Australians do not want this parliament engaged in Canberra insider games, discussing these matters endlessly back and forwards. This is a government that is working hard to deliver for families—working on jobs, working on the economy and working on reining in the debt and deficit legacy that has been left to us by the most incompetent government in our history. We will continue to work hard on meeting that challenge.

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