George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to highlight issues of significance both nationally and in my electorate of Dawson. Contrary to what this government would have us believe, people are doing it tough. The Prime Minister and Treasurer have been eager to spruik the economy and to say that everything is so much better than it is in Greece, but they have failed to mention how this government has emptied the country's bank account and racked up the biggest debt we have ever seen.

The problem with this drunken-sailor approach to running the economy is that it only works for so long—the money runs out, so the drunken sailor borrows more and more. Eventually the government will reach a point where it cannot keep borrowing money and will have to start paying it back. While this government points the finger at other economies around the world which are in dire straits because they spent beyond their means, the fundamentals that drive the economy long-term are getting out of control. People are hurting, and, with a drunken sailor at the wheelhouse, things are only going to get worse. People are scared of the carbon tax for a reason. They call it a fear campaign, but it is simply a matter of telling the truth—and the truth is that people should be scared. Electricity will cost more under the carbon tax. Rates will cost more under the carbon tax. Food will cost more under the carbon tax. The truth is that everything will cost more under the carbon tax, even when families are already struggling.

Businesses are also struggling. Here are some examples of how much more businesses will pay just for electricity under the carbon tax. Bushman's Bread in Mackay will see an increase of between $18,000 and $24,000 in its electricity prices under the carbon tax. Harrup Park Country Club will see an increase of between $39,600 and $52,800 in its electricity prices under the carbon tax. G&S Engineering will see an increase of between $63,000 and $84,000 in its electricity prices under the carbon tax—so we will be looking at an additional cost of $84,000 to that business for electricity because of the carbon tax.

How does a small business or a growing business offset a cost such as that? Businesses in my electorate have already told me that they are going to have to look at cutting back on staff. The Prime Minister said last year about the carbon tax, 'It has price impacts. It's meant to. That's the whole point. If you put a price on something, then people will use less of it.' So another alternative for businesses would be to operate according to the reasoning of the Prime Minister, the Labor Party, the Greens and the collection of Independents, all of whom think that an increase in the cost of electricity for Bushman's Bread in Mackay will mean that the company will cut back and only bake half a loaf of bread or half bake a loaf of bread—one of the two.

The problem is that this tax is a half-baked plan from a half-baked government that is half confident in its own leader. They do not even have a mandate for the carbon tax. Business owners did not give them the mandate; neither did the families they employ, who are already struggling. Families living in Mackay are bearing the brunt of the resources boom. It is a boom for some, but not everyone is working in the mines. The increased demand in the city has driven up prices as businesses compete for resources, especially labour, and people compete for housing. If you are not employed in the resources sector but are stuck renting an average home for $500 a week or more, you are going to be struggling. If you were not in the resources sector in nearby Moranbah, where rents range from $1,400 to $3,200 a week, you were squeezed out of town a long time ago. In the nearby Whitsundays there is one industry, tourism. How can a family not be struggling in this region when they have suffered several cyclones, including a direct hit, and had the tourism destination's image trashed by the media, creating the impression that all of Queensland was at one stage flooded out? To top things off, a tourist destination relying on international visitors will always struggle to come out of the global financial crisis when the skyrocketing Australian dollar is deterring overseas visitors and driving domestic tourism offshore. Tourism is an exporter and a price taker. If Australian tourist destinations cannot compete with overseas destinations then Australian tourism just does not do business. So why on earth would this government introduce a carbon tax which Australian companies in tourism, including airlines and marine operators, will have to pay but which their overseas competitors will not have to pay? That is driving business out of the country and locking the door behind them.

The same applies to the northern parts of my electorate, where the entire economy of the Burdekin is underpinned by the sugar industry. It is our second biggest market in Mackay. Sugar is another export market, another price taker. This is another industry that will have to pay the costs of this ridiculous carbon tax and will not be able to pass on those costs to their overseas customers. Canegrowers, the peak body, estimates that the carbon tax will cost farmers more than $80 million in its first five years. So, if people are hurting now, worse is to come.

This government made a big deal at budget time last year of the fact that the budget was all about jobs, jobs, jobs. With deference to the tourism industry, where the bloody hell are they? For the first time in 20 years Australia recorded zero jobs growth, and that is with a government focusing on jobs creation and before the carbon tax has even started. What will the carbon tax contribute to jobs growth? It will not boost jobs, that is for sure. Where are the green jobs going to come from? Nowhere—but we can see where the jobs will go. You cannot push business offshore, you cannot push industry offshore, you cannot push manufacturing offshore without pushing the jobs offshore as well. People in Mackay locked into big mortgages cannot afford to be unemployed. In the Whitsundays, the remaining businesses cannot afford to operate if the community sees further job losses. In the Burdekin, job losses would kill the town and destroy our nation's food production capacity.

In Townsville, in suburbs like Wulguru and Oonoonba, we have battlers already struggling to make ends meet. How do they feel when they see the government imposing a carbon tax and on the other hand wasting taxpayer dollars? What do they feel when they read about this government delivering set-top boxes for $698 when they know they can walk down to the local retailer and get one for $19 off the shelf? It is no wonder these people feel that they are the forgotten families. They have had enough of the drunken sailor approach. They have had enough of this government pandering to a handful of minority interest groups in the capital cities.

I am very fortunate to be in an electorate that is driving the economy of this nation. My constituents are proud of what they are contributing. The wealth of the country is produced by hard work and long hours put in by people in regional Australia. It is the wealth that is keeping the nation afloat. What they are not proud of is the disdain with which they are treated by this government. They work hard, they pay high taxes, they pay the high cost of living and the high cost of housing, and this government rewards them by taxing them more. They put the world's biggest carbon tax on everything and give these hard workers nothing in return. There is no compensation for people working in the resource industry, regardless of how hard they work or the fact that their real disposable income is often lower than that of capital city families who receive compensation. They want the government to stop wasting the wealth that regional Australia generates and to start investing in the regional infrastructure required for sustained wealth generation. They want to see a fair share come back to the region in the form of roads, in the form of a safe and reliable national highway and in the form of the same sort of social infrastructure that capital city families take for granted.

Within the electorate of Dawson one of our most serious concerns is the condition and safety of our road network, a network badly damaged during a summer of natural disasters—and again, this summer, there has been a lot of heavy rain in the north. I have spoken already in this place about local roads and how federal funding is needed. Peak bodies and government departments at local and state levels all agree that with the current funding levels local governments have enough money only for asset replacement. They simply do not have the money for capital investment in infrastructure and do not have the ability to keep slugging ratepayers to raise those funds. So how do we build new roads?

How are we to reconstruct poor and dilapidated roads and roads damaged by heavy traffic associated with the mining boom in my region? Ratepayers cannot continue to be slugged through their rates. There is only so much money that each household has to contribute. We need to have a decent offer on the table from the federal government's roads funding program, Roads to Recovery. I do not care which colour of politics is in power, I will always be an advocate in this House for a minimum of $1 billion a year to go to the Roads to Recovery program to fund some of these roads.

In addition to local roads, we have the Bruce Highway which last month was described by a RACQ spokesman as 'the most dangerous of the national highways in the country'. At about 40 deaths a year on average, it is a serious issue that the government needs to step up and improve. It is not just a matter of safety; it is a matter of reliability. Just within my electorate, the Bruce Highway has flood-prone sections that impair industry frequently for prolonged periods. We have the Goorganga Plains which cut the airport off from the tourism area of the Whitsundays. Today flights in and out of the Whitsundays have been cancelled due to a flooded Bruce Highway. We have Sandy Gully near Bowen where even a brief shower can stop workers from getting to the multibillion-dollar project in the north, Abbott Point. We have Yellow Gin Creek just before the Burdekin which is regularly flooded, cutting off access to Townsville. We have the Haughton River bridge, a small and unsafe bridge without proper guardrails.

One area where the Bruce Highway also has difficulty is in Mackay due to traffic congestion. In addition to local traffic and highway traffic, we have an increasing number of trucks accessing the industrial hub and the port. We have a state government that has waited far too long to address the issue of connecting the northside residential areas with the southside and western employment areas. Now that upgrades have been made on some bridges, we still see congestion. The combination of a ring-road and a river crossing to connect the port with the industrial centre, while bypassing the city, will make the task of getting to work and getting things done a lot easier. It will free up other routes for more productive purposes. It will be faster, more efficient and more productive. I note with interest that the local state Labor member for Mackay, Tim Mulherin, recently said his idea for a ring-road would be a connector from the northern beaches of Mackay to the southside industrial area. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery, because yours truly came up with the concept 18 months ago and put it out publicly after a discussion with the local mayor, Col Meng. I made it public during the election campaign.

Maybe that is why the Leader of the House was looking at my website a few weeks ago, searching for more ideas. I can only guess that he got on Google and typed in, 'How to fix the Bruce Highway' to find my Fix the Bruce campaign. I have some advice for those opposite and the Leader of the House: stay tuned. For their information, the Fix the Bruce campaign will start in April and we will be encouraging the community to nominate areas of the Bruce Highway that need upgrading and to contact the federal Treasurer about funding it. It has become clear that the state Labor government and the federal conglomerate government are incapable of prioritising work. But we will compile information and use it when it comes to funding priorities when this government is sent to the naughty corner at the next election. While the state government has a main roads minister who would not know a ring-road from a ring hole, a minister too busy putting his left foot in and putting a press release out to fix potholes, the Liberal National Party in Queensland and the federal Liberal-National coalition have been putting together a plan.

If that is their vision for the highway, they must have binoculars, because they are leaving things to the state government's 10- to 20-year time frame. They are leaving this to be addressed for up to a decade or more, knowing they will be long gone from government by then and a long time from being in government again. We cannot wait a decade; we certainly cannot wait two decades for stuff to be fixed. We need a fix for the Goorganga Plains now. We need a fix for Sandy Gully now. We need a fix for Yellow Gin Creek now. We need the Haughton River bridge fixed now. We need a fair share returned to the region, so we can continue to produce the nation's wealth.

The people of Dawson also need the social infrastructure and they deserve it. Just the social infrastructure promised during the election campaign would be a good start. I have growing concerns about the red tape and bureaucracy that the government is putting in place for local groups who were promised funding during the 2010 election campaign. That is a concern when you look at the long list of infrastructure that is needed. The Mackay ring-road I spoke of is a critical piece of infrastructure that will remove obstacles for the mining sector. An upgraded road network is also required in the industrial sector that services the resources sector. The upgrade should include Connors Road bridge and the duplication of Milton and Paradise Streets, taking access to four lanes.

But infrastructure is more than just industrial needs; social infrastructure cannot be forgotten. Both of these projects—the ring road and the Paget upgrade—were outlined as priorities by Mackay mayor Col Meng when he recently outlined his wish list for the region with the state election there. The mayor rightly included important community and social infrastructure projects on his list. I note in particular the community's need for an upgrade to the showgrounds, a $20 million redevelopment; and projects in the northern beaches of Mackay, notably a $6 million community hub and a $2.5 million injection into sporting infrastructure in that growing residential area of Mackay. The mayor knows, as do the people of North Queensland, that simply ripping money out of the regions through a mining tax or with the state government with mining royalties, not to mention through a carbon tax, is not sustainable in the long term. The government must recognise the needs of regional communities by allocating appropriate funding and getting value for the dollars that are coming out of these regions. Thank you.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian society that I believe in is a society that encourages its citizens to expand their horizons and to dream big—a society that instils in its citizens the ethos that, with hard work, your goals, your ambitions and your aspirations are always obtainable. So embedded are these aspirational values in our culture that our generation has grown up understanding that homeownership will be reality and employment in our dream job a probability. Our generation has grown up believing that all of our aspirations are possible, because we have grown up in a country that understands the importance of fiscal responsibility, a country that has a strong society and a strong economy.

But something is changing. In this country we have a Labor government that has walked away from the people it once claimed to represent. No longer can our generation afford to assume with careless confidence that our aspirations are understood and respected by the key decision makers in this country. This Labor government is betraying a generation of Australians by threatening our economic stability and way of life, and miserably failing to understand what this country needs. It is for this reason that I rise to speak today.

The aspirations and goals of so many Australians are under threat due to this Labor government's self-serving survivalist nature. Instead of a respect for the forgotten Australians, the very people this government should represent, this government has chosen to pursue its own agenda, to focus internally on its own political survival instead of listening to the forgotten Australians—those hardworking Australians simply trying to get ahead. This government spends most of its time listening to pollsters and spin doctors.

The point is this: since this Labor government took power in 2007 home affordability and real household wealth have declined. Australians are not working any less than they were four years ago—working to own their own homes and maintain their lifestyles, the very things that they aspire to—but this Labor government have continually taken moves that have put real pressure on Australians achieving their aspirations. They have consistently made the lives of hardworking Australians harder, not easier. If this Labor government were listening to those forgotten Australians, they would know that higher taxes and greater government intervention in our lives make it harder, not easier to get ahead.

Let me put this into context how this Labor government has lost its way. It has delivered the four biggest budget deficits in Australian history. This government has turned a $20 billion surplus into $167 billion of accumulated deficits, by taking government spending from 22.9 per cent of gross domestic product to 26.2 per cent of GDP. It has managed to stack up a massive $133 billion of debt, equating to $6,000 for every Australian man, woman and child—a debt burden that will be carried across generations. Australians have watched as this Labor government has turned a $20 billion surplus into $100 million a day in borrowings with a $20 million a day interest bill—a bill that is having lasting damage on our fiscal position. Labor's addiction to wasteful spending is having a broad implications for Australians and Australian business. It is adding pressure to interest rates, which have begun to rise independent of Reserve Bank decisions. Debt, deficits and borrowing are nothing new for the Labor Party. As I have said in this place before, in my lifetime there has not been a single Labor budget surplus handed down. The Labor Party is heading towards its 10th consecutive deficit. Compare this with the 10 coalition surpluses out of 12 budgets. The truth of these statistics is clear: the Labor Party is under the influence of a long-term addiction to wasteful government spending. It is this addiction that has caused the four biggest budget deficits in our country's history. It is in Labor's DNA to waste taxpayers' money and produce budget deficits just as much as it is in the coalition's DNA to be prudent when spending taxpayers' money.

Just like all addicts, this Labor government is making its best efforts to disguise its addiction. In a direct hit on the Australian people and the Australian way of life Labor is attempting to disguise its addiction by penalising the taxpayer. Over the past four years, Australians have been hit with 19 new and increased taxes. What that says to me is that this Labor government is making the aspirations of Australians less achievable in 19 ways. The costs of living are increasing for everyday Australians in 19 new ways. Home ownership is less affordable. Interest rates are going up. Real wages have declined. Real household wealth has declined. Net job availability has declined and productivity has stagnated. This does not paint a good picture for the future of Australia.

There is a better way. We once again need a government that will scrap unnecessary taxes, cut wasteful spending and reduce the tax burden on business. Once again we need a government that is guided by a belief that governments do not have any money of their own; they only have the people's money held in trust. If Australians are to have every opportunity to achieve their aspirations, we again need a government that understands that a hand-up is always better than a handout. We need a government that understands that opportunity is always better than subsidy. We need a government that understands that all Australians should have freedom of choice and we need a government that rewards hard work instead of penalising it. We need a government that recognises that it may not have a solution to every problem, that all too often it is the problem. We need a government that does fewer things but does them better.

These are the fundamental principles that will always guide us as Liberals. These are the principles that the Labor Party will never understand. While we will always believe that you know how to spend your money better than anyone else, the Labor Party will believe that the government know better than you. They will always be driven by a desire to spend more and more of your money. Let us look at Labor's record. We have seen a constant example of waste and mismanagement from a government that refuses to rein in its expenses on poorly planned and executed programs. Over the past four years, we have seen a program giving away set-top boxes at $700—something that could have been purchased and installed commercially for less than half the price. We have seen a billion dollars to install Pink Batts and then another billion dollars to pull them out again. We have seen school hall rip-offs, with a blatant disregard for taxpayers' money.

All of this waste and mismanagement leaves Australians asking what the future holds for our country. This government speculate that they will repay $1.5 billion off their debt next year. Even if we are to believe this speculation, which seems highly unlikely based on their past record, even if we could count on this repayment, at this rate it will take 89 years to pay off the debt. That is like having a $20,000 credit card bill and paying $223 off the credit card in a year. At that rate, by the time Australia is once again in the black, I will be, potentially, 110 years old. That will see Australians of our generation destined to spend their entire working lives repaying this Labor debt, which was incurred in just four years.

Australians are aware that we must take personal responsibility for our financial future, but Australians also rely on us as legislators to make this task as easy and as practical as possible. Australians do not expect or want governments to be acting in ways that will make this task more difficult. Yet this Labor government have left our generation to carry the burden of their reckless decisions and mismanagement across the course of our working lives.

It is clear that this Labor government is out of touch with the aspirations of the people that it once claimed to represent. The last thing that the people of my community expect is that their hard earned dollars will be used to fund the waste and mismanagement of an inefficient and overly bureaucratic government. The locals in my community have a fair expectation that their government takes pressure off budgets, that their government facilitates a prosperous economy that has increasing job opportunities, that their government lives within its means, as they have to, and that their government values their money and delivers better services and infrastructure. Our country will face challenges in the future. Our generation will carry the debt burden of Labor. Our generation will see the challenges of an ageing population whereby we will inevitably have a much greater burden on government, drawing from a smaller tax base. We will face the challenges of a post mining boom economy. We as a nation must meet these challenges from a position of strength. We must take advantage of the opportunities that we now have. To meet these challenges we need to grow the productive capacity of the economy and we need to see more Australians earning higher real wages. It is here that we see the fundamental philosophical divide in our nation. While Labor still believe that they can tax a nation into prosperity, we as Liberals know the exact opposite to be true. As the great forefather of the Liberal tradition in this country, Sir Robert Menzies, said, 'We are a tax reduction party.' Menzies understood then, as the coalition does today, that 'real tax reductions would be the best of all incentives to increase effort, earnings and production'.

As I said in my first speech in this place, it is the Liberal side of politics that is the side of opportunity. We are the party based on encouragement rather than on subsidy and on a hand up rather than on a hand down. It is because of these philosophical beliefs that we will always fight for lower taxes, smaller and more efficient government and the individual's right to choose. It is these principles and this core belief held by the coalition which underline the fundamental difference between the coalition and this Labor government. A coalition government will cut the waste and mismanagement; it will respect the money of the people of Australia.

Under a coalition government we will see high productivity, job growth, sustainable development and a modern enterprise economy that eradicates barriers to opportunity and engagement. Under a coalition government the $133 billion of Labor debt will be paid down and the country will stop borrowing $100 million every day. We will put downward pressure on interest rates, helping Australian small businesses and families, easing the cost of living and rising operating costs for businesses. We in the coalition believe that we need to maximise every available opportunity to plan for our future. We believe that the key to a strong prosperous economy is to get spending down so that we can get productivity up. That means less borrowing, lower pressure on interest rates and less tax.

The two sides of politics could not be further apart. Popular media all too often claim that the major political parties are moving closer together. This could not be further from the truth. There is only one side of politics with a strong plan for Australia's future. We believe in a nation of limitless opportunities, but we also understand that to achieve our aspirations we need to prepare for the future.

May I, once again, look to Menzies. When Menzies launched the first Liberal Party campaign, he said:

We need to return to politics as a clash of principles and to get away from the notion that it is a clash only of warring personalities.

The modern Labor Party is nothing more than a clash of personalities, a modern political party devoid of any principles, driven only by pollsters and spin doctors. We on this side of the chamber are prepared to debate principles. We on this side of the chamber, continuing in the Liberal tradition, stand for lower taxes, smaller government and an individual's choice.

Menzies was correct when he said 'We are a tax reduction party,' which stands in stark contrast to the 19 new or increased taxes of this Labor government. It is our commitment to these principles that saw the previous coalition government deliver a 20 per cent increase in real wages, a 100 per cent increase in the net wealth for each Australian and more than two million new jobs. Higher productivity cannot be mandated by government. It does not come from government interference. Higher productivity is born out of creativity and ingenuity of hardworking Australians. It occurs when businesses are part of a strong economy and are set free from red tape. The coalition will achieve higher productivity by cutting red tape for small businesses, helping small businesses with their books by putting downward pressure on interest rates and operating costs. A coalition government will save $1 billion a year in red-tape expenses by requiring government departments and agencies to set targets to reduce regulations and quantify the cost of their regulations. The coalition has a strong plan for Australia, a plan that will see a stronger economy by getting government spending down and productivity up. We will stop the borrowing and repay the debt, easing the pressure on Australians and allowing their aspirations to once again become tangible realities. As the elected representatives of the Australian people our greatest responsibility in this place is to make the lives of those we represent easier, not harder. The coalition will once again restore hope, reward and opportunity to Australian society.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I cannot help but note that there has been an historic event in the life of the parliament in that a Prime Minister has been challenged, and in the lead up to that there were conversations between the challenger and his constituency, which were the front and back benches of the Labor Party and, to a further extent, a jump to the hearts and minds of the Australian people through the press corps and any other medium that may have been opportune for the member to get a message across. In doing so I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, that the combined wisdom of the parliamentary party of the Labor Party was looking at a review of the carbon tax through the challenger.

Having said that, it was a hope not only for Australia but for my electorate of McMillan and the electorate of Gippsland, where we are sitting on perhaps thousands of years of brown coal opportunity and all of the issues that surround the emissions controls that we need to look at as a nation, and which the world is also looking at. In the consideration that perhaps a change of leadership was to happen in this House today, one leader said, 'I would review the carbon tax if I became Prime Minister of this country again.' For me, that was a ray of hope—that some consensus of common sense might come into the debate.

Like all members of parliament I get bombarded from both sides of the emissions argument, and that is for us to deal with as we sift through the information we are given on any issue to try to come up with what is best for the nation, the Australian people and future opportunities. What I saw in this possible review was a clear intention that the road we have gone down at the moment with regard to the carbon tax is wrong for the nation on many counts. The main one is that at this time, when the dollar is at the heights that it is, our manufacturing is under pressure because of that. Growth opportunities for small business—the ideas and the research and the development that have gone into possible new products that may go onto the market across the world born out of Australian ideas and opportunities—have a pressure on them now because of the high Australian dollar. That makes it more difficult for them.

Of course, in my simple thinking if you then invade that situation with a tax that will make us more disadvantaged, you are going to come to a place where the rest of the world must be looking at us and saying, 'Why, when you supposedly have all these things going for you, are you imposing a tax in front of what the world is doing without consideration of what it is going to do to your own economy, nationally?'

You have the protagonist in the former Prime Minister saying, 'Look, there's an issue here.' So why did we have the tax in the first place?

We did not have the tax in the first place because either of the major parties desired it. That was not the reason we had the tax. We had the Prime Minister of the day, Ms Gillard, before an election campaign only 18 months ago, say, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Why did she say that when the broad consensus of the leadership of the Labor Party at that time was, 'The carbon tax is not for this country at this time'? She was brutal and forthright in that election campaign. She said to the Australian people many times through that same press gallery, through television and however else she wanted to get that message across, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government that I lead.' So why did we get a carbon tax? On the other side, Mr Abbott said that as sure as light follows day there will be a carbon tax. But the truth was that both parties were saying that there would not be a carbon tax, even though they had said previously that we would move towards an emissions trading scheme.

I spoke to an elderly lady the other day who said, 'Russell, we really should be doing something about our emissions.' There is concern in the community about our emissions. We get the story. But for the next 30 years we are reliant on coal. So we have some issues to deal with as a nation. Both sides of the House told the Australian people honestly that there will not be a carbon tax under the governments we lead. So why did we get a carbon tax? Why has this legislation come before the House?

Why did one of the protagonists for the leadership today say, 'I'll review the carbon tax when it is put in place'? There is concern within our business community on two counts. One: do not say you are going to do something and then not do it and do not say you are not going to do something and then do it, because that confuses all of us as to how we go about our business. Two: now that we have got the tax, we have to deal with it. But now it is suggested by a future leader of the Labor Party that it would be reviewed with a view to reducing it in order to bring it in line with the rest of the world. So, instead of the carbon tax being $23, it would be $5. But, hang on, you have not got the money for the compensation that you offered the people of Australia, and they still want that compensation—but you will not have the money for it.

We heard from the two previous speakers how this tax may affect individuals in their communities. That is not what I am on about. Why did we get this tax when the collective parliamentary wisdom said that we should not have it at this time because it will be detrimental to the nation? But, long term, the collective wisdom of the parliament was saying that we have to do something about our emissions. We have to do something because the Australian people gave us a hung parliament. A minority group was needed to form government. Out of 150 members in the House, one person in the House meant do or die for the Labor government. The deal was: you will give us a carbon tax or you do not get the member for Melbourne's vote.

So I say to the people of Australia and to the truck drivers who are moving across this nation at the moment, if you are feeling under threat it is not because of the collective wisdom of the parliament, it is because of a deal done with the leader of the Greens for a carbon tax. It is not an emissions trading scheme but a carbon tax set at a price that is four times the price that has been set in the rest of the world. In my simple opinion, we will be four times as disadvantaged in our dealings into the future as we would otherwise have been with an emissions trading scheme, which would balance itself with carbon trading around the rest of the world.

So all the Australian people are held hostage for this three-year period to one vote on a most important issue that affects every family and every business—every butcher, baker and life maker. And I do not think that is right. Personally, I am opposed to the carbon tax as it stands today. I am opposed to the carbon tax. I am opposed to the carbon tax because of the burden that it puts on my energy producers in the Latrobe Valley and therefore the workers in those industries—the threat to their livelihood and all that has gone before.

Some would argue that CO2 emissions are not an issue. Others would argue that they are a future issue and that global warming is terribly important. I let the scientists argue. I am of the opinion that we should take out insurance and work towards reducing global emissions, but not throw ourselves on the altar of the green movement for the sake of holding this government together. Perhaps we should have just gone straight back to an election campaign again and had it all out, and let the Australian people decide, so that good governance could come back into this place. Now this government has done a deal with the Greens with one vote in the House, and we have a carbon tax that both parties said was inappropriate for Australia at this time. This is not the way we should be running the nation for the best.

I have heard a lot about the best interests of the Australian people. A lot of cliches have been used this week that take just about anything to mean, 'We are working in the best interests of the Australian people.' I summon all the integrity that I may have to say that I hope they are working in the best interests of the Australian people with regard to our competitiveness overseas, our exports and everything we do, including our education exports. We actually need students from overseas to come here, have their education here, take it back and in turn make their own country wealthy. But outside of saying that, this carbon tax that we are burdening upon ourselves for only political reasons, not for the good governance of the nation, is wrong, and we should be stepping back from it. If the leadership of the Labor Party had changed today, we would have been changing that within a few months. We would have been saying: 'No, this carbon tax is wrong. Yes, we can move to an emissions trading scheme, but this carbon tax that we are imposing on people right across the nation is wrong. It is wrong for the nation. It is wrong for the best outcome for the Australian people.' I know there are people overseas looking at us today and saying: 'Why are you doing this? You are crazy. It's not to the benefit of your country.'

We have not limitless resources anymore, although I believe this nation will be, once again, a wealthy nation. But one day the mining boom is going to be over, and we are going to be relying on what we produce, and what we sell, and what we grow and the other things we have on our side. What we have had on our side for a long time has been cheap electricity so we can manufacture. I am not talking about how we should be into old-fashioned manufacturing, because this nation needs to get the best it possibly can out of its education system, to put us at the forefront of what we may be exporting into the future, which is our intelligence, and we have been very good at it.

So I say to you, Deputy Speaker, today, on behalf of all Australians, that the government of the day should be taking the former Prime Minister's advice and doing a full review of our position with regard to this carbon tax, at risk of losing government. When will we have a government or a Prime Minister that puts the Australian people first, that puts the Australian economy first, that puts Australian business first? Because if you put business first, you put workers first as well—their health, their wellbeing, their future, their generations. I am keen today to make the point—I did not miss it. If Mr Rudd had been elected today, we would have had a review of this terrible tax. This tax is not good for this nation, not good for small business, not good for medium sized business and not good for big business. Therefore, it is not good for Australia. I plead with the government: have a review of this tax, have some strength, have the guts to stand up and say, 'All right, we know it's a deal with the Greens, but we are prepared to review it as a government.'

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2011-2012 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2011-2012. These pieces of legislation give us a change to again highlight the massive waste and the irresponsible misuse of government expenditure by this Labor government. Underlying this is a complete lack of respect for taxpayers' money. Tax revenue is not government money; it is money given to the government by the taxpayers on trust. The men and women of Australia who work hard and pay their fair share of taxes have the right to expect that it will be spent on their behalf in a very responsible way. That is why it is such a shame that we continue to see their funds being abused by the Gillard government.

We know that, since the election of the Rudd government in 2007, approximately $4 billion of expenditure has been wasted by Labor. The trend, unfortunately, continues. The very latest example is the set-top box scheme. This scheme, whilst currently incomplete, is running at approximately $700 per set-top box. That is roughly what was originally estimated. It is many times the amount for which they can be purchased at a retail level. We heard the revelations from Senate estimates that the NBN Co. has used the services of UMR Research, the Labor Party pollsters, to do polling. In an article by Lauren Wilson in the Australian on 15 February 2012, we see that the NBN Co. has spent $35 million on legal fees. That is an enormous amount of money. And yet this massive white elephant has only rolled out active broadband to approximately 4,000 customers.

Then we move to the rebranding of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. This little exercise has blown out by five times the original $42,000 that was budgeted for. You would never, ever get away with this in the private sector. It demonstrates that those opposite have no appreciation for a dollar, because hardly any of them have ever been involved in the management of a business. That rebranding followed the $31.5 million that was spent on government advertising trying to sell another white elephant, the carbon tax, to the Australian people. This was subsequently criticised by the Auditor-General.

Then we come to the most outrageous of them all: the massive blow-out in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship's budget. Across the entire immigration portfolio, and not including last year's blow-out, the increase for the four years to 2014-15 is $759 million. This is $559 million more than, or almost three times, the $197 million the Treasurer and Minister Bowen told taxpayers the bill would be for immigration when they released the MYEFO for the period last November. In just two months the government appears to have blown out their estimates by almost $560 million. The blow-out revealed in these estimates takes the total budget blow-out from Labor's border protection failures over the three years since the 2009-10 budget to a massive $3.9 billion. And all of this is because of the fateful winding back of the Howard government's border protection measures. In direct contrast to the failed Labor policies, the coalition has a plan to stop the boats and therefore save money by reintroducing temporary protection visas and also restarting the processing of illegal maritime arrivals at Nauru. The shame of all this is that, because of the shameful waste and misappropriation, there are now so many worthwhile projects that will not be funded. I want to talk about some of these local projects that I have been made aware of recently and that I have been happy to support. I spoke in the House recently about the Mental Illness Fellowship of Queensland, which is in my electorate and is trying to get assistance to fund the redevelopment of a new headquarters in Herston. This organisation provides a tremendous service to people across Queensland that suffer from some form of mental health illness. Its new building will be a headquarters, providing mental health support and services. Given that this issue is so important in our community, I really do urge the approval of the application.

There is another current grant application that has recently come to the attention of our office. It is by the Kelvin Grove State College. This fine institution is one of the area's oldest established secondary colleges and enjoys a fine reputation in the local community. The college accommodates approximately 1,800 students from prep to year 12 and offers a number of signature sport excellence programs. The purpose of their particular grant was for a rebuilding of their current tennis facilities. I understand Kelvin Grove's courts had not had a major refurbishment for over 25 years. This project will enable the college and the wider community to have access to four international-standard tennis courts which can be used both day and night on seven days a week. As the college is home to the Queensland Tennis School of Excellence, this refurbishment is absolutely necessary for a standard suitable for elite players.

I also bring to the attention of the House, and express my support for, an application from the Sisters of the Good Samaritan Foundation for funding to assist with the marketing expenses of an important community educational program. The Good Sams foundation, as they are known, provide a wide range of essential community and welfare services in Brisbane. Their key role at the moment is to provide supported accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence. The foundation plans to run a domestic violence awareness workshop, called Breaking the Silence, in a selected number of Brisbane schools and in the general community. This program will address an urgent and genuine need to promote a very difficult topic which is quite sensitive. The aim is to increase awareness and understanding of the many forms of domestic violence and to offer resources in such a way that the victim can remained unidentified and yet benefit from the courses provided within a session. Hopefully, through awareness we will reduce the number of future victims. The Good Sams foundation would like to supplement the workshop with printed brochures and marketing tools such as a banner and data projection for PowerPoint presentation. These items will be an ongoing resource to attendees and the foundation.

Now I turn to Telecross, another very worthwhile initiative with a program of enormous benefit to the community. It is a program on which I have been working with the Red Cross for a couple of years. The proposal is to set up a system whereby a staff member or a volunteer is scheduled to ring every day an elderly person or a disabled person or an older person who is socially isolated in our community and ensure that they are okay. This is a wonderful idea and I am very supportive of it because there are many people living alone in their homes who do not have too much external contact. Say they fall or have an incident: many elderly people are often found in their homes many weeks or months later. This is a wonderful prevention program because it ensures that a phone call is only a short while away. The program has many community aspects and it involves volunteers. A large number of organisations, including the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, have indicated in the past that they will support the program. It is a low-cost service that will cover the whole of Australia. I estimate its cost at about $9 million and it will save us from the terrible scourge, and the terrible reports that we see, of elderly people being discovered in their homes many months or weeks after an adverse event. No society should go through that. We owe our elderly people our support.

Recently I was at the Kitchener Road Childcare Centre. This is an occasional day care centre and this Gillard government has ripped $12.6 million out of occasional care funding. Occasional care funding gives mums a break if they need to go to a doctor, or if they need to have an operation. They do not want long day care funding, they just want a day here or there that will help them, a day where they can have a dentist appointment or do some occasional study. This is such a worthwhile program, and the Kitchener Road Childcare Centre has been going for over 40 years. It was a very solemn meeting that I attended. Some 60 parents showed up. They have already increased fees. They do not have the option of fundraising. They have looked at different ways to apply for government funding. They do not have the money to convert the centre into a long day care centre. They have funding available until 30 June this year, and after that their future is pretty uncertain. That centre needs $40,000 a year—a very small amount but it impacts on the lives of many families, parents and children. It is worthwhile programs like that that had money ripped out. Many families are being hurt. Then you look at the millions and millions of dollars that are wasted on programs like the pink batts program. That very small amount of money is providing so much community support. Programs like Kitchener Road Childcare Centre are so important to the local community and yet we see other programs where millions are wasted.

The government continues on its misguided and incoherent policies, leading to mismanagement. You just keep reading about it and seeing it. As a federal member of parliament I constantly see these examples of incompetence. The budget deficit is now at $37 billion and rising. Each day it continues to grow. I have a little widget on my website reminding my constituents every day of the levels of debt that continue to rise under this Gillard government. The carbon tax and the recent private health rebate cuts will come into force on 1 July and they will further add to the cost of living for businesses and families in the electorate of Brisbane. But this government stumbles along blindly, too focused on itself and not on the real issues that face everyday Australian families. It prefers instead to wind the clock back 30 years and play that class warfare card and the politics of envy. This 1970s type attitude has no place in modern Australia. This country desperately needs an election to give the Australian people a say on who they want to lead this country through the difficult challenges ahead. I call on this government and I call on the Independents to do the right thing and allow an election to be held so that the people of Australia can decide what direction they want to go in.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) and Appropriation Bill (No. 4). It certainly has been interesting to watch the theatre over the past week. We see a government tearing itself apart—not focused on the needs of the people of Australia, not focused on our future, but busy fighting amongst themselves over the leadership of their political party. We see a Prime Minister who has lost the trust of the Australian people. We see a Prime Minister whose word is not considered fair dinkum by most Australians. They have seen the promise the Prime Minister made that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led. They saw the promise that the government made to the member for Denison in relation to gambling reform. They saw the promised east Timor solution. On all of these issues, statements were clearly made and clearly articulated by the Prime Minister—an actual statement put not only in words but in writing with the member for Denison, promising that the Prime Minister, as a precondition to her forming a government, would support mandatory precommitment on poker machines. And what happened? As soon as it suited this Prime Minister, she abandoned that promise and we were left with just another example of how this Prime Minister cannot be trusted.

We also see that the Australian people cannot trust this Prime Minister and this government with money. Before us today we have appropriation bills, and the theme of my contribution today will be the endless waste and mismanagement of this government, because whenever this government tries to fix something it seems to get worse. Whenever this government has a new scheme to save us money, we seem to end up deeper in debt. When this government plans to save the planet, we find that our jobs in our factories and in our businesses start moving offshore. Of course this is just a political game for the government with the aim of clinging to power just a little longer. But, for the people I represent, the government's dysfunction and mismanagement is having a real impact on day-to-day living. Full-time, well-paid jobs are more difficult to find because employers are hesitant about the future, and interest rates are higher than they need to be because of the actions of this government. The actions of this government through new taxes are eating into family budgets and, on top of all that, the impact of the carbon tax is yet to be realised.

To give you an example of how out of touch this government is, we discovered recently that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry which was allocated more than $100 million through these bills, recently spent $77,627 on rebranding. Consultants encouraged the department to change its mission statement to exclude the words 'agriculture', 'fisheries' and 'forestry'. Is there anything more absurd than to have a rebranding exercise that removed the words 'agriculture', 'fisheries' and 'forestry'? The farmers and fishermen in my electorate do not care how the department is branded. What they want is freedom from a carbon tax and some degree of confidence that the government understands and respects the work that they do.

Of course, we know this government has failed also in the area of border protection policy, with an additional cost of over $330 million in this year alone. When the Rudd Labor government was elected in 2007, illegal immigration was barely a blip on the political radar or on the budget papers due to the Howard government's strong border protection policies. But, when the Labor government started to roll back the coalition's border protection policies in favour of a policy proudly authored by the now Prime Minister, the boats started arriving and costs started to grow—costs that are being met by the taxpaying men and women of Australia. The additional estimates released by the government recently show a blow-out of a third of the budget in asylum seeker costs: some $866 million to 2014-15. This is almost $560 million more than the figure released in MYEFO only two months ago. The immigration budget now is $2.7 billion for this year alone. Processing and detaining boat arrivals has become a multibillion dollar task which is draining funds away from more productive tasks.

The government would not have had to rip $2.4 billion out of private health insurance if it had not dismantled the Howard government's strong border protection policies. The irony of the government's wasteful spending is that the Prime Minister promised before the last election that she would maintain spending restraint, yet everywhere you look there are cost blow-outs. Unfortunately, we have come to realise just what a promise from this Prime Minister is worth and we now know a promise from this Prime Minister is worth absolutely nothing. The member for Griffith knows the value of a promise by this Prime Minister. He knows more than anyone.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Denison.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Denison, as I said, knows the value of a promise from this Prime Minister. He knows all too well, with a document signed in blood by the Prime Minister to support mandatory precommitment. What happens when the pressure is on? We just walk away. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

The Australian people now know exactly how much a promise from this Prime Minister is worth. That is why I concur with my colleague the member for Brisbane, who said, 'What is needed now is an election'—and it very much is. The people of Australia are sick of broken promises. The people of Australia are sick of having a Prime Minister they can no longer trust. The people of Australia are sick of hollow words. We heard all too clearly her promise in relation to the carbon tax, and many people trusted the Prime Minister at that time, to their detriment. Small businesses in my electorate are very concerned about that broken promise on carbon tax. The tourism industry in my electorate is very concerned about that broken promise in relation to the carbon tax. Unfortunately, the carbon tax which we were not going to have and which we are getting on 1 July is going to make it much more difficult for those businesses to survive and compete with competitors overseas. It is of great concern. We are seeing a total lack of confidence out in the community, and a major driver of that lack of confidence is that people have no faith in this government. The small business community has dramatically lost faith in business conditions and in this government because they see a government that is not in control. They see a government that is out of control and is too busy fighting itself to be concerned about the issues that are important.

Increasing prices are flowing through to aviation. Qantas is having to increase its fares. Those fare increases have already taken effect for flights after 1 July, and that is going to have an adverse effect on travel to my electorate in the very important tourism industry. We see other countries defending their airlines against a ridiculous carbon tax. We see the Chinese and the Americans standing up for their airline industries. But what does our Prime Minister do? She just rolls over and plays dead. We do not mind slugging our aviation industry with a carbon tax. We do not mind one bit. We do not care if it is going to put people out of work. We do not care if it is going to have an adverse effect on our tourism industry. We are going to sit there and do nothing in relation to international airlines and we are going to actively work against our airline industry in relation to our local carriers. Many airlines around the world will be flying carbon tax free. Their governments were wise enough to realise that this is a tax that is bad for our country and that is not going to improve the environment one bit. Let me quote the words of Professor Garnaut in relation to the price rises under a carbon tax. Professor Garnaut said:

These higher prices will require households to spend a greater proportion of their incomes to obtain the same goods and services purchased before the introduction of an emissions price. This will reduce households’ real incomes and purchasing power.

I could not agree with him more. He has really belled the cat. This will reduce households' real incomes and purchasing power. Thank you to this government. Thank you to the Independents for supporting this carbon tax, which is so unpopular in their electorates.

What does the government say? They say: 'Don't worry. Some of you will be 20c a week better off.' The Prime Minister says, 'Trust me.' Twenty cents a week better off! If I were the member for Denison I would not be trusting the Prime Minister that you could be 20c a week better off. If I were the average Australian I would not be trusting this Prime Minister that I would be 20c a week better off. If I were a small business person, apart from the impact on my business I would be very concerned about that 20c margin of error. Twenty cents! This is a government that said we were going to have a $22 billion deficit this year, and it blew out to $37 billion. They were out billions and billions in their budget forecast, yet their forecast in relation to the adequacy of compensation—and we will get to compensation in a moment—depends on a margin of error of 20c. I think average Australians are, rightfully, worried about this. As I said, they do not trust this Prime Minister and they certainly would not trust a 20c margin of error.

Another issue that is of great concern is the wasteful spending in the NBN. The coalition agrees there is a need for high-speed broadband. Every Australian should have access to high-speed broadband. We saw a project which, in the true way this government does things, started off at $4.3 billion—fibre to the node; a fairly workable solution. But then there was a rethink. A feasibility study was done by Senator Conroy and the then Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, on the back of a drink coaster on a flight to Perth, and what did we get? A $4.3 billion project blew out to a $50 billion project almost overnight. That would have to be the mother of all cost overruns.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And it is not over yet.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And it is not over yet, thank you to the member for Forrest. It is not over yet because day by day we see prices blow out. Day by day we see low take-up rates. Day by day we see the very business plan that underpins the NBN falling apart. The connections are not meeting up with what is anticipated, the speed of construction is nowhere near what is required to meet the business plan estimates, and the cost is blowing out. On April Fools' Day last year we saw that the tender process had to be abandoned. They had 14 tenderers, they went out to the market, and what did the market say? You have not got enough money, guys. You have not budgeted enough. It is going to cost us more. So miraculously, and again there becomes an issue of trust, through a magic process a contract was struck—

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A magic pudding!

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it was a magic pudding. A contract was struck with Silcar. We do not know what it says; it is completely secret; it is commercial-in-confidence; but we have to trust this government that the contract with Silcar has not exposed taxpayers or the Australian government to increased risk of cost overruns. We do not know what risks we have bought for this contract with Silcar, but I think it is a pretty fair bet that we cannot trust this government. I think it is a pretty fair bet and it is of great concern. Yes, we want high-speed broadband; but we want it done in a timely way and we want it done within a reasonable budget. A $50 billion budget, which is going north, is not reasonable, is not sustainable and is of great concern.

Another concern is the fact that this project is not targeting the worst areas first, and that is a most important thing. It would be common sense to look at those areas where broadband is most deficient and start attacking them immediately. But what do we do? We have a largely politically motivated rollout that picked the eyes out of the politically appropriate sites and have a duplication of services where broadband is already adequate—we actually pay taxpayers' money; we pay Telstra and we pay Opel for nothing more than not to compete with the NBN. Now, if this project were so incredibly superior, as the government would make out, would you not think that market forces would drive people to rush in hordes to the NBN? They would be like barbarians at the gate, trying to get in and get connected. But what happens? We saw in Armidale a take-up rate of two per cent!

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And 18,000 in total.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right: 18,000. We have got about 2,000 people connected to fibre. We have got another 2,000 on satellite. We have got about 18,000 people connected but not using. So it is a pretty small total. And it is of concern that so much money has been poured into it without a feasibility study. This was a government that came to power promising total assessment of major investment decisions. We had Infrastructure Australia formed—

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To let the sunlight in

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, the sunlight was going to flow in. We were going to be irradiated with a new warmth and a new glow and we were going to feel confident! What have we got? We have got a Prime Minister who cannot be trusted and a project that is running off the rails. It is north of $50 billion. Who knows where it is going to end? It is of concern. This government cannot manage money. This government cannot be trusted. This government should be facing the people. People should be offered an election so that they can pass their judgment on this government for all of its faults—too many to mention here in the 15 minutes I have available to speak.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2011-2012 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2011-2012, which are in front of us. I would like to use the opportunity, if I may, to discuss three important national issues which are confronting my electorate. My electorate is in suburban Melbourne. It is very much a middle-income electorate, 15 or so kilometres out from the centre of Melbourne. It is made up of middleclass families, hard-working people and small business people—aspirational people. So the issues which confront them, I believe, also are very likely to be issues that confront the broader Australian community. There are three issues particularly which they have been raising with me which I would like to touch on today: cost-of-living pressures, job security and manufacturing. The first, cost-of-living pressures, would be one of the issues which gets constantly raised with me when I am out in the community, and I am sure other members equally would have this issue raised with them. It gets raised in the churches, it gets raised at school fetes, it gets raised when you are at the footy or cricket clubs on the weekends. The reason is that people know that the cost-of-living pressures on basic household goods are rising more rapidly than their wages or pensions. These are not discretionary items; these are the necessary items which you and I and every family has to rely upon: petrol, food and groceries, electricity, water, medical expenses and the like. These are the things that are going up well in excess of wages or the official CPI indexation rate.

The difficulties which constituents of mine articulate to me are backed up by the official statistics. When you look at the official statistics of some of these basic household necessities you see that they have gone up already by an extraordinary amount. For example, people's water bills have gone up by 46 per cent since 2008. Their electricity bills have gone up by 50 per cent since 2008—an enormous increase in electricity bills, which, of course, directly impacts on your household budget. It is something that you cannot not use, particularly in winter and particularly in a cooler climate like Melbourne, where you do need to have your heater on. If you are a pensioner, you are often in your house all day and you need to have your heater on. Gas prices have gone up 30 per cent since 2008; medical expenses have gone up 20 per cent since 2008. I think you are starting to get the picture, Deputy Speaker Oakeshott: the official statistics directly back up what constituents and local residents on the ground are telling me and telling other members in this chamber.

There are many reasons why prices go up in excess of the CPI or of our wages. Of course, there are supply and demand issues which impact prices. But a government can also have a significant impact on prices through its policy settings. My critique is that this government's policy settings have been set in the wrong direction and so they are deliberately putting prices up unnecessarily. That is unforgivable. Yes, of course, prices will increase over time because of supply and demand pressures, but, when the government itself is causing prices to go up, that is what is unforgivable.

I want to talk about a few areas where this government has done that. Let me start with the macro level, because at the macro level if you run large budget deficits, which this government has now for four years in a row—$37 billion this year, $50-odd billion, a further $50 billion the year before; the three biggest budget deficits in Australian history—that puts upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. That is the first criticism that I have of the government. Its fiscal policy puts upward pressure on all prices and upward pressure on interest rates.

My second criticism is at the individual level. When you look at individual items, again the government is having an impact on prices going up. Let me start again with electricity. High electricity prices is something that is hurting everybody, and it is particularly hurting pensioners and other people on low incomes or low fixed incomes. What is the government doing? To start with, some of its renewable energy policies, which have been poorly designed, are putting up electricity prices. On top of that is what is coming on 1 July, as all of us in this chamber know. From the government's own figures, the carbon tax will add an additional 10 per cent to the price of electricity. If you ask the electricity sector, they will tell you it is a 20 per cent increase. There will be a 10 per cent increase in the first year alone, let alone in subsequent years when the carbon tax is legislated to increase. So electricity prices will continue to go up through a measure of the government. That is my critique. Let me look at gas prices. Again, with the carbon tax, gas prices are forecast to increase by nine per cent in the first year alone and will continue to go up.

Let us look at child care, another item that is not a discretionary expenditure. If there are two parents at work or if you are a single parent who works, you need to put your child into child care. What has the government done in relation to child care? The first thing they did was cap the rebate so that many families are hitting that cap. But that is not the worst thing. In my view, the worst thing they have done is change the childcare staff-to-child ratios. Whereas it was one staff member to five children, they changed it and mandated that, from 1 January this year, it must be one staff member to four children.

As you can appreciate, in a childcare centre your staffing is your major operational cost so, if you force a childcare centre to go from five to one to four to one, you are in essence increasing your operational costs by about 20 per cent. That flows directly through to childcare prices. You could say that that is improving the quality of the childcare centre. But I ask what the government has to do with this when: (a) there is no categorical research that says four to one is better than five to one; and (b) why can't parents themselves decide in their own right whether they want four to one or five to one? If they are happy with five to one, they can go along to that and it will be a cheaper childcare centre. If they want four to one, I am sure there would be a childcare centre where there is a four to one ratio.

I mention one childcare centre in my community. A woman I have mentioned before in this chamber, Mrs Kulkarni, has written to me saying that there has been a 21 per cent increase in the fees for her this year. She asked:

Why are we being penalised for working hard and paying our taxes? The changes in staff-to-children ratios will not make a life-changing impact on my two-year-old now or over the next three years until he starts school. All of us were very happy with the care being provided before.

But, no, the government here in Canberra knows what is best for my constituents in outer eastern Melbourne! That is what I find egregious. We have residents who are happy with the service and we have childcare centres happy with the service they are providing. But what does the government do? It has to get its fingers in there and say, 'Oh, no, it's not good enough for the childcare centre and not good enough for the parents; it's got to be four to one,' and as a result the prices will go up by 21 per cent. Thanks very much! What will happen then? Parents will pull their kids out and parents will not be able to work. We have a participation problem that is contributing to a lack of productivity, which is a problem. It is poor policy design like this from an overbearing government which is also contributing to price increases.

Health care is the next item on my list. We debated this last week. Changes to the health insurance rebate will cause an increase in all health insurance premiums, which will go up by an estimated 10 per cent across the board, according to Deloitte. That will mean that some people will pull out and go to the already overburdened public hospital system, and for the taxpayer overall it will be more expensive. I fail to see how that is good public policy. It just adds to the cost-of-living pressures of everyday families in my electorate and, indeed, across Australia.

It is not just the policy designs that have led to price increases; there have also been a number of targeted tax increases which have put up prices for everybody on things like cigarettes, motor cars and alcohol. Prices have been forced up for residents.

The carbon tax will add an additional $400 to the cost of an Australian made motor car. It will not be added to the cost of a Hyundai, coming in from South Korea, but it will be added to the cost of a Holden, a Toyota or a Ford, which are built right here in Melbourne and South Australia. It is unbelievable. Do you think that will make a difference to the climate? Will the weather be different because we are adding $400 to the cost of an Australia made motor car? No, it will not. All it will do is make those motor cars more expensive for Australians and lose jobs in the Australian motor car industry.

Not only have we had taxes increased but we have had benefits reduced. In the last budget many people had their family tax benefits A and B frozen. Over 10,000 people in my electorate alone were impacted by that. Even microbusinesses at the micro level—the low-income, independent business owners—have now lost the entrepreneurs tax offset, which provided a little bit of tax relief for those microbusinesses earning less than $75,000 a year.

At the macro level we have a poor policy setting. We have taxes up across the board, we have poor policy design in a number of areas—which puts up prices—and in many cases we have had benefits removed. All of those things contribute to cost-of-living pressures for everyday Australians both in my electorate and across Australia. Thatis my criticism of the government. Sure, there are supply and demand issues, but my key criticism is that they have put in place poor policies, increased taxes or removed benefits because they are trying to get control of their budget, which is presently completely out of control.

In the last couple of minutes I have available to me, let me touch on job security and manufacturing. We know that job security is an emerging issue in this nation. The unemployment figure is at 5.2 per cent, but I believe that that significantly underestimates the real figure. Roy Morgan estimates that it is more like 10.3 per cent and, if you also include the underemployed, it is 17.8 per cent. Those are extraordinary figures. I am not suggesting that governments can just create all of these jobs. The government cannot create jobs; businesses create jobs. We as a nation need to make the business environment attractive for businesses to thrive. That means lowering taxes, getting the budget under control so that interest rates can be lower. It means a more flexible industrial relations system where individuals and bosses can come to some sort of agreement which is mutually beneficial for them both. It means incentives for R&D so that innovation can be the real driver for productivity. It means generally creating a sense of hope for our business community that there will not be another hit around the corner, which is presently what many businesses currently think. If you put those sorts of things in place, that is how you get productivity, job creation and businesses to thrive. Indeed, that is how we will best support our manufacturing industry. It cannot be sustained by having the government throwing money at it. It will only be sustainable in the longer term if those businesses are profitable in their own right. We can help achieve that by creating a strong business environment.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately for the people in my electorate and those right around the country these bills, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2011-2012 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2011-2012, are the latest evidence that the Labor government is utterly incompetent. It cannot manage the Australian economy and it cannot even manage its own programs. These bills are classic and practical examples. The government created a massive problem when it changed the coalition's proven strong border protection policies. In fact, the total blow-out in asylum seeker management costs since the 2009-10 budget, revealed in the latest estimates, is $3.9 billion. Over 15,000 people have arrived as a result. You have raised some important issues, member for Aston, and I ask: who was paying? I think we know—our electricians, our plumbers, our teachers, our nurses, our truck drivers, our farmers and our small businesses are all paying for this. Once again the Labor government is imposing more cost and more debt—$3.1 billion alone in these bills—on hard-working, aspirational Australian taxpayers. The government is doing this simply because it is dreadfully incompetent and absolutely addicted to wasteful spending. This government is borrowing $100 million every single day just to feed the greatest net debt our nation has ever seen. It has borrowed $136 billion and counting, which is larger than the disgraceful debt legacy of the Hawke-Keating Labor era. It also has cumulative deficits of $167 billion. They are appalling figures.

In 2007, Australia's total budget was $272 billion, but, as a result of the government's spending, it is expected in 2011 to be $370 billion plus. That is an increase in spending of $100 billion—40 per cent. Also, the government has lifted the gross debt ceiling from the 2007 level of $75 billion to $250 billion. The government has disgracefully wasted billions on its pet projects such as pink batts, which cost $2.5 billion and counting and is still wasting taxpayers' dollars even in this misnamed 'clean-out phase'. I see in one of the newspapers that nearly a quarter of the jobs in the program now are either unsafe or substandard, so it is still costing.

I believe the Australian people deserve to know the full extent of this out-of-control but tragic debacle. The judicial inquiry called for by the shadow minister for climate action, environment and heritage, the member for Flinders, is needed. The government, however, does not learn by its mistakes; it is a repeat offender. Just look at the reckless spending on set-top boxes. The cost of each one is now estimated to average $698, which is almost double the government's original estimate and more than the cost of a digital TV with a 106 centimetre screen. The set-top box program is so hard for pensioners to access that they often give up and themselves pay $100—a sum which includes installation—for a set-top box. We also know that the government has spent nearly $1 million on legal bills so far for the alleged corruption investigation into the member for Dobell. This Labor government, as we have seen this past week, is far more interested in its own survival than it is in the welfare of the Australian people. That is an indictment of it, and it is its legacy. This Labor government will be remembered for all the wrong reasons well into the future.

Let us look more closely at the appropriations in these bills. According to the government's own latest estimates, there has been an additional budget blowout in asylum seeker costs of $866 million. As a result, the government has come back to this parliament to seek an immediate appropriation of $330 million to cover the shortfall in last year's costs and the expected increase for this year. On top of this, the government is asking for an extra $759 million over the four years from 2014-15. In 2011-12, the immigration budget will cost Australian taxpayers $2.73 billion. That is $1 billion more than the $1.69 million it cost in 2007-08. This stands as a towering monument to the incompetence of the Gillard government, whose failure has to be subsidised by working Australians. In many cases these working Australians, who are underwriting Labor's failures, are the very people—those aspirational Australians—who are under attack by the Gillard government for working hard to support themselves. Average working families on standard incomes are being hit again and again to subsidise Labor's waste. They were hit by the baby bonus means test and by the family tax benefit means test, and they will be hit by the carbon tax ahead of us—all of which the Labor government promised was never going to happen. 'Trust us,' the government has said before each election. The government will also hit hardworking Australians with their private health insurance costs, and I am waiting to see what will happen with private school costs.

The small business sector in my electorate and across Australia is in the direct firing line of the government. Given the over 12½ thousand pieces of legislation introduced by the government, small businesses are virtually being red-taped into bankruptcy. Small businesses are doing it tough—we know there are, I think, 10,000 fewer than last year. And the South West is no exception. This would probably come as no surprise to members on our side of the House, who maintain very close relationships with their small business operators, but it must be news to the government or they would be acting to ease the burden on small businesses, which are the foundation of the Australian economy and employ millions of Australian workers.

The coalition take their issues very, very seriously, and we have formed our own committee to examine the impact of government regulation on the small business sector. During a recent walk through central Bunbury to talk to business owners in my electorate, I met several who were having to close their doors. These people should have been able to concentrate on their businesses, on making a profit to be able to employ people, instead of having to concentrate on government red tape.

Let me turn to what would be an appropriate expenditure that could have been addressed by the bills before the House, in the expenditure, had the government not wasted billions and billions of dollars. There are so many good projects out there that could and should be funded, and now is a prime opportunity to invest in the infrastructure needs of the South West. Such investment would not only secure the economic future of the region but would ensure good planning and social outcomes. Of particular importance is the transport infrastructure that is needed in the region and which I have raised repeatedly in this House. The billion-dollar blow-out in border protection alone—one of those billions—would have funded the infrastructure needs of the South West for a generation, including the delivery of the vital Roads to Export plan.

The region is a major exporter of alumina and mineral sands products. It will become a major coal exporter—but only with adequate investment in transport, as identified in my own infrastructure plan and in the Roads to Export plan developed by the South West Development Commission, the South West regional development authority and the Bunbury Wellington Economic Alliance.

The region will also only maintain and expand its tourism status with investment in safer roads, additional rail and a genuine regional airport able to take larger aircraft with the possibility of direct interstate flights. The Capes region has been identified as a prime location for a larger regional airport, and it would be a visionary investment in the South West. These are some of the projects that could be funded through the waste of Labor's spending.

After a two-year campaign to fix what was a disgraceful, independent-youth-allowance form of discrimination, which the Labor government arbitrarily inflicted on students and their families, the government was forced to change their rules—only to treat those same students badly again. The untrustworthy government told the Australian community that they would end the discrimination, but basically there is a parental means test for students seeking independent youth allowance. These are the students who already have to face anything from $15,000 to $30,000 a year more in costs just to go to school, just to go to university in a city, and these are costs that metropolitan and urban students do not have to find. For those outer-regional students, it is the first time that this means test has been applied, and it is just another attack on working families in my part of the world, in rural and regional Australia. It took a two-year campaign to end the appalling discrimination that we saw with youth allowance. What was even worse in this one was the number of young people who actually changed the courses they were taking while this was in place because they knew their families could not afford to send them on to university.

Two years ago I raised in the House the threat posed to the environment in my part of the world by phytophthora dieback. I have been disappointed by the lack of government action on this looming biodiversity disaster. Last year an update on the impact of dieback was given to the Committee for Climate Change, Environment and the Arts, which I hope will provide some greater impetus for the government to take action. The need to manage this insidious disease cannot be overstated, and I am seeking a far greater effort. I want to see a detailed, comprehensive map, including the South-West Land Division, assembled as quickly as possible. We need to know exactly where dieback is and where it is not on both state-held and private land. Following the comprehensive mapping of dieback, we must develop a planning and management toolbox that tells all landholders how to manage and reduce the spread of dieback in their specific areas. We also need to join the international science community and invest in research to find newer and better control mechanisms, including a treatment that can eliminate dieback from infected plants.

These are just some of the programs that could have been funded simply with the waste that we have seen generated by this Labor government. Ahead, particularly for small business, is the issue of the carbon tax. In spite of what has been said, there are many small businesses who, for many reasons, do not have the capacity to pass on the additional cost of a carbon tax. There are farmers who fit into this category. Dairy farmers are absolute price-takers. They have to cool millions and millions of litres of milk every year, and they are going to have to bear the cost of the carbon tax. I would like to see whether the major supermarkets are planning to pass on any additional return or price to the dairy farmers who are supplying them with milk, because they are having to meet the additional cost of cooling the milk as a result of the additional cost of electricity, which will be at least 10 per cent—I would say even more.

When transport, including that run on diesel, becomes part of this equation, as we know it will in 2014, the cost of the carbon tax is going to be far greater and certainly more than was projected for farmers and people living in rural and regional areas. We know how far loads are carted around Australia and we know the size of the freight task. So this tax is going to impact on small communities right around Australia, particularly those in my electorate. It is going to impact directly on small business. A whole raft of businesses are really concerned. They do not have confidence right at this moment. They do not have confidence in the policies of this government. They do not have the confidence to invest in themselves into the future. They do not have the confidence to continue employing people.

Last week I and other people from a range of businesses attended a meeting of transport operators, earthmoving operators and those involved in servicing that sector in my electorate. There was an incredible level of uncertainty and concern there. There was uncertainty around the carbon tax and the liability facing their businesses. They will have to either buy the expertise or employ people just to deal with this issue, to run the ruler over their businesses and to see what this tax is going to cost them, what their liability might be and how their businesses are going to manage going forward. So there is a lot more ahead for small to medium enterprises as a result of the carbon tax.

As I said, the appalling thing for people right around Australia and particularly for those in my electorate is the untold waste and mismanagement. I am sure every member would be able to identify many other purposes for that waste. We would have far less debt if there had not been the waste that we have seen from this government. The lack of confidence right around this nation is a result of the decisions made by this government.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4, I want to concentrate on the need for agricultural skills now and particularly in the future. Two weeks ago we learnt that the University of Western Sydney will, for the first time in 100 years, no longer offer a degree in agriculture at its Hawkesbury campus. With fewer than 10 enrolments for 2012, the course is not viable and the university has been forced to suspend it. According to reports, the number of campuses offering degrees in agriculture in 1989 was 23 and the number now, I believe, is around nine or possibly 10. Further investigations have also revealed that fewer than 700 agricultural science students will graduate nationally this year. The amazing thing is that every one of them can get a job whether through corporate agriculture, commercial positions in agribusiness or working for government. Mind you, governments, particularly state governments, are employing fewer and fewer people. This government actually cut its graduate program at one point—until public outcry forced them to stop that.

We need agricultural scientists. We need researchers from the point of view of biosecurity and quarantine. There is nothing agriculture needs in the future so much as those people with the ability to scientifically protect it or have the knowledge and the experience to scientifically protect it from the biosecurity angle. This is for two reasons. One, the greatest selling point that Australian agriculture has is our virtual disease-free situation. We are lucky enough to be the world's largest island continent. But it is not just that. It is also because we need to protect ourselves from those things which enter the country as well as those things which leave it.

The only thing that has kept agriculture out there over the last 40 to 50 years has been the increases in productivity it is able to generate. Up until about eight or nine years ago it had an annual growth rate of something over three per cent, which is phenomenal and probably greater than anything any of the developed nations of the world have ever had. In the last few years it has plateaued out, not just because of drought. In recent times we have had a far greater influx of bio-issues for our departments to worry about. The truth is that state governments have to a large extent abdicated their responsibility. More and more this is an issue that the federal government has to deal with—but not this one. It is not dealing with it.

Degrees and courses in agriculture are imperative, particularly in research. We have to start encouraging this, whether through scholarships or whatever it might be. We have to work with industry to increase the number of people doing ag science and postgraduate research. There is a lot a federal government can do with the state governments. We have to get them back in the game. However, this does seem increasingly unlikely with the current federal government's inherent ignorance of all things agricultural. I hesitate to say that they have a down on agriculture. I think it is just total carelessness. Their knowledge of things commercial and things which agriculture actually needs is quite staggering. Some of them are so careless you would think that they could not do it on purpose—it is just ignorance. But the list is growing—biosecurity incursions which have not been dealt with, myrtle rust and the Asian honeybee. There is a lack of transparency on foreign ownership. And, on the live cattle ban, not one action taken by this government has frightened Australian business, be it corporate or small business—they could sell razor blades, face creams or steel—like the overnight ban on the live trade to Indonesia, without talking to the customers. If they can do that to something which cannot be stuck on the shelf for six months until it is convenient to sell, what the heck would they do to something that can be stuck on the shelf for six months? Not one action frightened Australian business so much as that, let alone the offhand way in which they dealt with the country in question.

The passing of the carbon tax—I do not know whether it is ignorance or whether they realise what they are doing—will have a greater effect on agriculture than on almost any other business, even though they say we are not involved in it. Everything we do is involved with the carbon tax effect—it is on everything we buy or transport or whatever. Also, the comments by both the current minister and the previous minister about how the milk price war would not do any harm to anyone and was good for consumers show total and careless ignorance about how the market system works and how dairy farmers are affected by this, and dairy farmers will be very much affected by the carbon tax.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan failed to deliver an environmental water plan that shows how they will achieve the environmental outcomes. They have decided they have to take all this water from productive outcomes.

You may say, 'By God, that must have taken a while,' but it took just 12 months for all those things to happen. Two weeks ago we learnt that the department had changed its mission statement. The mission statement used to say the things you would expect a specific department within government to do: talk about agriculture, its needs, its aspirations, its need for trade, its need for good practices et cetera. Now it says:

We work to sustain the way of life and prosperity of all Australians.

Well, hooray, that is what every government should say. But for a specific department to remove any reference to its reason for existence does make you wonder.

What hope does agriculture have when even the government and a specialised department are turning their backs on it, are totally deaf to its needs and are not even aware that that is what they are doing? Agriculture in Australia drives $155 billion a year in economic production. It is over 12 per cent of the GDP. We might not ride on the back of it any more, but by heavens we contribute to it. It generates around 1.6 million Australian jobs and $32 billion a year in exports. That is in farm exports. They are creating—along with the small business sector in Australia, in particular—a genuine lack of confidence.

This is terribly sad because this should be a challenging and exciting time for agriculture. In the last 8 years particularly, the UN and everyone else truthfully says that commodity and agriculture prices have risen. It is not because we have gone from six billion to seven billion in 11 years. That is part of the reason, but it is not the big reason. They are not saying the future is great because they are talking about nine billion in the next 20 or 30 years or so. They may be reasons. But the real reason is that in the past 20 years our nearest neighbours, Asia and South-East Asia, have developed a very significant improvement in lifestyle by middle income earners, whether it is Indonesia, China, India or whatever. Previously, when we have had a lift out of Asia it was caused by Japan or Korea. The actual lift in possible market gain by China, India and Indonesia is probably something like 15 times as strong as what is already happening in Japan and Korea. It is not because of the size of the populations. It is because they are getting used to the meat that we—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:54 to 18:02

Government rolls on. I think that in the Australian Year of the Farmer—and I hope this current government, with its renewed Prime Minister, as it were, can start to grasp that this is the Australian Year of the Farmer—the whole of Australia does not need to worship farmers, or try to set farmers on a pedestal, because they do not want that. But agriculture does need the people of Australia to realise that it is not just a matter of going out there, putting something in the ground and, by and by, selling it. It is enormously difficult to be a farmer, having to meet what our nation deserves and expects in the name of quality, in the name of biosecurity, in the name of food safety, in the name of productivity. We do need an agricultural sector that can continue not just to meet our expectations. The fact is that we set a benchmark in the world's exports not just for quality and not just for our products being virtually disease free. The fact is that, while we are nowhere near one of the world's biggest producers, we are number 4 in the world's largest exporters of agricultural commodities. That is because we are only 20-odd million people but we grow three or four times as much as we need ourselves. We are not in any way, shape or form going to run out of food, but we have to make sure we continue to produce what we do. We need to set a benchmark around the world so that those with the necessary degrees, with the necessary research capabilities and with the necessary abilities can continue to help farmers grow more with the same or less moisture on the same soil as they had before. We can only do this if we have not fewer graduates from university but more.

One of the great things that corporate agriculture does in Australia is employ a lot of these people. The family farms perfect what the larger corporations do, but we still need those with the resources to try them. They also employ those who have the ability to come up with new products and new ideas.

This government must be cognisant of the fact that it has totally ignored—as much carelessly as deliberately—the needs of agriculture. In the three years that I have been responsible in the coalition for agriculture, I think I have had the head of every faculty in Australia that has run an agricultural course say to me that they need more encouragement, particularly from the federal government, including encouragement for young people to enter agricultural science and the like through the universities and further education that Australia has to offer.

Agriculture has an enormous amount to offer the country and the world, but it needs the right people in the right place to do it. It needs this government to act. We are committed to encouraging students and encouraging R&D. This government has cut the personnel involved with biosecurity and quarantine. It has cut the money available. It has taken out a whole department from the area. This is incredibly dangerous. Nothing makes me as nervous as this government's attitude to quarantine and biosecurity. (Time expired)

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Defence have a record of getting things wrong and attacking detractors who tend to be accurate with data. Defence needs comprehensive reform and needs a defence minister with the guts to take it on. Unfortunately, of late—and I am not just talking about this government—we have not had defence ministers who have done this. When I was in the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, we would continually hear from Defence, when we were looking at projects, that they accepted that things had been awry six or 12 months in the past but that things were hunky-dory now. Then we would find, six months or 12 months later, that in fact things were not hunky-dory. The excuse would always be 'complex systems management'. Look at some of the gas trains in the north-west, for instance—they involve complex management, and yet they manage to get things right. Look at how quickly the motor industry manage to get a new car up and going without having a huge amount of problems at the outset. They are quite complex pieces of equipment.

I will go to the Joint Strike Fighter as a case example. First of all, let's have a look at the history of costs associated with this program and test how accurate Defence has been. The best estimate by the United States Air Force as of last year for the average procurement cost of a Joint Strike Fighter was $133 million. Defence have stated in the past that, as they will be buying early in the cycle, theirs will cost about 10 per cent more, so about $146 million. In fact, the Selected Acquisition Reports say that the cost will be about $154 million per JSF, which in the Australian context means about $170 million. Just to reiterate, USAF says $146 million; the Selected Acquisition Reports say about $170 million.

Now let's have a look at Defence's history on this. In 2005, Defence said that the so-called 'unit recurring flyaway cost' would be about $50 million, while the USAF at the same time said that it would be around $80 million. So, really, in the Australian context at that time, it should have been $88 million. Defence were out almost by a factor of two. A group called Air Power Australia said in 2006 the procurement price would be $165 million per aircraft. In 2009 Defence talked about $70 million unit recurring flyaway cost when the United States Air Force, using the same measure for what is called 'low rate initial production batch 6', had $117 million per. APA now estimates that in the acquisition they will probably cost around $215 million each. They do have various allowances, plus and minus, in their figures. As can be seen, Defence have been third rate in their costing estimates compared with Air Power Australia. Remember that Defence are supposed to have access to all of this good information directly from Lockheed Martin and that they have people in Washington DC working with the United States Air Force and congress. They have been hopeless with their costings. They have been third rate in their costings, but they have claimed that in fact they knew the true price. When you think about that, if they did know, then they have chosen to mislead parliament by what they have said.

Let us have a look at schedule. When are we going to get these Joint Strike Fighters? In 2005 Defence said that they would achieve what is called 'initial operational capability' in 2012-13—in other words, this year. In 2006, the year later, Air Power Australia said that IOC would occur in around 2020. In 2007, the year after APA was saying 2020, Defence said it would be around 2014-15. In fact in 2008, the then head of the Defence Material Organisation, Stephen Gumley, said on schedule: 'It is not something I lose much sleep about.' That is a real worry. In 2011 Defence said that initial operation capability would be in late 2018. Remember it was only back in 2005 that they were saying it would be in 2012-13. Once again, it was a dud projection.

We are supposed to believe their assurances when, by their own definition, with a 10 per cent increase in costs and a risk management matrix used by DMO being almost certain—in fact in this case it has eventuated, and then some—you have extreme risk. That is their own definition: extreme risk. The schedule has slipped by six years, from 2012 to 2018, and Defence says that that 12-month slippage is 'extreme risk'. Yet they are blithely going on as if there is no problem in the world with this. There are dud predictions wherever you look, but we are supposed to take Defence's word at face value and trust them.

The problem is that they have actually acted as Lockheed Martin's salespeople and simply accepted their assertions on cost, schedule and capability. Where is the supposed role of Defence acting with due diligence and accepting caveat emptor? With the JSF program in the United States, just in the last 12 months the director of operational test and evaluation has written a damning report on the Joint Strike Fighter. Similarly, a quick look review which was conducted was similarly damaging in its assessment. But Defence seem to be as happy with this program as pigs in mud.

Due to the Super Hornet purchase, this dud decision to purchase the Joint Strike Fighter has already cost us billions. By Chief of Air Force's own optimistic admission, the Super Hornet will be overmatched in the region by 2025, yet this is Defence's plan B. I recall discussing this in committee with DMO head Stephen Gumley. He said about the schedule slip with the JSF, 'It hasn't cost us anything', forgetting about the opportunity cost associated with the Super Hornet. We would not have needed the Super Hornet if the Joint Strike Fighter had arrived on schedule. The problem is that, apart from cost increases and schedule slippages, Defence has given us no idea whatsoever. Where they would say, 'Hang on. This now is unacceptable and this is something we shouldn't proceed with', they were assuring us that capability is good; whereas analysis that I have seen, having looked at the data myself, this capability is certainly nowhere near what it should be. Similarly, when looking at another Defence acquisition debacle, the Super Seasprite, you have a waste of over $1 billion. This helicopter ended up being scrapped. They had numerous warnings, notably again from Air Power Australia, from 1998 that they had to spend 20 per cent to 25 per cent of acquisition budget on test and evaluation or else abandon the project. The project was very, very risky and this was deemed to be the level of spending required. Defence ignored the advice and carried on for around 10 years on this project and, as I said, it was scrapped. If the advice had been heeded there would have been over $1 billion in savings.

How do Defence treat those with expertise who give good and timely advice? In the case of Air Power Australia's Peter Goon and his company Australian Flight Test Services the answer is to blacklist the company. This has been confirmed by retired Air Commodore Garry Bates, who similarly, along with the likes of Air Vice Marshal Peter Crisp, have felt the ire of the Defence hierarchy for daring to question.

In the case of Australia Flight Test Services the Blunn review said that they must be paid for the work that has been done. Years later this has still not been paid, as Defence are wanting non-related issues signed away by Australian Flight Test Services before they will pay them. This is an unconscionable action. Defence should engage their critics professionally and thereby save a lot of money for a small outlay. Instead, they state that they will not professionally interact with, for example, Air Power Australia, despite their clear historical superiority to Defence in costing and schedule at the very least.

Defence have similarly acted negatively towards RepSim, despite Mike Price, one of their principals, having been written a commendation by General David Hurley, now Chief of Defence Force, for simulation work that they have done. RepSim similarly have dared to question the Defence line, showing that the joint strike fighter will be shot down at a rate of three to one by Russian designed Super-Flankers, and this is not even the Russians latest design.

We have also seen a problem with communications within Defence—for instance, with night vision goggles. When I went to Afghanistan and also when the committee met with the commandos, they stated that their night vision equipment was outdated and they needed more up-to-date gear. Yet the Chief of Army, when he spoke to the committee, was unaware of any concerns.

We find similarly that the DLA Piper review that was similarly supposed to look at abuses in and by Defence seems to be used as a cover-up mechanism rather than as a mean to transparency. I know of two cases of abuse, and I registered with DLA Piper, yet they ignored me in my role as a federal MP letting them know of abuses with prejudice. How much more would they ignore others with prejudice who are not MPs? Indeed, there was a little rudeness in my dealings with them, and I am aware of far worse with others. So much for Defence wanting to clean up their act. The problem was highlighted by ex-Chief of Air Force and ex-Chief of Defence Force, Angus Houston, who stated:

I cannot and will not do anything that would cause embarrassment to former and present senior Defence portfolio officials.

Causing embarrassment to senior officials as opposed to getting good acquisitions, good capabilities for our men and women who are out fighting in war zones at the moment! Defence needs to put feedback loops into their organisation and engage professionally with those with demonstrated expertise as a matter of urgency.

It is interesting that in a report from the Australian National Audit Office in 1998 they were talking about life cycle costing. The report said:

Defence policy has been set for life cycle costing for some time, but there appears to be little top-level enforcement or encouragement at present for the use of LCC throughout the acquisition life cycle. There are also few incentives for the middle management to adopt life cycle costing principles by making investments now to save operating costs later.

We are now 14 years past this and nothing has improved—in fact, if anything it has got worse. Defence really need to clean up their act. They need to reform. They need to put processes in place whereby they can interact with those out in industry who do have the expertise required. The security of Australia and the lives of our troops, our sailors and our airmen depend on it.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on appropriation bills Nos. 3 and 4. These are important bills relating to the management of our nation's economy. It is through appropriations bills that we the legislators and decision makers elected by the Australian people establish how we want our nation's finances to be spent. This is the vehicle to tell our nation what our priorities are and what kind of legacy we want to leave for future generations. From the views I hear from my constituents and from what I see as their representative, this legacy is becoming an increasingly poor one. Program after program of waste is implemented by this government as the policies that we really need are left on the sidelines in the too-hard-basket, and we all suffer.

This is a modern-day version of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Earlier today in question time the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport referred to our nation's 'infrastructure deficit'. As the member for Bennelong I am keenly aware of this issue and I have spoken many times in this place about the need for urgent attention to fix this disease. With five of the 10 most congested roads in New South Wales, made worse by the community's total dependence on buses as their only source of public transport, this infrastructure deficit is having a major effect on our local community. Average speeds of under 10 kilometres per hour during peak hours mean that our nation's productivity is squashed and that the important time for mums and dads to have with their loved ones is thoroughly impacted.

The other major infrastructure concern that has threatened my local community is the inappropriate development of high-density housing in suburban areas ill-equipped to deal with this increase in the local population. This concentration of people in areas without access to public transport or local shopping facilities only further exacerbates the problem of congestion on roads as families are forced into the car just to buy their groceries or other daily items, making it even harder to find an end to this worsening nightmare—after all, it is pretty difficult to put out the fire when more fuel is being continually added. These high-density planning decisions were forced upon the local community by previous state governments, using part 3A powers under the New South Wales Environmental Planning and Assessment Act. This gave the planning department and the state government two centralised authorities with little understanding of the local needs and capability of the local area the power to overrule decisions made by local government to prevent inappropriate development.

During the 2010 election campaign, I campaigned loudly and strongly on this issue, visiting example after example of totally unsuitable high-density residential blocks being built in tiny streets with no parking and no access to transport or shops. I joined with local councillors and state opposition MPs and marched down these streets and called on the New South Wales Labor government to let the local government do their job and to put the same faith in the local representatives that the people do to make the best decisions in the interests of the local community. It was clear for all to see that intervention from state and federal authorities over decisions of the local council representing the wishes of the local community was unacceptable, improper and simply bad policy. It was undemocratic.

In March last year, this campaign climaxed as Barry O'Farrell was swept into power. His first act was to get rid of part 3A and to put planning decisions back into local hands. I look back with great pride at this campaign because it was a perfect example of people power, of the will of the people being represented and of the trust in the local representatives.

Recently this issue manifested itself in the proposed redevelopment of the Ryde Civic Centre, a decrepit seven-story building perched on a key intersection directly opposite the massive and magnificent Top Ryde City Shopping Centre. The current building was once an icon in the local area but, like what happens to the best of us, age has taken its toll. An amount of $700,000 has recently been approved to ensure a reliable power supply and council has estimated that a further $12.5 million will be needed just to maintain the current structure over the next five years.

And so, since 1995, discussions have taken place about ideas of redeveloping the site, of bringing the seat of local government into the 21st century, of a structure that will have room for all council employees to be housed in one building and of a new icon for our local region. Of course, such development ideas do not proceed without tension. Despite elected representatives from both Labor and Liberal joining together to promote the idea, a local action group has been formed to oppose the redevelopment of this site. This is democracy in action, as concerned members of our community have attended council meetings and participated in real grassroots politics. For someone who is too often stuck in somewhat surreal disconnected halls of Canberra it is very fulfilling to hear the stories of real democracy in action. Aside from any individuals latched onto disgruntled voters as a way to pursue their own personal political ambitions, I offer my support to all those residents with genuine local concerns who wish their voices to be heard and who wish to participate in this democratic process.

This is not a partisan issue, as elected representatives from both parties have supported this development. It is a political issue, wrapped up in a bigger question about the future needs of our local Ryde community and how we want to get there. I remain strong in my view, just like I was during the 2010 campaign, that these local development issues are the domain of the local council. It would be inappropriate for me to become vocal on one side or another, just as it was for the previous state government to become involved by overruling local planning decisions. Yet these planning decisions affect my local constituents and me personally as a Ryde council ratepayer. So I have taken an active interest in being across the issues, speaking with local government representatives from both sides of the argument, including holding a 2½ hour meeting in my office with the council general manager and development director. During this meeting I pressed the need and sought assurances for a rigorous and transparent community consultation process, ensuring that all proper planning procedures are followed and that it remains in line with local environment protocols, unanimously supported by all local counsellors.

Whilst some redevelopment design possibilities have been tossed around, I understand that it will be up to the private developer to propose and the local council to approve the final design, shape and appearance of the structure. I have faith that the local representatives will be making these decisions in the best interests of the community and will fully respect the local amenity.

The philosophical approach to this concept that I do support, whether it be in Ryde, Epping, Macquarie Park or Eastwood, is that the focus of residential development should be around major shopping centres and bus terminals. By giving people the ability to travel to their work and perform their shopping duties without the need to take a car is a huge priority that deserves our support. So much of this local region has been destroyed through the demolition of street after street of suburban residential homes to build five-storey apartments, with no concept of supporting infrastructure. I personally experienced this several years ago, when my family home was gobbled up by developers, who gave us two choices: either sell to us or lose the value of your property because you will be next to apartments on all sides.

As an elected representative it is my duty and my goal to help my constituents avoid the need to personally endure such a distressing experience. The way to do this is through proper planning, ensuring there is logic, as well as supporting infrastructure, surrounding the decision to build higher density living. Planning is not what happens when a problem is overtaking a situation of our own making, when growth outpaces infrastructure. Good planning and timely commitment to appropriate infrastructure would in fact prevent such a situation occurring.

Across my local community and across the nation we see examples where, time and again, this has not happened. As a result our cities suffer from either a serious infrastructure deficit, whose solution requires a multiple spend to rectify through retroactive installation, or an excessively high cost of living, which combine to destroy our productivity, competitiveness and quality of life. It is a confounding situation that we find ourselves in a country where our single biggest asset is land, yet through these oversights we have produced, to our detriment, the most expensive cities in the world to buy real estate. It may be uncomfortable to come to terms—

Debate interrupted.