Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. I refer the minister to a speech by the Secretary of the Treasury last week, in which he said: ‘Government spending that does not pass an appropriately defined cost-benefit test necessarily detracts from Australia’s wellbeing.’ What cost-benefit analysis was undertaken in relation to the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to hear that the Leader of the Opposition pays attention to speeches on cost-effective policy by the Secretary of the Treasury. I had referred him to one in March 2007 on precisely that point—which is a landmark event in the deterioration of the Howard government.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question was very specific. The Leader of the Opposition referred to a particular point from the secretary and that is what he should refer to.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am listening very closely to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. He is responding to the question.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I reiterate my point that the Secretary of the Treasury has a long track record of drawing attention to this issue. He did so in a way that proved rather embarrassing for the Howard government and pointed out the massive failings on its policy front. I most vividly recall the infamous gestation of the $10 billion water plan which was on the back of a serviette at a long lunch.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question that was asked by the opposition leader, in part, was: what cost-benefit analysis was undertaken in relation to the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program? The minister is refusing to answer it.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister is responding to the question.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a vague recollection that the member for Wentworth and the Leader of the Opposition was in fact minister for water in the former government at a time when they announced their $10 billion water plan, which had not even been costed by the department of finance, much less subject to any cost-benefit analysis.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition does not have the call.

Order! We can get out the cups of tea and coffee if people want to have a little afternoon tea.

The Leader of the House will resume his seat. Now the House will turn its mind to how people outside perceive us. This is question time. People, when they approach the dispatch box, will get the call when the House comes to order. There was an illustration there where the Leader of the Opposition may have thought he had the call but those on my right were denying him the call outside of the standing orders.

If the point of order, as I understand it, goes to the relevance of the answer, I simply put to the House that, in following the practice that has been for many parliaments, the finance minister has taken an aspect of the question, which he is directing his remarks to. Whilst this is a definition of relevance that may be a mystery to many, it has been the way in which question time has been conducted for a while. I have urged the House to use the Procedure Committee to look at these matters, but that has not happened yet. The minister for finance has the call.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I was asked about cost-benefit analysis approaches to the government’s stimulus package and, in particular, the Building the Education Revolution initiative. I will tell you, Mr Speaker, and I will tell the Leader of the Opposition the cost-benefit analysis approach that was taken. It was this: we received advice from the Secretary of Treasury and other Treasury officials that a huge storm was about to hit the Australian economy and that it was necessary to get money into the Australian economy—inject it into the Australian economy in a variety of ways as quickly as possible to sustain hundreds of thousand of jobs and thousands of businesses—and that the best way of undertaking this was a staged process which involved, firstly, payments to individuals through the tax system and the family payment system, which would get money moving into households very quickly; secondly, money that could be moved quickly into maintenance, into infrastructure, into building things and into sustaining the construction sector and, thirdly, longer term infrastructure projects that would build Australia for the future.

We understand that the other side is now back in the zone where they do not believe the global financial crisis or the global recession are real. They have waxed and waned, they have gone in and out of the twilight zone, they have been off there with the zombies, they have been all over the place and they are now back in the zone where they have discovered that it never happened—that it did not exist. The member for Sturt has pronounced it dead; it did not happen; it is all over today. The truth is that the cost-benefit analysis for the Australian people was this: without rapid action on the part of this government through injecting large sums of money into the Australian economy, into construction, into retail, into tourism and into all of the activities of the Australian economy we would be facing unemployment much higher than we do today. We would be facing thousands of businesses, particularly small businesses, that would be bankrupt. That was the basis on which that decision was taken, along with all of the other stimulus decisions. This government stands proudly by those decisions and we point out that virtually every other serious commentator and participant in this debate says we were right and you were wrong.