House debates

Thursday, 2 March 2006

Adjournment

Howard Government; Dental Health

4:45 pm

Photo of Patrick SeckerPatrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I was going to speak on some other matters, but I cannot let pass some misleading by the Labor Party, including the two Labor Party members who have spoken here tonight. The member for Hindmarsh has just said that Murray Bridge has a high unemployment level which is higher than the national average. That may have been the case 7½ years ago when I was elected, when the unemployment rate was about 14 per cent, but it is actually now below the national average. Does the member for Hindmarsh realise that the state Labor government had to tick off on the fact that there was a labour shortage in the area for the 457 visas for the people coming from China to work at the T&R meatworks? I think the Labor Party should get its facts right, and I think it is very dangerous ground—almost bordering on the racist area of public policy, the whispering campaign—for the member for Hindmarsh to come in here and say that they should not be doing that.

There are clear labour shortages in Murray Bridge. They have been trying and they continue to try to get local workers, and they were faced with a situation where they could not. I think the member for Hindmarsh not only owes the company in Murray Bridge an apology, but he also needs to apologise to the township of Murray Bridge, because they have done some enormous things there to ensure that development is occurring and that jobs have been created in that area. The member for Hindmarsh should stick to his own area, which I hope he knows something about, because I can assure you he certainly does not know anything about the Murray Bridge area.

It was also very interesting for the member for Parramatta to continue with this Labor lie that, under our Constitution, the federal government has responsibility for dental health. I challenge the member for Parramatta, or any Labor member, to table the place in the Constitution where it says dental health is the responsibility of the federal government. It is not. I have seen this Labor lie also peddled by the member for Adelaide in an Advertiser article some weeks ago. The thing that happened in 1993 was that the Keating Labor government knew that the state governments around Australia were not doing their job on dental health, so Keating came up with a program that was to end in 1996 to try to reduce some of those waiting lists. That program was due to end in 1996 and we did not renew it because, for one thing, we had to repay the $96 billion worth of debt that the federal Labor government had left us.

It is very interesting to look at the Labor debt that this country was left. Since Federation in 1901, we had to build a new capital, we had to build the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, we had to go through a depression and we had two world wars and several other serious skirmishes. In the 90-year period from 1901 to 1990 we accumulated, as a nation, $16 billion worth of national debt. Going through all of those expenditures where we had to start from scratch, we accumulated as a nation $16 billion worth of debt. From 1990, what we took 90 years to do as a country was repeated every year for the next five years. So we went from $16 billion to $96 billion in five years under Labor. It is no wonder that this government had to get the Treasury and our finances back in order and—boy!—have we done that.

By the end of this financial year, we will have reduced our debt to zero. Our net government debt will be zero. It will be the first government in Australia’s history to actually have a net debt of zero. Tell me of any other government in the world that has been able to create those sorts of conditions. I do not believe there is one. To get that debt level down from $96 billion and at the same time reduce unemployment, we have created 1.7 million jobs and we have reduced the interest rate. If you want to look at the history of this government, I think we can stand very proud of the fact that we have the best government this country has ever seen. (Time expired)