Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I missed the intellectual contribution of new ideas and vision for the future of our nation from the member for Melbourne Ports. I thank the member for Moreton for his comments about integrity because, if we look at the definition of integrity, it is about being honest. To review Labor's track record when they were in government for six years and go through the surplus, the NBN and Defence shipbuilding, let's just examine a few points around what they proposed to do as a government and what they delivered. Were they honest? Did they have integrity? Let's see what the answer will be. Labor delivered a deficit. It was our friend the member for Swan—who has disappeared, not surprisingly, given that he failed to follow through with a surplus that he promised for four years. Even the member for Maribyrnong, now the Leader of the Opposition, said in a 2012 budget media release:

A budget surplus for a strong economy—spreading the benefits of the mining boom to all Australians.

We know from the history that there was no public surplus. There is one myth exposed—and one misleading, deceptive and dishonest statement.

Moving on to the NBN: in 2007, Labor promised a National Broadband Network costing close to $5 billion, to be completed by 2013. What did they do? After six years of Labor, only three per cent of Australians had access to the NBN and fewer than 100,000 homes were using it. They achieved just 16 per cent of the original rollout. What rubbish, what myth, what falsehoods, what dishonesty and what lack of integrity. Onto defence: Labor raided defence, cutting or deferring $16 billion from 2009-10 to 2016-17. Defence is very dear to my heart as a South Australian, and I once again remind the opposition of the commitments to the bring forward the Future Frigate program and the patrol vessels. Let's look at submarines, because I might have heard something about submarines from those opposite. Labor delayed the program to replace the Navy's Collins class submarines by four years, after promising it in 2009. I will read from the 2009 white paper, since Labor like to quote the white paper now and again. Labor said it would:

… double the size of the submarine force [and] replace the current Anzac class frigate with a more capable Future Frigate …

What happened? There was nothing on submarines and nothing on frigates. It took us being in government to do something—to deliver, to bring the projects forward, to deliver jobs—

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