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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Goldstein proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The cost to the nation of waste and mismanagement within government programs.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This speech condemning the shameful waste and mismanagement of this government is given by me more in sadness than in anger. We all come to this place to see Australia go ahead, to become a better place, no matter who is in government. But after three years of the Rudd government I despair at the lost opportunities, the cynicism, the incompetence and the extraordinary growth of government in our lives. I despair at the loss of international respect and standing, the emergence of major sovereign risk for those who look to invest in Australia, and the mounting cost pressures on families and the impact these have on their enjoyment of life.

We could fill days of debate documenting the monumental waste and mismanagement that has become the hallmark of this government, the waste and mismanagement that has cost this country billions of dollars and that has driven the serious cost-of-living pressures facing millions of Australians—the waste and mismanagement that now defines this government. We could go on and on about this shameful three-year record, but the critical question to ask is: why? Why is it that this government is now best known for its failure to manage the shop with any level of competence and judgement? Why is it that in three short years so little has been achieved and yet so much has been claimed? Why is it that the Australian people feel so short-changed? Why is it that so much the Rudd government touches turns to custard?

Why is it that Labor’s promised program of computers in schools for every student in years 9 to 12 has so far only delivered 220,000 of the one million computers and a blow-out of $1 billion? Why is it that Labor promised to cut spending on consultancies but have instead awarded $1.2 billion in consultancy contracts since coming to office? Why is it that Labor promised broadband for $4.7 billion but broke that promise, replacing it with a plan for $43 billion? Of course, in the process, they wasted $20 million on a cancelled tender process and spent another $25 million on yet another report by consultants—all for a white elephant that will put up to $43 billion of taxpayers’ money at risk.

Why is it that Labor claim to have all the answers on climate change and the environment but have dumped the ETS for the cynical purpose of trying to make some of the parameters within a budget work? Prime Minister, you know that that $10 billion was fundamental to reaching one of the key parameters in the budget. It was a very cynical move by this government, despite the Prime Minister on so many occasions saying this is the great moral challenge of this century. They have wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.

Just think of the money spent on thousands and thousands of hours of work by companies and individuals who took seriously the endless process of Senate committee inquiries, Garnaut reports 1, 2 and 3, the green paper and the white paper—all of that for nothing. There was $50 million worth of climate change advertising; 150 public servants administered the scheme, at a cost of $81 million; and 68 delegates were sent to Copenhagen, at a cost of $1½ million.

On top of this, in the environment area, there was the solar panel blow-out of $850 million and the dumping of $175 million on the Green Loans Program. The pink batts program, costing $2.45 billion, represents one of the monumental policy failures in this country’s history. It has resulted in 240,000 substandard installations, 1,500 electrified roofs, 120 house fires, four deaths and about $1 billion in waste—$1 billion of waste, four deaths and endless fires, and yet we discover that the Prime Minister knew about this, he was advised about this on several occasions over the last 12 months, and did nothing about it, and nor did his minister. He has misled this House by refusing to answer. He gave the impression he saw none of this, but by implication he has misled this House. All the minister for finance could say, in pathetic defence of this mismanagement and waste, was that it ‘wasn’t right to expect the government to be dotting i’s and crossing t’s because we are in a crisis situation’.

So far the most notorious example of government waste has been the pink batts, but this is likely to be superseded by the school halls program, which looks to have wasted many billions of its $16.7 billion. Dozens of examples of unconscionable waste are already in the public arena and each day seems to bring fresh evidence of more. Independent assessment has found that these school halls cost four times the amount of commercial buildings of a similar structure and nature. We are seeing billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money being wasted, and this is the responsibility—though you would not think it—of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Why is it that border protection is seeing a $1 billion blow-out? The Prime Minister promised to take a very tough line on people-smuggling, promising before the election to turn around the boats, yet we have had 120 boats arrive during this government’s time in office, and that number is growing. Prior to that, under the Howard government, we had 18 boats in six years. This is again a monumental failure of policy, a fundamental failure of courage.

Why is it that the Prime Minister pledged to tackle the cost of living for working families and yet in my city of Melbourne, over the last 12 months, electricity has gone up by 23 per cent, petrol by 7.4 per cent, rent by 4.4 per cent, child care by 7.9 per cent, water by 17.6 per cent, medical costs by 6.8 per cent and fruit and veg by eight per cent? This is all after setting up and shutting down GroceryWatch at a cost of $10 million and setting up and shutting down Fuelwatch while petrol prices continued to rise.

Furthermore, why is it that Australia has the highest interest rates in the developed world, with the endless, reckless spending, overspending and bad spending of $52 billion of stimulus money, resulting in six interest rate rises, and pressure on interest rates and our exchange rate, costing families thousands of dollars extra on their mortgages and hurting our exporters with higher exchange rates? Young couples who bought houses last year on the promise of cheaper housing, with a scheme designed to encourage them to buy houses, are now paying up to $5,000 more in mortgage payments just one year later because of the panicked spending and misspending by this government over a 12-month period.

Why is it that many millions of dollars have been wasted on seeking a UN Security Council seat? Why is it that the government has managed to weaken our relationships with Japan, China and India, at great cost to us in the years ahead? Why is it that the government has proposed a 40 per cent tax on our great mining industry, threatening $310 billion worth of mining projects, hundreds of thousands of jobs and many billions of dollars of revenue over the next 30, 40 or 50 years? We have a window of opportunity in the next four or five years to put our foot on a whole host of 30-, 40- and 50-year projects. If we do not secure those, they will go to the rest of the world. We will export projects. We will export jobs. And we will see up to two or three generations of Australians materially worse off because of the short-sightedness and the political crassness of this government, which has imposed a tax to meet a budget requirement due to its incompetence, its mismanagement, its overspending, its bad spending and its waste and mismanagement.

The politics of envy has put at great risk the opportunity to rebuild the resilience of the economy that this government inherited. This government is incompetent in not urgently dealing with the issue of uncertainty that still prevails in the world economy. Why did this government break promises on superannuation, private health insurance, 260 childcare centres, capping IVF treatment, delivering GP clinics, being an economic conservative, means-testing the baby bonus, changes to employee share ownership and stopping whaling? And why did this government present a budget that is simply not believable, a house of cards, a budget that will collapse under the weight of a huge tax on the engine of growth and employment in Australia? Its budget surplus is a mirage. It will never occur because of the waste and mismanagement and the duplicity of this government in structuring a budget that is simply not believable, which is under threat from its own measures from within the budget.

This is what it has come to: a litany of failures and disappointments, a litany of incompetence and lack of performance. Government by spin. I put it to you that competence and performance is primarily a function of character, strength of character. Character is what you do when no-one is watching. Character is when you reach inside your soul and follow your convictions. Character is finishing what you start. Character is about courage and judgement, not belligerence and panic under pressure. Character is taking responsibility for inevitable mistakes. Character is staying true to commitments solemnly made. Character is leading by listening. And character is about trust—trusting others around you, your colleagues and trusting yourself; staying true to yourself.

Sadly, under all the pressures of government, the Prime Minister and his government have failed so often on these tests of character and all Australians are paying the price. The Prime Minister and his government have not stayed true to commitments solemnly made. Promise after promise has been broken with gay abandon or the cynicism of crass politics. The Prime Minister and his government have not shown courage and judgement under pressure. In response to the financial woes that struck the Northern Hemisphere so powerfully two years ago and then challenged the resilience of Australia’s economy and others, the Prime Minister panicked. The government overspent and poorly spent and, in the process, spent tens of billions of dollars of reserves—built-up with so much work and effort over the previous decade—and built a $100 billion debt in no time at all. Rather than quickly rebuilding the resilience of the economy they inherited, they have the highest interest rates in the developed world, huge cost of living pressures and great big new job-destroying taxes as a consequence.

The Prime Minister has not shown trust in those around him and has not shown the trust and courage to stick by his own convictions. Dumping the emissions trading scheme to manipulate a budget outcome and avoid a political battle showed enormous weakness, given his professed view that this was the greatest moral and economic challenge of this century. It is pathetic. Seeking ownership of every government decision shows a lack of trust in colleagues and a lack of personal confidence and self-belief. The Prime Minister reminds me of the home handyman we all know—he enthusiastically starts a hundred jobs and he finishes none of them. He lacks the character to finish what he starts.

The Prime Minister and his government have failed to lead by listening. If they were listening, they would be focused, overwhelmingly, on reducing the cost of living pressures that face millions of Australians and their families. Instead of endless reckless spending and mountains of debt, the government would have pushed interest rates down rather than up. The government should be living within its means. Instead of new taxes to pay for the reckless spending, the government should have the courage to make tough decisions. Instead of billions of dollars of waste and mismanagement, the government should focus less on managing the media spin each day and more on doing the hard yards of managing programs effectively.

The PM and his government have failed to take responsibility for inevitable mistakes. This character weakness worries people. They feel uncertainty about the PM’s strength in dealing with whatever lies ahead. Character is what you do when no-one is watching. Do we know this Prime Minister? Does he have the courage of his convictions, or is he a chameleon? A government that believes in nothing will deliver nothing. To date, the government is known as a government of all talk and no action. If you do not know where you are going, you will never get there. All of this is a direct result of the failure of the Prime Minister and his government to pass the character test. It is why we have witnessed a government lurching from one failure to another, building a monumental level of waste and mismanagement. (Time expired)

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

I am pleased to be able to engage in debate with my fifth shadow finance minister in 2½ years. I am claiming an Australian record. I do not think there has been any previous instance of a senior portfolio having so many shadow ministers in one parliamentary term. In fact, a relatively representative group—three states, both genders, both houses and both parties in the coalition—has been represented. There was Senator Joyce and before him the member for North Sydney, the member for Dickson and Senator Coonan. Now there is the member for Goldstein, and he, like all his predecessors, is trotting out yet another dog-ate-my-homework smokescreen which is designed to pour out the rhetoric and to put forward some nice little slogans and a few grabs while avoiding one fundamental question: ‘What do the opposition propose to do with respect to government spending, taxation, the budget, fiscal policy and the future of the nation should it be elected in the election that is due within a matter of months?’ Eventually, they will be forced to reveal their plans and to give the Australian people some indication of what they are proposing to do. Maybe it will be this evening. We will find out in due course. But thus far all we have had has been rhetoric and empty slogans.

On the matter of shadow finance ministers, the member for Goldstein’s immediate predecessor must be feeling rather miffed today. He lost the portfolio because he tended to get a bit confused with figures, but one of his predecessors—the member for Sydney—got promoted to shadow Treasurer, and yesterday the member for North Sydney managed to say that 12 minus 9.8 equals 3.2. So while Senator Joyce got very big figures—billions and trillions—confused, the new shadow Treasurer cannot even work out what 9.8 taken from 12 equals. It was not a slip of the tongue; he was reading his own question. We all make slips of the tongue occasionally, but a shadow Treasurer’s reading out his own question and being unable to make a simple subtraction does give you cause to ponder the prospects for the nation and for fiscal management should he actually become Treasurer.

Given the record of the coalition in government on the issues that are the ostensible subject matter of this MPI debate, perhaps we should not be surprised that they cannot find a shadow finance minister who can stay in the portfolio longer than a matter of months. We remember—as the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government pointed out today—the infamous Regional Partnerships program, the Beaudesert rail project where no trains ever ran, the cheese factory that got money after it closed down, the ethanol factory that never existed and so the list goes on. We remember the government advertising spending in the 2007 calendar year of $254 million. For the purposes of comparison, what has the Rudd government’s record been? We spent $86 million in 2008 and $115 million in 2009.

I note that as a central part of his attack the member for Goldstein made a claim about spending on consultants, so let us have a look at the record of spending on consultants. In the last full financial year of the Howard government, total spending on consultants was $535 million, in 2007-08 it was $454 million and in 2008-09 it was $475 million. It was $60 million lower in the first full year of the Rudd government than in the last full year of the Howard government not accounting for inflation, because by definition the fees of consultants, like the rest of the economy, would have been a little bit more expensive given the two years that had passed in that time.

We all recall the famous water plan drawn up on the back of a serviette after a long lunch by the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, and how, when my predecessor as finance minister, Senator Minchin, was asked on the Meet the Press program a couple of days after it was announced, ‘Was this costed by the department of finance?’ he said that it would be ‘costed in due course’. The normal pattern with these things is that the department of finance costs significant government spending proposals before they are decided and before they are announced, not after they are announced unilaterally by the Prime Minister without consulting his Department of the Treasury or department of finance.

We all remember the record of the coalition on discretionary grants, which blew out from $450 million in 2002 to $4.5 billion in 2007. So within about five or six years, the Howard government went from spending $450 million to spending $4.5 billion on discretionary grants. You would be interested to know that the record of the Rudd government on this point, Madam Deputy Speaker, is that in the following year the amount spent on discretionary grants by this government fell 27 per cent from the figure that we inherited from the Howard government.

We all remember the blow-out in the number of public servants under the Howard government. From around 2002 until 2007, the total numbers went from 212,000 to 247,000. In the three years covered by the relevant budgets of the Rudd government since it has been in office, the total increase in the Public Service will be about three per cent—that is, roughly one per cent a year—which is lower than the population increase in Australia over that period, while in the last three years of the Howard government, Public Service numbers increased by 9.3 per cent. So the members of the opposition do not come to this debate with a great deal of recent credibility.

I now turn to the government’s record on issues of efficiency, accountability and spending generally. First, on coming to office we imposed a one-off, two per cent efficiency dividend across virtually all of government. There were one or two exceptions; much of defence operational activity was one of them. That one-off, two per cent efficiency dividend meant that the ordinary operating costs of government shrank significantly as a result and that squeezed better performance and better productivity out of the public sector.

We have put forward a dramatic change in the structure of procurement in the processes of government, working through product category by product category and delivering very substantial savings. There are half a billion dollars worth of savings already projected from IT courtesy of the Gershon inquiry and significant savings from coordinated approaches to property procurement, telecommunications, Microsoft product, office machines and most recently—this was announced just prior to the budget and included in the budget—$160 million over four years through coordinating approaches to the purchase of aviation and travel services. These are all things that the Howard government could have and should have done but refused to do because of its obsession with mimicking the private sector.

We have been in the process, which will peak in the parliament in the next sitting week, of reforming the structure of administration of government superannuation. This will not only deliver significant benefits as to the costs of government—enabling us to modernise the IT systems used in administering government superannuation that desperately need reinvestment on a cost-neutral basis—but also deliver very substantial improvements in the outcomes for the investment component of the superannuation that applies to both public servants and military personnel in the relevant schemes.

We have put in place very substantial reforms to the management of discretionary grants and accountability for dealing with discretionary grants so that never again will we see some of the absolute administrative outrages that characterised the infamous Regional Partnerships program. We have put in place strict guidelines with respect to political advertising to ensure that all substantial advertising proposals—any things that cost above $250,000—have to go through an arms-length process of scrutiny that determines whether or not they are genuine government advertising or political advertising.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No more Work Choices ads!

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

No more Work Choices ads and no more ‘Unchain my heart’ ads or any of those complete outrages that we all remember so well.

I will turn now to the budget processes and the wider picture of government efficiencies that I have been directly responsible for. In our first budget we had $33 billion of savings over four years; in the second budget, $22 billion of savings over four years; in the third budget, $28 billion of savings over four years. These have included major tough decisions such as extending the age of pension eligibility from 65 to 67. This year we have made very substantial savings as a result of very tough negotiations with the pharmaceuticals manufacturing sector and the pharmacy sector in order to get better value for money from that very large spend that the government undertakes through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the delivery of pharmaceuticals. In contrast to this very substantial track record of the Rudd government, in the last four coalition budgets there were virtually no substantial savings. In earlier budgets the Howard government did have very substantial savings, some of which we disagreed with and some of which involved broken election promises—we all remember the distinction between core and non-core election promises—but in the last four budgets, with the money rolling in, there were virtually no savings.

This government, whether it has been during a mining boom, in a global financial crisis or in a resurgent economy post the direct impact of the global financial crisis, has found substantial savings, including very substantial spending cuts in all three of its budgets. The overall position is that the budget, in spite of the impact of the global financial crisis, will return to surplus by 2012-13, debt as a proportion of GDP will peak at just over six per cent and, as a result of the budget two days ago, we have finally seen the inevitable demise of the laughable ‘debt and deficit’ campaign—the hysterical rhetoric and grossly inflated exaggerations of the opposition. We have put in place strict budget rules to impose real discipline on the government, on its ministers and on its public servants, in particular a cap on spending increases of two per cent per annum in real terms, which is lower than the projected increase in the economy over that time. In this budget we extended that cap to go to the point where the budget will be in surplus of one per cent of GDP. We remain committed to keeping the tax ratio as a proportion of our economy on average at or below the level we inherited from our predecessors and we are adhering to that commitment. In fact, it continues to be substantially lower and will be significantly lower right across the forward estimates. In the second year of the four years of the forward estimates in this budget, spending will return to roughly the level it was for much of the Howard years as a proportion of the economy, and for the third and fourth years of the budget estimates it will be lower than the typical level of spending as a proportion of the economy under John Howard.

It is crunch night tonight for the opposition. They have kept putting off the difficult stuff. They are very good at rhetoric; they are very good at slogans; they are very good at colourful one-line grabs—but they keep putting off the hard choices. They keep putting off the difficult point where they actually have to stand up and say, ‘Here is where the money is coming from.’ We first had, ‘Not until the new year.’ Then it was, ‘Wait until parliament resumes.’ Now it is, ‘Wait until the budget reply.’ I am banking on the fact that you will not get much of that in the budget reply tonight, Madam Deputy Speaker. The moment of truth is here, but I can guarantee you that you will not see the Leader of the Opposition indicate where the $15.7 billion of unfunded spending he has already committed to is going to come from. You will not hear him indicate how he is going to maintain the projected surpluses that the government has put in place in the forward estimates. All you will hear is further hairy-chested rhetoric with nothing behind it.

In the chart and table that I released today is a very conservative estimate of the commitments that have been made by the opposition. It only includes commitments that have been explicit and that are clear—an indication that a coalition government, if it were elected to office, will do the following things. For example, the coalition has committed to removing the means testing of family tax benefits and the baby bonus that the government put in place and removing some of the tightening of middle-class welfare that the government put in place. It has committed to those things at very substantial cost, well over $1 billion, and there has been no indication yet of how they are going to be paid for. That is just one component of that $15.7 billion black hole in the coalition’s costings.

We will see tonight whether the Leader of the Opposition can meet the four tests I set for him earlier today: first, whether he can explain how he is going to pay for this $15.7 billion that he has already promised; second, if he is going to continue to oppose the Resource Super Profits Tax, whether he is also going to oppose the cut in company tax, the small business tax benefits, the improvements in superannuation and the improvements in infrastructure that are all being financed by the proceeds from this tax and, if he is not going to oppose those things, how he is proposing to finance them; third, whether he is prepared to match the government’s fiscal rules and to commit to extending the two per cent real cap on spending to the point where the budget gets into surplus of one per cent of GDP; and, finally, whether or not he is committed to ensuring that those surpluses that are now projected for 2012-13 and 2013-14 are protected—whether he can set out exactly what he is going to spend, what he is going to save, how it all adds up and how those surpluses will be maintained. We might also like to hear from him whether he understands the capital side of the budget, investments in financial assets, which do not count as spending, and whether it is the proceeds of the sale of an asset or cancelling an investment that delivers a return. That does not become transferable into spending capacity. If he spends on that basis, all he will do is further push the budget into deficit.

There is a very big challenge for the Leader of the Opposition tonight. He has to switch from the rhetorical windbag, the bloviating buffoon, to somebody who can tell us where the money is coming from. (Time expired)

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While we listened to the minister for finance on this matter of public importance, the member for Casey and I were reflecting on how sorry we felt for the Labor Party backbenchers who are called down for these matters of public importance, looking like the economy section in the movie Flying High, sitting back there, not looking too good, having to defend a government that has presided over such extraordinary and embarrassing waste and mismanagement as this one.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There they are, coming down here looking like the economy section in the movie Flying High, having to defend the government. Like lambs to the slaughter at the next election, they will have to show up on election day and defend each of the extraordinary examples of waste and mismanagement that this government has presided over—and no worse than in the area of education. This Minister for Education has presided over catastrophic waste and mismanagement of taxpayers’ money on a scale not seen since Ronnie Biggs robbed the Royal Mail of £2.6 million in 1963. It is surprising in fact that the Minister for Education would parade herself around the press gallery, parade herself around the parliament, demanding the accolades of best at show, but really wanting the job of top dog of this government. Whether she will get it or not is a matter that we will find out by the end of the year. Whether the Prime Minister can limp through to the election and whether they will put up with him is a matter for the Labor Party. And after the election, when they lose, we will see an unholy battle, a right royal battle between those who think the Minister for Education should be top dog and those who believe that the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, or even the minister for finance should be top dog.

In education, training, child care, this government has a record of waste and mismanagement that would make anybody normal blush, but this particular minister has a thicker hide than most. Most ministers with a thinner hide would have given up by now when you think of the litany of waste and mismanagement that this minister has presided over in education. Let us list them for those poor members of the backbench who have to front up on election day in about four months time and try to defend this waste and mismanagement. Let us let them know just what they have been defending for the past 2½ years. There is a $1.7 billion blow-out in the school hall rip-off program that has been delayed again and will take longer to implement than the entire duration of World War I. This was a program that was supposed to stimulate the economy quickly. It has been delayed in the budget yet again. It will run over four years. They will be stimulating the economy three years after the so-called global financial crisis. That is how poor and poorly mismanaged the school hall rip-off program has been, a school hall rip-off program that has delivered probably less than 50 per cent value for the $16.2 billion of taxpayers’ money that has been spent.

She has also been responsible for a $1 billion blow-out in the computers in schools program, which has also been delayed. The computers in schools program will now run over six years. They managed to defeat Germany in the Second World War in less than six years, but this minister could not—

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Go back to school, Chris, it was seven years!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This minister could not deliver the computers in schools program to the schools of this community without having a blow-out of $1 billion. And let me tell you this, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, as you might find this startling: they promised 970,000 computers in schools, instead they have delivered 220,000 in three years. And they think they will deliver the rest in the next three years. There is a trade training centre policy that was supposed to deliver a trade training centre for every secondary college in the country but has delivered one in 10—one-tenth of that program has been delivered by this Minister for Education. The school hall rip-off program has been so incompetently managed that it has been the subject of an inquiry by the Australian National Audit Office. It delivered a scathing report last week with findings that should make the government embarrassed. There is also a New South Wales upper house inquiry, an ongoing Senate inquiry and an investigation task force headed by a man who has a media adviser before he has any investigative people working on the investigation. He has had more press conferences in the past week than I have had, at schools that did not have a problem—

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Butler interjecting

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

which is saying something, as the member for Port Adelaide quite correctly points out. But the head of the investigation task force, Brad Orgill, has been in press conferences almost every day of the week since he was appointed and got started. He has a media adviser but not yet an investigative adviser. And of course the investigative task force was only established to ensure that there was no judicial inquiry, which the opposition has been calling for for weeks.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Anthony Smith interjecting

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And as my honourable friend the member for Casey points out, this is a government that has people in it who think the Second World War took seven years! 1939 to 1945: you do the math!

This minister has presided over a shrinking school chaplaincy program that has no funding after December 2011, yet it is one of the most popular programs in schools that the previous government initiated. She has presided over the draining of the capital from the Higher Education Endowment Fund. The capital which was to be kept for universities into the future has now shrunk from over $6 billion to just over $2 billion in three years. She has presided over the draining of that higher education funding. She has presided over the collapse of the international students market by 40 per cent since the beginning of March, and the closure of international colleges across the country. All of this is on this minister’s watch, but I think the most recent, and the daddy of them all, has of course been the junking of the so-called ‘ending the dreaded double drop-off’ policy.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It got dropped off.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It got dropped off, as the member for Casey says. It was dropped right off the edge of the cliff. Two hundred and twenty-two childcare centres were to be built—apparently in 2007 there was a desperate need, but in 2010 apparently there is no demand at all for new childcare centres. And she has presided over changes to the budget which make child care less affordable for average families by capping the childcare rebate at $7,500.

But perhaps the worst example in this litany of failure is the school hall rip-off program. It was not long ago that the Minister for Education was scoffing at the concerns of parents, of parents and friends organisations, of principals, of state governments, of the opposition, of Ray Hadley on 2GB, of the Today Show, of the Australian. The Minister for Education mocked the Australian and said they were fabricating examples of waste and mismanagement in the school hall rip-off program. Who is red-faced now? The member for Port Adelaide could not possibly be planning to defend the school hall rip-off program. The minister dismissed these as isolated concerns. She mocked the parents of the Hastings Public School, who in 2003 built a covered outdoor learning area for $78,000; in June last year the covered outdoor learning area was to cost $400,000, and by the end of the year, six months later, it was costing $954,000. The Minister for Education scoffed at that concern and mocked the parents of Hastings Public School. In this place she misled the parliament by saying that we had got the Berridale Public School example wrong, when we compared their toilet block with the BER project. She said the toilet block was 36 square metres. In fact, of course, the toilet block at Berridale is 118 square metres. But do you think the Minister for Education has come back into the House and apologised? No. She is not returning; she is never wrong. The Minister for Education is never wrong. We were given that information by the parents at Berridale, when Tony Abbott and I visited them one morning at their school.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So they are wrong too?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are wrong too—they are just ordinary Australians; they could not possibly be right. Only the Minister for Education can be correct. My point is that those opposite are being demeaning of and being derogatory about the parents at Berridale, mocking them by saying ‘did you get your tape measure out’. Why doesn’t the member for Port Adelaide go down there and visit them, seeing as he is so smart, in his safe seat. Why doesn’t he get off his butt and do something for a change, rather than sitting in his ivory tower doing all his factional gains in South Australia. Finally, the Rawlinsons construction data has left out the BER because it is so embarrassing. (Time expired)

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After that contribution by the member for Sturt, the convenor of the left faction of the Liberal Party in South Australia, who is spending a lot of time in his area doing factional gains, it is good to see in the lead-up to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech a listing school by school of the schools around Australia to lose their BER funding under his budget reply. We look forward to that. We look forward to the member for Bradfield and others going out to their schools and telling them that the Leader of the Opposition has stated in his budget reply that schools in their electorate will lose the BER funding which has often been, certainly in my electorate, the first time there has been significant capital funding to these schools for many, many years and in some cases decades.

We on this side welcome the opportunity to have a little talk about the cost to the nation of waste and mismanagement in government programs. You could not think of a better phrase to describe the economic legacy of the Howard-Costello government—a government for which the member for Casey was a prime adviser.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And member.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And a member, let the record state, as well as an adviser—so double responsibility. History will record the economic legacy of that government as one of wasted opportunity—wasted opportunity to build the capacity of the nation for the long-term future; a wasted opportunity through mismanagement of the benefits and returns from the mining boom over the many, many years that we had to endure Peter Costello as Treasurer.

Time is short, but let me touch on a few areas where the cost to the nation of this waste and mismanagement was at its highest. There are plenty of areas that I could go into, but I want to talk a bit about infrastructure, a bit about health care and a bit about national savings. First, let us recap the sort of opportunity that the last government, under the treasurership of Peter Costello, enjoyed. They were blessed by economic circumstances. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! As much as the then member for Higgins, Peter Costello, and his acolytes like the member for Casey will try to tell us, it was all a party trick by Peter Costello, they were blessed by being in the right place at the right time. They had terms of trade the likes of which we had not seen for 40 or 50 years. There was uninterrupted world growth, with booms in China and booms in India.

The Business Council of Australia told us how good it was in the lead-up to the election in 2007. They said that the last five years in the lead-up to the 2007 election had seen $87 billion of upward revisions in the Howard and Costello budgets. We saw in the last four budgets of the previous government delivered by Peter Costello average spending increases of 5.7 per cent. You would think that that would have been reflective of a focus on building the prosperity of the nation into the future, but it was not. It was reflective of wasted opportunity, of mismanagement of the benefits of the mining boom. What did we get? We got lots of one-off payments—great press conference opportunities for the then Treasurer and the then Prime Minister but not much capacity for ordinary Australians, fixed-term pensioners, to plan their financial future in the long term. We saw lots of wasteful spending, like the decision to fund private health insurance for millionaires through the PHI rebate. That would be excusable if there was nothing else to do but at the same time the Business Council was telling us that infrastructure bottlenecks in Australia were costing us $8 billion to $10 billion per annum in lost economic growth. The Reserve Bank was telling us 20 to 25 times that there were capacity constraints in the economy that were just ignored in skills and ignored in infrastructure by the last government. By the time they lost government we were still only 20th of 25 OECD nations in terms of our infrastructure spend, in spite of having the best economic growth in the OECD for years and years.

Their approach to infrastructure instead was exemplified by examples like those mentioned by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in question time today—the regional rorts program, and the grant of $22,000 to a cheese factory that had closed before the expenditure was allocated. Fortunately we have a different approach. This budget confirms that we doubled in real terms the transport infrastructure spend for the six years after we were elected compared to the six years before we were elected. Notwithstanding the manifestly different financial circumstances that we confront, with a revenue hit of about $110 billion through the GFC, we are acting where the last government did not act on broadband infrastructure, with the NBN Co.

Other wasted opportunities of the mining boom include things like the complete failure to build national savings in this country. They inherited the blessing of a nine per cent superannuation guarantee charge, which has built more than $1 trillion of national savings from the decisions taken by the Hawke and Keating governments. The great cost to the nation from the mismanagement and wasted opportunity by the last government’s failure to further build national savings is only now being addressed by this government. What did the former government do in the area of super? One of their first decisions was to kill off the idea that ordinary working Australians might have their superannuation increased from nine per cent to 15 per cent. What else did they do? They did not do anything in relation to the adequacy of pensions for older Australians—absolutely nothing in 12 years of uninterrupted economic growth and the sorts of budget upward revisions that I talked about.

What have we done in vastly different fiscal circumstances? We announced, only in the last couple of weeks, that we will move the superannuation guarantee charge from nine per cent to 12 per cent. That means amazing things for an average 30-year-old, for example—about $108,000 extra in their retirement income compared to what the Howard and Costello government considered adequate. We have also seen the biggest increase in the age pension in over 100 years of its existence. A single pensioner now receives more than $100 per fortnight more than they received under the last government—not in one-off payments but structural increases to the age pension. Now single age pensioners receive two-thirds of a couple’s pension, whereas the last government did nothing.

Another example, which is dear to my heart because of the job that I am blessed to have as Parliamentary Secretary for Health, is the cost to the nation of the last government’s complete failure of and complete mismanagement of health policy. Of course, none other than the Leader of the Opposition was minister for health for four or five very long years. That failure, that wasted opportunity, that mismanagement of policy was so much more shameful because they knew the scale of the challenge. Peter Costello had commissioned the intergenerational review, which set out the scale of the challenge presented by our ageing population. They knew about the increase in the burden of chronic disease, but what did they do? They did nothing. They indulged in the blame game against state governments, admittedly with some reciprocation from time to time.

Tony Abbott withdrew more than $1 billion from the hospital system in the 2003-04 budget. He capped GP training places at 600, thinking, ‘If you just restrict the number of GPs, maybe people will stop getting sick, or, if the poor dears continue to get sick, they will just stay at home and not try and impose themselves on the Medicare system.’ Just imagine, with the $87 billion of upward revisions in the budget, what the last government could have done with the extra dollars. Instead, we have had to start to fix the wasted opportunities, the mismanagement of the last government, with vastly more challenging fiscal circumstances. The budget delivered this week has shown that we have been able to deliver more than $7 billion in additional investments to the health system after a landmark agreement with all the states and territories, except Western Australia, for a vastly different set of governance arrangements and different financial architecture in the health system. This will deliver more doctors and nurses; it will deliver more beds, particularly more subacute beds; and it will deliver shorter waiting times for elective surgery and EDs.

The economic record of the Liberal Party over the last 15 years has shown a complete lack of focus and discipline. Australians count their blessings that that party was not on this side of the House during the global financial crisis. Imagine the cost to the nation. At least Peter Costello understood and liked economics, and his legacy is bad enough. Who knows what would have happened if the Leader of the Opposition had been in charge at the time of the GFC. We know he does not like economics. We know he lacks focus. We have heard reports that he spends more of his time in acting classes. We know he likes spending time on his ‘Sporty Spice’ routine, in the ocean and on the bicycle. We know that, if it were a choice between doing the hard work to get the country through a challenging economic time or getting on the bike or having a bit of a swim, we know what the Leader of the Opposition—(Time expired)

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me begin with the very simple facts in relation to the Home Insulation Program. It is a program about which this government will not speak, which they will not acknowledge and of which they are utterly ashamed. The reasons are very simple: 120 house fires at a minimum; 1,500 potentially deadly electrified roofs; 240,000 dangerous or substandard roofs—all using the government’s figures. Of course, at the heart of the issue associated with this program is the tragic loss of four young lives. This program has been catastrophic. The Home Insulation Program—the pink batts program, as it is more widely known—was ill-conceived, ill-constructed and utterly deficient in its management. Beyond the human tragedies, beyond the impact which is unparalleled in terms of 240,000 houses, is the sheer waste of the program.

The waste of the program can be summed up in a very simple figure. The budget papers, put down two nights ago, show—buried on page 24 of the special estimates for the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency—a provision of almost $1 billion to fix the program. Let me run through the figures for that: $340 million for the Home Insulation Program inspection category; $84 million for the foil insulation program; $15 million for helping installers; and $41 million for the retraining package for workers. There is an additional $508 million, under the Home Insulation Program itself, which is unallocated and provisioned to allow for the further fix-up costs. We have almost $1 billion.

In addition to that there is an extra $136.8 million of unaccounted money in the low emissions for renters program which was discontinued on 1 September last year but for which provisioning has been made for the next two years. That is another hollow log. So potentially there is over $1.1 billion which has been set aside. There is no explanation for why a discontinued program has funding allocated in the out years.

So let us be very clear. The problem is real and human and catastrophic and should never be repeated by any government in this country ever again. The cause is significant. The cause is that the government was warned at the level of Prime Minister and environment minister that this program could be enormously dangerous. We know that there have now been 26 warnings given to the government at the highest levels—26 warnings from industry, from the unions, from the state and territory governments on 29 April last year which warned of fires and fatalities. Then last weekend we heard and saw that the inner cabal, the most senior advisers, those who worked directly with the Prime Minister’s office, warned on at least three occasions of injury, fires and fatalities, on 17 July, in September and again in October of last year. These warnings by the project control group were real and profound and unheeded by a government which at the level of Prime Minister chose to ignore the warnings, chose to ignore the warnings for political reasons, with catastrophic human consequences, with unacceptable tragic losses in terms of 120 house fires, with the risk to 240,000 homes from dangerous or potentially substandard insulation. Then there is the inexplicable loss of a billion dollars to fix this program. How can that be? The action is very simple. The Prime Minister must apologise as he has not done to the nation and to householders for these losses. He has finally, under pressure, apologised to the families, but he has not made an apology to the nation for the loss and the waste and, above all else, ignoring the warnings. He must also have a royal commission and he must commit to ensuring that all homes are inspected. This waste is unacceptable. (Time expired)

Sharryn Jackson (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to participate in this matter of public importance debate. My grandmother had a wonderful saying, that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I think that is an interesting adage to start my contribution today in the debate. Both previous speakers from this side of the parliament have talked about the surplus budgets that were enjoyed during the last resources boom by the previous Howard government and how they failed to spend wisely in the interests of the nation during those years. It is quite a long list of things that were not done, including investment in infrastructure to support our industries. We had 20 warnings from the Reserve Bank of Australia about capacity constraints, warnings about it leading to inflation, but still no action on the government’s part. There was no attempt to invest in our schools despite many public statements about the need for a national curriculum, the need for transparency, the need to improve literacy and numeracy.

There was no investment in health and hospitals. In direct contrast, we had over a billion dollars ripped out of the health budget by the Leader of the Opposition when he was minister for health. We saw a cap on the number of GP training places. These were significant investments in health that were completely ignored by the Howard government. There was a failure to invest in broadband for the future. What did they do instead? They sold off the public telecommunications company that would have made the rollout of national broadband so much more cost-effective and efficient for the Australian people. What about the lack of investment in social and community housing? There was very little indeed, housing not even given a place of importance in the previous government’s cabinet. And of course who can forget the lack of investment in skills development and training? I acknowledge that they did give apprentices tool boxes at one stage. We are not doing that, we are actually giving them training and the opportunity for real jobs. Did the previous government reach out during that time to help the homeless? No. Did they reach out during that time to lift pensions and assist pensioners? No. Did they reach out at that time to assist and support parents with the introduction of a paid parental leave scheme? No.

I can list a number of failed programs or mismanaged programs. I will never forget the introduction of the family tax benefit where they spent the first three years of its operation suing families for overpayments of family tax benefit instead of changing the system to make it more responsive to the way ordinary families live. Or Work Choices, the introduction of an industrial relations system that saw ordinary working families’ take-home pay reduced. They did not heed warnings from unions and many people at the time about the possible implications of that scheme. We have not even begun to touch on the government advertising. While I am on Work Choices, there was $55 million for Work Choices advertising in the first round, and in the second round a further $66 million to try and explain their scheme. Australian taxpayers were forced to pay $4,581 a month to store 3½ million booklets promoting Work Choices laws. Many of these booklets were eventually pulped, a further cost to taxpayers. I have not even talked about the pens, the mouse pads et cetera.

Who can forget, given the interchange between the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott’s infamous doctor recruiting campaign of golf balls? I also remember the Australian Wheat Board scandal, the $300 million given to Saddam Hussein. I remember the ‘outstanding’ Seasprite helicopter maintenance contract: $34 million a year at the very least to maintain a fleet of helicopters we did not have. That was waste and mismanagement. They sold nearly every Commonwealth building owned in Australia except for the Russell Hill complex and the Australian War Memorial, and I bet there were some who thought about doing that as well.

The test for the opposition tonight is not just whether the shadow Treasurer is numerate but also whether the Leader of the Opposition can be a statesman, because he proved after question time yesterday, in his attitude towards Gordon Brown and the change of government in the United Kingdom, that he does not have it in him. The test is on him tonight. We know that if they had been in charge of the government benches the Australian economy would be in recession. (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is concluded.