Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the adjournment to mark the anniversary of the election of the Howard government to office 10 years ago today. Like many Australians, I am disappointed that the Howard government has racked up 10 years in government—10 years of missed opportunities, 10 years of complacency, 10 years of empty rhetoric and 10 years of misleading the Australian people. Just cast your mind back to some of the incidents which have highlighted the fundamental dishonesty and unscrupulous behaviour of this government.

The lowest point, until the current massive AWB scandal, was the ‘children overboard’ incident, where the Howard government falsely claimed that refugees had been throwing their children overboard. The Howard government exploited this unfortunate and tragic event in the most callous and cynical way and, in so doing, deliberately sought to undermine the credibility and professionalism of Australia’s armed forces. Indeed, the government’s treatment of Defence Force personnel in demanding their complicity in this grubby little exercise was without doubt one of the nastiest episodes in the Howard government’s history.

Today we have heard supporters and critics of the Howard government, and the Prime Minister himself, commenting on the 10-year anniversary. There are many words which accurately summarise this government’s time in office. My personal favourites and the ones which I think most aptly convey the tone and behaviour of the Howard government are two words which I must declare I am borrowing from the former President of the Liberal Party, Shane Stone—‘mean’ and ‘tricky’. So much of this government’s agenda is mean and tricky. The Howard government’s decisions affecting senior Australians in my electorate of Swan have been mean and tricky. We have fewer aged care beds today than we had 10 years ago. The elderly have been denied access to dental treatment by the government’s abolition of the Commonwealth dental program. The Commonwealth has removed free hearing aids and hearing services for health card holders. The government has cut pensions for those with some savings by changing the deeming rules. The government has cut pensions for those who earn a little extra money by abolishing the earnings credit scheme. Sneaky new pension payment systems have been introduced which short-change pensioners when payments are indexed. Massive price hikes for PBS medicines have outstripped pharmaceutical allowance increases. And, just last December, we saw this mean and tricky government remove calcium tablets from the PBS for all but those patients with renal conditions. The decision by the Minister for Health and Ageing to do this was in direct contravention of the advice of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, and it will impact severely on older people with osteoporosis.

The tragedy is that it is our seniors who should be amongst the highest priorities of any government. Every one of us owes them a debt of gratitude. These are our parents and our grandparents. Many of them lived through the Great Depression and world war, and they deserve to be honoured and treated with dignity in their retirement years. You can imagine how disturbed and upset many of them are at the relentless reductions in the services which the federal government provides. When I meet with seniors in my electorate, they tell me of their disquiet about their financial security being constantly under attack. One of the seniors said to me recently that what upsets him most when he contemplates the seemingly constant reductions in pension benefits and services is the attack on his pride and dignity. After years of hard work and duty, he and his wife feel that they deserve better than the constant reductions in their entitlements by this mean and tricky government.

Mean and tricky can be applied to many aspects of this government. Do honourable members recall this document I have here? Back in 1998, the Prime Minister was forced by a spate of ministerial misbehaviours to issue this document: A guide on key elements of ministerial responsibility. It is essentially the Howard government’s rule book, and it makes very interesting reading. I draw the attention of the House to one clause of the guide on page 10:

Ministers must be honest in their public dealings and should not intentionally mislead the Parliament or the public. Any misconception caused inadvertently should be corrected at the earliest opportunity.

That is pretty clear, isn’t it? You do not need a lawyer’s opinion to understand that one. Yet time and time again ministers are in flagrant breach of this requirement and the Prime Minister enthusiastically presides over such contraventions, making a mockery of his very own standards.

We are seeing further flouting of the Prime Minister’s rule book at the moment in the context of the AWB scandal. The Deputy Prime Minister unequivocally informed the parliament last year that the first time he was made aware of allegations about AWB was when the Volcker inquiry report was released. Yesterday he admitted to the House that he had been aware of such allegations in 2000. It is an open and shut case: the Deputy Prime Minister misled the House and he is in breach of the clause which I just read to the House from the Prime Minister’s rule book. The Prime Minister should put him out of his misery and sack him for making false statements to the parliament and for being undeniably out of his depth in a job well beyond his capabilities.

On this 10th anniversary of the election of the Howard government, it is timely to reflect on the fact that we have a Prime Minister who allows ministers to mislead the parliament with impunity. He presides over a complacent government, big on rhetoric and short on action. He presides over a government which has been mean and tricky in its treatment of ordinary Australians but generous and expansive to the top end of town. Sadly, history will be a harsh judge of the Howard government’s record. The epitaph on the Prime Minister’s political grave will be ‘mean and tricky’. (Time expired)