Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

The failure of the Government to appropriately manage the nation's economy.

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

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

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the National Accounts for the March quarter presented a more sobering picture of the Australian economy than the Treasurer would have us believe. I have three observations. Firstly, it is clear that economic growth is slowing. Growth in the quarter was just 0.6 of one per cent, half of what it was a year ago. A year ago the Treasurer described the 1.2 per cent result for the March quarter:

I think the country should have a bounce in its step today. What a great day for Australia and what a stunning set of figures.

Today he said, 'The Australian economy continues to expand at a solid pace …' I seem to recall he was a little more graphic than that. He described it as 'an incredible achievement'. It is an incredible achievement to have 1.2 per cent growth in the March quarter last year and 0.6 per cent this year. That is an incredible achievement from a Treasurer who is never short of praising himself.

The second thing about today's numbers is that when you look at them you see that all of the growth was in net exports, which contributed one per cent to growth. This is due to rising exports but weak imports. Of the 0.6 per cent in economy growth in the quarter, a full one per cent came from the improvement in net exports. What is concerning is that domestic activity went backwards, with domestic final demand falling by 0.3 of a per cent. This was the first fall in domestic demand since the darkest days of the financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009. That is a significant issue. Domestic activity went backwards in the March quarter of this year for the first time since the financial crisis.

The third issue to be aware of is that it is clear that households are cautious. Consumption growth was modest, increasing by only two per cent over the year. Dwelling activity remained muted, increasing by just 2.7 per cent over the year, and household savings continued to rise to 10.6 per cent. What is happening is that people are hibernating—and what a surprise! We have a government that cannot hold policies from budget to budget, week to week or day to day, and that is creating this massive unease in the community which came through in rising household savings and the overall deterioration in domestic activity.

What is clear is that since the March quarter consumer confidence has remained fragile at best. The Westpac Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment fell by seven per cent in May to 97.6 per cent, below the break-even 100-point line, and now the number of pessimists in Australia outnumbers the number of optimists for the first time since October last year. Two-thirds of the survey was conducted after the federal government released its budget. Bill Evans, the Chief Economist at Westpac, said:

Of course, the remarkable aspect of this result is that it is the first read of the index since the Reserve Bank cut the cash rate by 0.25% on May 7. Absent any other major influences, we would have expected a solid boost to the Index following that rate cut.

We have had the extraordinary situation where the Reserve Bank has cut interest rates to record lows and consumer confidence falls. And why? Because consumers have been spooked by Wayne Swan, the Treasurer, previously describing three per cent as an emergency level. Now that it has gone beyond three per cent, they are alarmed. Well, why wouldn't they be? The narrative from this government is totally confused. The narrative is, on the one hand: 'Aren't we good? We've got a AAA rating. We're doing really well. The rest of the world wishes they had the Australian economy,' but, on the other hand: 'Oh, the budget's hit by terrible circumstances beyond our control, and it's so bad out there, we can't balance the budget. It's so bad with an unemployment rate with a five in front of it. It's so bad with growth around trend. It's so bad with the best terms of trade in 100 years. We can't get our budget back to surplus—and, by the way, aren't we good?'

The Treasurer is proud of mediocrity. That says everything about this Treasurer. He is proud of mediocrity but, what is more, boastful of mediocrity. There is no grand word in the Oxford English Dictionary that the government have not used as a superlative to describe their own performance. 'The biggest reforms', 'the grandest reforms', 'the most significant reforms in a generation', 'the most significant reforms in history', 'the biggest change'—all these big superlatives. They are never short of patting themselves on the back—when they're not stabbing each other in the back! They are not short of patting themselves on the back, but the Australian people are not prepared to pat them on the back, and they cannot understand why. It is because their narrative and their words do not match their actions. That is the fundamental point. Their words and their actions are at odds.

Bill Evans, Westpac chief economist—so it is not just me; this is Bill Evans—went on to say:

… weakness in confidence is being driven by a sharply negative response to the Budget—

and—

… the sharp deterioration in the fiscal position, indicating renewed fears about the overall state of the economy.

Finally he said:

… the budget and the associated fiscal deterioration have been the dominant drivers of this sharp drop in confidence.

This is a government that on more than 500 occasions promised to deliver a surplus. This is a government that on more than 500 occasions said that the test of economic success is whether they can deliver a surplus. This is a government that said that pensioners would be worse off if they meandered back to surplus. This is a government that said the measure of its economic performance would be whether it gets the budget back to surplus and starts paying down the debt. That was the benchmark they set.

And they boasted of it. They did not just boast about promising it; they even had the hide to boast they had actually delivered it. The Prime Minister herself in her own words claimed credit for having delivered a surplus.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the Assistant Treasurer in his newsletter.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Casey reminds me the Assistant Treasurer boasted to his electorate of Lindsay—Western Sydney—that he had delivered a surplus. Not only that; he promised to give them further tax cuts. And they were legislated tax cuts. We thought the whole tax cut promise hit rock bottom when Paul Keating said back in 1993: 'Don't worry, Australia. We're delivering you tax cuts that are l-a-w.' He said they were in law. But, going beyond that, this mob, not pleased to have that great legacy of Paul Keating and the l-a-w tax cuts, not only puts them in l-a-w law but then reverses them.

We used to joke that Labor could not hold a policy from Lateline until lunchtime; now they cannot hold a budget cut from budget to budget. And you know what? There is no intervening election. It is simply their incompetence. So Australians, who were told by the government they should plan with confidence for the tax cuts, compensation, pension increases and increases in the family tax benefit, now have this mob not only taking those away, reversing the legislation and repealing it for tax cuts but again breaking their word.

Nothing illustrates it more than what Labor has said about government debt. In this place on numerous occasions we asked the Treasurer, 'What is going to be the limit on the amount of money you are going to have to borrow on behalf of the Australian people?' After in previous years giving us a fair dinkum answer and saying, 'We believe peak debt will be at X,' this year he obfuscated. He twisted and turned. He tried to have different definitions of debt. He went from net debt to gross debt to the debt subject to the debt limit. He tried every twist and turn. Clearly he did not want to answer. Then in estimates the question was asked, and the Treasury, clearly embarrassed by the failure of the Treasurer to provide an answer, decided that they were going to do it.

Today in Senate estimates the Treasury revealed the true peak in Commonwealth government issuance. Bear in mind that this goes to trust. It was the Labor Party that said we need to have a debt limit of $75 billion. They broke that. Then they said there would be a debt limit of $200 billion. They broke that. Then they said it would be $250 billion and they broke that. Then they said, 'We need to increase the debt limit to $300 billion.' They said they would never break $250 billion: 'Don't worry. We only need to go to $300 billion because we might, somewhere in the middle of the year, creep a little bit above $250 billion—a week here, a week there. It's really all about issuance, but don't worry, because at the end of the year we won't be above $250 billion, because we're going to deliver a surplus.' Well, one broken promise leads to another broken promise, which leads to another broken promise. What a surprise!

So now we find out, as if dragging teeth from a crocodile, that Labor, which has a $300 billion debt limit, now is going to go to $290 billion before Christmas this year, and next year to $330 billion, and the year after that to $340 billion. Then, for the year after that, it says 'not available'. Well, I am kind of hoping you are not going to be available on 15 September. But for some odd reason the debt keeps going up and up and up and up. It is good enough for the government to be able to forecast in 2016-17 that it is going to spend so much on chasing orange roughies down a river or on education or health. In fact, it is boasting about how much money it is going to spend on education in 2022, but it cannot tell us how much it is going to borrow in four years time. You know why, Mr Deputy Speaker? Because it keeps going up and up and up, and at the same time Labor's credibility is going down, down, down.

You know what is worse? A Treasurer who is proud of mediocrity and proud of his legacy of gargantuan debt and deficits compared to his predecessor. You know what, Mr Deputy Speaker? He does not have the guts to come in here and front the Australian people and say, 'I need to increase the credit limit again.' He sent someone else to the bank. He does not have the guts to front the bank manager and say, 'I need to increase my credit card limit for the fifth time.' Instead he comes into this place and says, 'We've delivered the information on the debt limit that the Liberals never did.' We never had the debt. We paid off your debt last time. Now you are leaving us—or 'someone else', as he said to Neil Mitchell on Melbourne radio—after 14 September to clean up your mess. Shame, Labor, shame! This is the second time in my lifetime in this parliament that we have had to step up to the plate and clean up your damn mess. But the problem is that it is the taxpayers of Australia that do the heavy lifting. It is the taxpayers of Australia that have to find the extra taxes to pay down the debt, because Labor is addicted to debt. Labor is addicted to spending other people's money, and the problem for Labor is that it has run out of other people's money, and that is typical of the socialist way.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sometimes, in moments of rage and excess, the truth comes out, and we saw it there from the member for North Sydney. They have been trying to conceal exactly what their true plan is, but we saw it in all its glory. The member for North Sydney just said, 'We're going to have to come in and fix up the mess.' Well, we refute the suggestion there is a mess, but I will come to that in a minute. But what he also said was, 'We are going to jack up taxes.' That is what he said. It is on the Hansard. He has finally come clean. Maybe he did not put that in the memo that he sent out to each and every one of you, when he said: 'Listen, guys. Whatever you do, don't have any contact with the Parliamentary Budget Office, because this time round they might actually record it and they might hold us to account for the unaffordable spending promises that we make.' You heard it there from the member for North Sydney: they are going to jack up taxes if they get elected. You do not have to be Einstein to figure this one out.

The Leader of the Opposition got up and said in his budget-in-reply speech, 'We're going to set up a tax review committee.' Here I was thinking that they are so single-minded in their determination to jack up the GST and broaden the base of the GST. We know how determined they are to do that, because it is in their DNA. They were the ones that came into this place years ago and put the GST in place. In fact, they did not go nearly as far as they wanted to go. They had to compromise at the time, and in compromising they did not put the GST on fresh food or health and education services. And you know what? They did not even get the rate that they were really looking for, so they had to settle for 10 per cent. Now they see the great opportunity to come back, have a second crack at it and finish off the job—to broaden the base of the GST and slug Australian families by hitting people with higher costs and higher taxes on their health, their education services, their school fees, their private health insurance, their medicines and their medical aids. These are the things that they want to slug Australian families with.

They come into this place day after day and say, 'We are going to save this country money by reducing red tape on small business.' Well, I will give you a tip: never before was there a government that strangled small businesses across this country quite like the Howard government when they introduced the GST. They strangled small businesses.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. I would ask the minister to actually speak on the matter that is before this House.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Assistant Treasurer has the call.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know it hurts. It hurts her in particular, because she contributed to the office of the former Treasurer, the man who writes in the Telegraph to tell us how wonderful he was but never, ever received a gong. I will tell you what he did not receive. Forget about the gongs. We are not here for the gongs—even though I might add that there were two Labor Treasurers that were named the world's best finance minister but that is not a gong that her former boss got. But I will tell you what really matters to the Australian people: it was the fact that we have delivered a AAA credit rating from all of the three major global ratings agencies, something they never, ever achieved.

Ms O'Dwyer interjecting—

All of the heckling from the former staff member of the former member for Higgins will never change the record or overcome the fact that they never, ever achieved that. They come into this place and say, 'Oh, the economy is terrible.' The member for North Sydney says, 'The Treasurer's messages are confused.' I tell you what: his message has not been confused; he has been out there day after day for the last six years talking down the economy at every opportunity, trying to scare people. If there is any impact on confidence, it has to be, clearly, the fact that there are too many people out there that might actually be listening to the member for North Sydney. I remind the House that, if you want to understand—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Assistant Treasurer will resume his seat. I point out to the member for Higgins that an MPI is a discussion and members may talk on the topic. It is very difficult to get a—

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: that the government ought to be—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. The member for Higgins will resume her seat and will not make frivolous point of orders as I have just explained the standing orders. The Assistant Treasurer.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have three letters for you: AAA. That is what we have got, a AAA credit rating from the three major ratings agencies—that is our record. That is what we delivered; that is what you never could deliver in office.

On top of that I hear the Leader of the Opposition out there saying, 'We're going to create jobs. In the first five years we will create a million jobs.' That is what we have already done. We delivered it—just under a million jobs in the time we have been in office, no thanks to the Leader of the Opposition. We all remember—he might not remember—when the global financial crisis struck. Talk about stepping up to the plate, as the member for North Sydney says—that is what we did. We came into this place and we voted for the stimulus package. The Leader of the Opposition—I know people say he is asleep at the wheel; he was asleep on the lounge in his office after having a few drinks up at the parliamentary dining room.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Assistant Treasurer will withdraw.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw; I was merely reflecting upon statements in The Daily Telegraph.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will withdraw unequivocally.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, but what I do not withdraw is the fact that Leader of the Opposition slept through our response to the global financial crisis. This is the bloke whose former employer said was an economic illiterate. He is asking the Australian people to trust him with their finances.

Let us have a look at what some other third parties might have said about the strength of the Australian economy. Who was it that said:

When the current prime minister and the treasurer and others tell you that the Australian economy is doing better than most—they are right.

From which oracle did these words of wisdom, these pearls of wisdom, emanate? None other than the former member for Bennelong, the former Liberal Prime Minister, John Howard.

Silence—absolute silence. He still carries some authority and some weight—and I know the member for Higgins in her former job no doubt spent half of her time trying to white-ant him in pursuit of her former employer's aspirations. Notwithstanding that, whenever they are in need of injecting a little credibility into their argument, they have got a few strategies. I spoke in question time the other day about the little pamphlet that the Leader of the Opposition wheels out. He stands in front of the camera and positions this little pamphlet under his chin. It is like a bib—and he needs a bib because of the rubbish that spews out on occasions. There he is with his little pamphlet under his chin. That is one of his attempts to generate a little credibility.

When they are really pushed and really desperate, what they say is: 'We hark back to the great record of the Howard government.' We do not want to go too far back, because then you might have to acknowledge the Howard deficit that was left behind in 1983, the Howard deficit that was left behind for Labor to come in and clean up. If you assume that these people in 1983—

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What?

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Go and read some history books—you are not that young, member for Casey—about how the then member for Bennelong, who was the Treasurer, left this country in serious deficit. It was up to a Labor government to restore the finances. Go and read the history books.

Honourable members interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is too much chatter across the chambers. I ask members to cease interjecting.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can understand why they are so sensitive, because the man who they hold up—

Mr Tony Smith interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Casey, I just asked you to refrain from interjecting.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They hide behind the myth of the Howard government. They wheel out John Howard at every opportunity to give them some credibility on economic policy, because the Leader of the Opposition, whose former employer said he was an economic illiterate, is bored by economics. That is what the member for Higgins' former employer said. So what they do is they wheel out John Howard, but John Howard was out there and he was speaking the truth. He was talking about the strength of the Australian economy. He also said:

We are still fortunate that we have an unemployment rate with a five in front of it.

When the member for North Sydney is out there talking the Australian economy down, he should remember that we have an unemployment rate with a five in front of it. He goes on and he says:

I wouldn’t have thought that was going to be possible a couple of years ago—

this is from John Howard.

I wouldn't have thought that was possible—

I tell you what: under a Labor government, it has been delivered. He goes on:

… and I do not think many people would have.

He went on to say:

And our debt to GDP ratio, the amount of money we owe to the strength of our economy, is still a lot better than most other countries.

There you have it. Every time those characters come into this place and jump up and start talking about debt and deficit, the words of John Howard should be ringing in their ears. For all of the fraudulence that they come forward with, there is an utterance of truth that comes from the Liberal Party spoken by their elder statesman John Howard.

They are the facts: an economy that is 14 per cent larger than it was before the GFC, unmatched by any advanced economy, and an unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent. We have delivered 960,000 jobs in our economy. We have a record pipeline of investment coming into this country, and it continues to be the case. We have contained inflation. Families are paying less on their interest rates than they paid before.

Those opposite went to an election—we all remember it well; the member for Casey has a pretty poor memory but he might want to go back and have a look—and they said: 'Interest rates will always be lower under the Liberal Party.' Now, all of a sudden, low interest rates are something to lament. The families that I represent, the families that the people on this side of the chamber represent and small businesses like low interest rates. For someone with a mortgage of $300,000, they are paying $5,500 less in repayments every year. That is in their pocket.

It is true, as the member for North Sydney said, people are saving more. That of itself is not such a bad thing. That is about having a little bit more sustainability in the way we conduct ourselves. Go and have a look at the Parliamentary Budget Office's review and the Treasury's review of the structural position of the budget and you will see that they point to the fact that some of the excesses built into the system back in the days of the Howard and Costello governments—no doubt some of the poor policy decisions that the member for Higgins advised her boss about—were put in place and have ensured the structural position of the budget was not as sound as it could have been. We have been making some massive moves to improve that, and that has been recognised by the PBO and by the Treasury. They go quiet when you talk about the PBO because—

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't know where it is.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't like to talk about costings.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was our policy.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You came into this place and voted against it. How often is it that you come into this place and vote against your own policy?

And they talk about the taxes. I started this speech with reference to what the member for North Sydney said about their new taxes. Let us just talk about their new taxes. We already know that low-income earners are going to get a tax hike on their superannuation from these people. They talk about raiding superannuation, as long as it is the superannuation of some of the poorest people in this country. 'We don't want to touch those who are on the superlarge incomes. We don't want to touch them. They vote for us. We won't touch them.' But they are never, ever afraid to take a meat axe to those people on low and middle incomes; jacking up taxes on their superannuation.

Then there is paid parental leave tax. Even the member for Mitchell—once again just a moment of clarity and truth coming from these people—said, 'unfair, unaffordable'. They say there is a budget emergency. Rubbish! But, if there were a budget emergency, this would be precisely the worst possible time. It is a flawed policy, but this would be the worst time to introduce a $20 billion new tax on business.

Then there is the GST. They cannot go away from it. They just keep coming back to it. The state Liberal premiers are out there saying: 'We want more. We want more. We want more.' Well, we know you never stand between a state premier and a bucket of money. But the bucket of money is actually the money in the pockets of Australians all around this country.

They want to jack up the GST; they want to broaden the base of the GST. The Leader of the Opposition has been given plenty of opportunity to say, 'I will rule it out,' and he will not rule it out. The reason he will not rule it out is that is exactly what he intends to do. They want to jack up the GST. They want to slug health. They want to slug education. They are going to slug business with their paid parental leave tax. They are going to jack up taxes. And that is just the start of it; I have not even got to talk about the secret commission of cuts, where they want to hack away at government services and the support that families are getting.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a sad day in the parliament when you witness, as this House just has, such a rambling, incoherent speech—I was about to say 'contribution' but I corrected myself; that would be an exaggeration—from a chaotic Assistant Treasurer. I want to start by apologising to the Assistant Treasurer. Yesterday in the Federation Chamber, I accused the Assistant Treasurer of deliberately, coldly and in a calculated way, knowingly deceiving his electors, when he issued a newsletter this time last year declaring that the budget had been returned to surplus.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It already had.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On hearing the Assistant Treasurer's 15 minutes of rambling, I am starting to wonder whether he believed it or not; perhaps he had been told it and he did not know the difference. Perhaps I ascribed to him a motive that would have required competence, because what we have just heard, in summation, is a litany of personal attacks on the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Higgins—a list of inventions across the policy spectrum—and the basic message: 'Everything is fine. What are you complaining about?'

He tried to speak a bit about history. Just before the 1996 election, as net debt was approaching $96 billion—but we did not know the extent of it then, because Labor used to conceal the figures before the Charter of Budget Honesty—former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who I have to say was a lot more articulate than the current Assistant Treasurer, let fly on radio one day and said, 'What are people going on about?' That would sum up the Treasurer's approach and this Assistant Treasurer's speech that we have just heard in this chamber. He said the budget is all fine. He said that debt is fine and the economy is completely fine. As the shadow Treasurer said, Wayne Swan prides himself on mediocrity. If you listened to the Treasurer's press conference today, you would think that the figures that were released made his day.

You do not need to take our word for it; the shadow Treasurer very eloquently went through a breakdown of the figures: the growth in the quarter of just 0.6 per cent, what comprised it, and what that means for average families and small businesses across Australia. But the Assistant Treasurer appears to live in a world where, provided he has the script, he will keep repeating it. I say to those opposite: this is just more and more confirmation that a government that ignores reality will always ignore families and small business in Australia.

I accept that those opposite, including the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, will never take our word for anything, including the day of the week. At least see what some economists say, and this is just in the period since the figures were released. Jacob Greber, economics correspondent, says: 'Australia's economic growth slowed to the weakest annual pace in seven quarters.' Have a look at the Age online and you will see UBS chief economist Scott Haslem said: 'The overall tone of the release is pretty soft. When you take away the net export contribution of about one per cent in the quarter, the domestic economy was clearly negative.' Australian Industry Group has said: 'Services sector sinks further in May.' Then from the AAP economics correspondent the headline was 'GDP figures confirm subnormal growth' and the first line stated, 'The economy is just not making the grade.' That is just in the hours since the figures have been released. But no, according to the Assistant Treasurer, they are all scaremongering.

As the member for Higgins tried to point out during the Assistant Treasurer's contribution, at no point did he seek to address the release of those figures today. For this government to continue its denial of its failed approach and failed policy is further confirmation to the Australian people that it has no solutions to the problems it has created. We heard the Assistant Treasurer say that he thought the savings result was something to rejoice in because more saving is a good thing, without any awareness of why people are saving. The parliamentary secretary knows, because he knows a bit more than the Assistant Treasurer. People are saving in record numbers as a hedge against your chaos. That is what Australian families are doing: they are looking at the incompetence here in Canberra, they can see it spreading a lack of confidence throughout the electorate and they are saving because of the uncertainty, because of the chaotic policy approach and because they do not know what is around the corner with this government.

They are promised a surplus on more than 500 occasions and in the space of six months a promised surplus of a little over $1 billion misses by $19 billion. They see a government that has become incapable of honesty. There is no better illustration than its approach to the gross debt ceiling. The ceiling has been lifted from $75 billion to $250 billion to $300 billion, and on each occasion the Treasurer of the country has said, 'I will never need the full limit,' like someone who overspends on their credit card. And we hear today from the Treasury officials in Senate estimates that that level is expected to go to $290 billion by Christmas.

Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$290 billion by Christmas. And the Treasurer comes in to question time and says it is not a problem. He expects the Australian people and every business to look back at his track record of utter failure to hit a target and see a miss on the budget outcome by $20 billion in six months and believe, '$290 billion, we are getting close to the 300,' and we got confirmation it will go over $300 billion next year. That is why the Australian people have lost confidence in the honesty and the competency of this government.

The Treasurer likes to compare Australia to Europe on economic growth, on jobs and particularly on debt. But we on this side of the House say to the Treasurer: do not compare us with the worst runners. If you are competing against sprinters on crutches, that does not make you Usain Bolt, it really doesn't. The Treasurer knows that. As we have seen, the Assistant Treasurer does not know that. The Treasurer knows in his heart of hearts, the Assistant Treasurer does not know, and we will see whether the parliamentary secretary can inject a bit of substance and a bit of honesty into the debate where the Assistant Treasurer failed so dismally.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Doom and gloom—that is the story of the opposition. It is doom and gloom every single day. Not a day has passed without doom and gloom since 2010. They are economical with the facts, economical with reality and economical with working Australians' and ordinary Australians' future. That is what the opposition represent every single day they come into this parliament and every single day since Labor was returned to government. They are merchants of doom, merchants of despair. Every time there is bad news, good news, not so good news or any news at all, they want to turn that into doom and despair, but they particularly love it if there is any bad global news. Anything that could possibly reflect on the Australian economy in some way, you can hear another champagne cork popping in one of their offices because it is the best news they have ever heard. When people suffer it is the best news they have ever heard.

The government comes into this place and tries to introduce policies and laws to assist ordinary families with the cost of living and with kids' education, and to build the nation at a time when the whole world—every single economy, every single country—is going through one of the toughest global economic periods in modern history. But somehow none of that factors into their economic reality. There is the fact that ordinary people who work every single day—because they still have a job, by the way: they still have a job!—and work harder and save harder understand much better than this opposition the economic reality as well as the economic fact that when the world is going through a period of global recession—a global financial crisis—it is a time when people have to readjust the way they work, the way they live and the way they consume. We have seen that right across our economy and we have seen it right across every sector, and it is acknowledged widely.

So what should a good government do? A good government should put its shoulder to the wheel and it should make the toughest of decisions—the hard decisions. It should spend where spending is required; it should protect jobs where protection is required; it should work with global markets to ensure that we still have a global economy in Australia; it should make sure that we keep interest rates low; it should make sure that we keep inflation under control at the same time; and—lo!—it should make sure that we keep a AAA rating across all three rating agencies. This is something that the economic geniuses across the aisle have never achieved in government while the rivers of gold flowed into this place. It is unprecedented in Australian history: unseen before. But while they had that great economic boom they just did not do enough with it or did not do anything with it. There were no great reforms. The only great reform that came out of that era when the rivers of gold flowed into Canberra was the GST.

Let us just call their strategy from day one for what it is. Let us just put it on the table. On day one Tony Abbott, shadow Treasurer Hockey and others had a meeting and said: 'Our strategy is simple: blow the place up every day. Make it impossible not just for the government but for everybody. Let's just blow the place up. Let's lower confidence. Let's call for an election every day.' Every single day they come into this place they call for an election and every single day out in the community they call for an election because it is about destroying confidence. It is about being negative. Negativity breeds negativity. 'Let's just go out there and poison people's minds. Let's tell them that they're all vulnerable. It is not as if they do not get enough of it on the six o'clock news with what is happening in Europe. It is not as if it is enough to see what happens in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Greece and France and what is happening to the US economy and all around the world. It is not enough that they get this every single day at six o'clock at night on the news. We have to make it as bad as possible,' the opposition says, 'for Australia as well. Let's make them suffer!'

That is their strategy: blow the place up, call for an election every day and be negative every single day—and they have been good at it, I have to say—'Let's throw enough mud, because everyone knows the theory of throwing enough mud. Let's just keep throwing mud every single day. Let's go the low road and let's go personal.' That is what they have done. They have done it every single day. And let me tell you: they have been stellar at doing that. That is one thing they are really, really good at doing. Every time there is bad news another champagne bottle gets uncorked over at the Liberal Party headquarters. I have never seen smiles larger and more vivid than when there is one little piece of bad economic news. It is at complete odds with the real economy—real people and what is really happening out there in the world. The fact is that we have managed to keep interest rates low, saving people an enormous amount on their mortgages. That is much better than the Liberal Party ever did in government.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

That is one thing that you cannot deny: it is just a fact. John Howard always used to say, 'You will always have lower interest rates under a Liberal government.' Wrong! Not just wrong; completely wrong, and proved wrong year after year. Every time there is a Reserve Bank decision: wrong again. Any good news on the economy is shot down.

But look at the unemployment numbers. It is not just the case that there are low interest rates and that people who have mortgages are paying less. They have actually made a really smart decision. They have said: 'Times are tough. We all acknowledge that. The world has gone through a GFC.' The Liberals would actually have you believe, had they been in government, that the GFC would not have even happened. There would not have even been one. They would not have had to deal with it because we know their response to the GFC: you oppose everything. You oppose the stimulus package. You oppose the fact that we want to continue the building and construction industry in this country by investing in schools and school infrastructure: investing in classrooms, investing in science labs, investing in kids, investing in technology and investing in teachers. What could—

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You missed out pink batts!

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, let me talk about pink batts. There is nothing wrong—it is still acknowledged that the best single most cost-effective method to save money on electricity bills is to insulate your home. That is still the case today, and it has always been the case. Good insulation helps you to reduce your costs in summer and in winter. This government went out there, and the majority of people who took up that great benefit were older people. Older people understood that because in one way they do not necessarily have revenue coming in. Older people actually took up this opportunity because it was good for their bottom line.

We invested in universities. Since we got to government there has been an incredible increase in university investment. There is less personal debt. People are paying off their credit cards and actually keeping their equity. And about time! What we were seeing in the hedonistic years, right through the Howard years, was that people actually went a little bit too far in some of the borrowings. We saw all sorts of problems, and when the GFC hit we saw the damage it did. So I am all for people keeping more of their equity, reducing their credit card debt and increasing their savings, because that is a good thing. This is unlike the members opposite in the Liberal Party.

Government took on the difficult decisions. It took on more debt to ensure that we have a strong and resilient economy and make sure that if anyone is going to cop the burden of debt and the political cost that it would be us. Let it be us! Let it be us who stand up for the ordinary people in the street who cannot bear that burden. They have less of a burden, as was said just before: they are saving more. True—less of a burden. They are actually paying off their houses: absolutely they are—less of a burden. Do they owe less on their mortgages? Yes—less of a burden. This government has made sure that we will cop the blame and we will cop the burden, but ordinary people—householders and mortgage holders—are the ones who are actually getting the benefit.

That is why I say the 'real economy'. Let us have a look at what is actually happening in the real economy and with real people. I will go to the comments of the member for Casey, because he was right: they are saving more. Good on them! And they ought to. They are paying off their credit cards more. Good on them! They ought to keep doing that. And if the banks complain because they are not getting as much revenue from that, then bad luck for them.

So there is plenty of good news. The fact is that our economy has grown 14 per cent—14 per cent!—since we came to government. Compare that to any other economy. Pick any other economy and compare ours. Those other economies shrank. That means they lost jobs.

Importantly, there is one other thing that I want to raise in talking about the real economy, real people and what is actually happening out on the ground, and that is that you have to look beyond where we are today. Where will we be in 20 years time? You have to look not just at this budget or the next, or at the fact that these guys promised there would be a budget surplus in their first year and every year after that and then walked away from it. They are not going to manage it any better than anyone else because they will still have the same issues, the same global economy and the same write-downs in revenue.

But we are determined to continue growth, jobs and productivity, and there is only one way you can do that: to invest through innovation. That is why this government has taken the bold step of putting together 10 innovation precincts. I am very hopeful one of them is close to my electorate, but that is not going to matter because those innovation precincts are the way we get to productivity, growth and jobs—the high-paying jobs that Australians expect and the standard of living that we have got used to in this country. If we do not achieve that in the future then our standard of living will fall. It will not fall because of a budget deficit. It will fall because our productivity and innovative capacity fails us and our competitors are running faster than we are. If we are to exploit the intelligence that exists in this country it will be through innovation and productivity. We have understood that. The Liberal Party have no idea what I am talking about.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important MPI to critique the government's economic performance. Margaret Thatcher, a great hero to those on this side, once said, 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.' That is what is happening with this government: it is using other people's money to spend recklessly and, as a result, burden future generations, shackling today's children and the leaders of tomorrow.

We know from testimony at Senate estimates just yesterday that the gross debt for the Commonwealth will hit $270 billion next month. By Christmas it will rise to $290 billion and break through the $300 billion debt ceiling to hit $340 billion soon after that. Those on the other side have lifted the debt ceiling four times: first to $75 billion, then to $200 billion, then to $250 billion and now to $300 billion—and we know that is not enough. This is the party that has delivered us pink batts, overpriced school halls, green loans, cash for clunkers, GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch—and do we all remember the 2020 summit? These are all the creations of those on the other side. As a result, their economic mismanagement has seen this country go into greater and greater debt. We also know from the March quarter National Accounts that growth is only 0.6 per cent. Why that is important is because that is half of what it was last year. Perhaps more worryingly, consumer sentiment is down seven per cent in May. That is as a result of the people of Australia losing confidence in the economic management of those opposite.

We have just had a budget which would normally be released with great fanfare to the Australian people. The galleries were half full, whereas for the Leader of the Opposition's budget-in-reply speech they were overflowing. What did we learn in this budget? We learnt that economic growth was going downwards, down to 2.75 per cent from three per cent. We also knew from this budget that unemployment was going up to 5.75 per cent. That is as a result of this government's economic mismanagement. We also learnt that there were great broken promises in this budget. Remember those opposite writing to their constituents and telling them that there would be an increase to family tax benefit A? None of that was delivered in this budget.

What about their holier-than-thou commitment to spending more on education? In fact, there was a $300 million cut to education in the budget, and billions of dollars cut over the forward estimates. And they are robbing Peter to pay Paul by going to the tertiary education sector, which is supposed to be the hub of productivity and a great export earner for our country, and ripping money out of the higher education budget. Fred Hilmer, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, has said that the government's commitments in the Asian century white paper are now such a joke as a result of these cuts to higher education.

Then there is the greatest broken promise over the carbon tax: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' There it is in this budget, with a promise that the carbon price will be $12 a tonne in the coming years when we move to a floating price. Twelve dollars a tonne? If you go to New Zealand it is trading at 85c, if you go to the European Union it is trading around $3 to $4—and the government would have us believe that the carbon price will be $12 a tonne in just a couple of years.

Again there were great predictions about what the mining tax revenue would be producing for the Commonwealth. Currently the mining tax produces just $200 million of revenue for the Commonwealth, but the government in the budget has promised that the revenue coming in from the mining tax will be $2 billion, a 1,000 per cent increase on where it is currently. If you take into account the high Australian dollar, or changes to the dollar, and if you take into account moving commodity prices—which, by the way, are 15 per cent higher than they were at their highest point under the Howard era—then we cannot take this government's funding commitments and revenue promises at face value. In fact, it is another multibillion dollar black hole.

But the best evidence of why you cannot take this government's commitments at face value is that the Treasurer of Australia—the greatest Treasurer in the history of the world, he would have us believe—started his budget last year by saying, 'Tonight I announce four years of budget surpluses.' Well, there has not been a Labor budget surplus since 1989. Do you know what the No. 1 movie was in 1989? Indiana Jones. Why is that interesting? Because Graham Perrett, the member for Moreton, said that this government is in more trouble than Indiana Jones—and Indiana Jones was the No. 1 grossing movie in 1989, the last year that the Labor Party delivered a budget surplus. So when we had Wayne Swan come into this place last year and say, 'Tonight I deliver four years of surpluses,' we did not believe him. And now the Australian people know why we did not believe him, because they have announced the fifth biggest budget deficit in the history of the Commonwealth—$19½ billion, with another $18 billion the year after that. They will never, ever deliver a budget surplus.

Those on the other side go on about the AAA credit ratings that they have been able to manage to achieve. I can tell the House that we had AAA credit ratings when the economy was managed by Peter Costello and John Howard. In fact we inherited in 1996 a AA credit rating and we lifted it to AAA. Moody's and Standard & Poor's, the two key agencies, gave us that AAA credit rating. The downgrades had come under the Labor government, so do not lecture us about AAA ratings. The record of the Costello-Howard years was not only getting back that AAA rating which Labor had lost, it was also paying back the $96 billion of government debt and leaving $70 billion in the bank.

It was also about creating more than two million new jobs and getting the lowest unemployment and inflation in three decades. It was also about a 22 per cent increase in real wages. That is what people are interested in—real wages growth. It was about getting industrial relations disputes down to record low levels. I will tell you this fact: in 2012, 301,000 days were lost to industrial disputes in Australia, but in the last year of the Howard government, what was that number? It was 49,700. That is the difference between us and them. We delivered real wage increases. We delivered two million new jobs. We delivered the lowest unemployment and inflation in three decades. We have delivered a AAA credit rating, and we obviously paid back all that debt.

What we are seeing now, through the economic mismanagement of those opposite, is 20,000-plus new regulations and 30 new taxes. We are seeing a budget deficit year after year and we are seeing gross debt 'quickly approach the $300 billion debt ceiling', which soon will be breached. We are seeing more than 250,000 jobs being lost in small business; we are seeing more than 100,000 jobs being lost in manufacturing; we have seen major financial decisions by companies to abandon big projects like the Port Hedland extension, Olympic Dam, and obviously there has been the sad news coming out of Ford for Broadmeadows and Geelong.

This is a really serious debate that the Australian people need to have. This government, when it came to power in 2007, had Kevin Rudd promising to be an economic conservative. He has been anything but that, and Julia Gillard has just driven debt higher and higher to the cost of the Australian public. (Time expired)

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to confess that as I was listening to that contribution from the member for Kooyong, who I know does care about his electorate and does his very best in this place, I was conjuring a visual image of a balloon that was getting bigger and bigger and filling with more and more hot air. I just want to puncture the bubble and pop that balloon and get some facts on the record for a change.

The reality is that the criticisms offered by others, the day-in day-out weekly dirge, the negativity, the ongoing decrying of Australia's economy and, indeed, of the challenges that are risen to every day by the Australian people, are just plain wrong. No matter how many times you tell the wrong thing over and over, it will never become the truth. That is a strategy upon which they are relying.

Let us just look to some people who are outside this place, who are making judgements and who have some credibility in terms of making judgements about the Australian economy. Let us look at the ANZ. Their assessment is that:

… substantial tightening of fiscal policy that would have been required to return the budget to surplus any earlier than outlined tonight would be too damaging.

They think we are doing a good job. Westpac said:

The Commonwealth Government's net debt position remains extremely manageable.

The CBA said:

The Australian economy is not one that needs aggressive fiscal consolidation.

And S&P said:

We continue to consider the Australian government's fiscal position to be a key rating strength ...

These third-party endorsements by people who stand outside this place—the ANZ, Westpac, CBA and S&P—are from very valuable commentators who are actually managing money, not just coming in here and playing with words and filling the air with noise and sound and very little truth—and certainly not the sort of truth that is going to inspire any Australian business to pick itself up and push on forward, which is the great strength of Australian businesses that I know from my own family experience and also from working with businesses in my economy.

I want to speak briefly to the budget that was delivered last night in Queensland, because I think that it is a bit of an interesting point of reflection right now. The Queensland Treasurer, Tim Nicholls, has just handed down his state's budget and he said that in the face of falling revenues he had constructed his budget in a particular way. He went on to say that Australia as a whole is facing the same issue. This is something that we have been trying to tell those opposite for years. Treasurer Nicholls acknowledged that out there, there has been a battered world economy. It is a sad thing for the member for North Sydney that Treasurer Nicholls might be more qualified to be the Commonwealth Treasurer than him, because at least he is acknowledging the reality that is out there in the real world. Treasurer Nicholls recognises that across this great nation government revenues are down. The member for North Sydney cannot. Even Treasurer Nicholls can see that returning to surplus too early is going to hurt Queenslanders, but the member for North Sydney cannot.

Or can he?

Something seems to have happened to him between 28 January and 18 April. This is what the member for North Sydney had to say on AMon 28 January this year:

Our commitment is emphatic. Based on the numbers published today, we will deliver a surplus in our first year and every year after that.

'There will be a surplus under the government I lead.' I am pretty sure that is what he is saying. But things are changing. In his speech on 18 April he said:

We are not going to go down the path of austerity simply to bring the budget back to surplus because it would end up being a temporary surplus …

This is incredible back-pedalling from a man who thinks he is fit to be the Treasurer of this country.

But there are similarities between the Treasurer of Queensland and the opposition's shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney. They share a vision of the world, a very different vision from the one we on this side have. Both of these Liberals—a Treasurer and a potential Treasurer—see a path back to surplus paved with job cuts. They see a path ahead where workers' rights are fair game for stripping back. Both see a path ahead where the future of our kids is just a casualty—thrown aside. Unlike our side, Treasurer Nicholls and the member for North Sydney see investment in education as money ill spent. They cannot understand the concept of investment—investment for the enhancement of this country, investment for the enhancement of our people and investment for the enhancement of our economy.

That observation brings us back to the crux of today's MPI—the appropriate management of the economy. This is not just a conversation about numbers; it is about appropriateness. We as a Labor government have managed the Australian economy through terrible economic circumstances since 2008. The Labor Party is the only party you can trust to ensure that sensible and appropriate action is taken to deal with challenges of magnitude, challenges such as the GFC. We responded to that challenge and we kept Australia working. On this side of parliament, we know what we have to do to keep Australia working.

I did not hear anything about that from the member for Kooyong. I did not hear anything about jobs, I did not hear anything about education, I did not hear anything about health, I did not hear anything about disability and I did not hear anything about investment. All I heard was fear, alarm and a disgraceful talking down of the Australian economy.

We do not believe it is appropriate to cut wages. We do not believe it is appropriate to take money out of education. It is not appropriate to cut superannuation. But this is what the Liberal Party plan to do if they get onto the Treasury benches. That is how they think they are going to strengthen the economy. That will not strengthen the economy; that will rip the guts out of the economy.

Labor has appropriately managed this economy. Through that appropriate management, we have kept Australia working. No amount of screaming, interjection or talking the place down can undo the fact that we have seen 14 per cent growth in the economy and the addition of almost a million jobs—960,000 jobs. I know it was cause for some sorrow amongst those on the other side to get the most recent data of 0.6 per cent growth in our economy this quarter and 2.5 per cent over the last year. The fact is that, unlike the very sad story those opposite want to tell every day—talking down the Australian economy and taking away hope—we have seen this economy grow at three times the OECD average. That is a fact.

We have given tax cuts to millions of Australian workers, leaving more money in their pockets, because we believe they deserve it. We are increasing Australia's retirement savings through an increase in super from nine per cent to 12 per cent, something those opposite are dedicated to blocking. If those opposite are allowed to implement their approach to managing the economy, an average 30-year-old working in my electorate will, upon reaching retirement, be $127,000 less well off. That is the kind of management of the economy that people in Robertson do not need and that people across the entire country do not need.

We made sure that we kept Australia working. We doubled investment in school education. We have upgraded facilities at every school and we have provided more information for parents than ever before. We are delivering skills. We have 190,000 extra students studying in this country. We have been able to do this by managing the economy and putting investment into things that will grow our wealth, that will grow the capacity of the community, that will grow the talents and capacities of our individuals whether they be in the field of business, music, arts or literature—any field of endeavour.

These things are possible only because we have appropriately managed the Australian economy. This country has not had a recession for 21 years, but I can tell you that 21 years ago when there was a recession, if you were an apprentice and you lost your job you lost your apprenticeship and it was eight years before you got it back. When we talk about the economy people's eyes glaze over and it is all about numbers, but the fact is that the economy is the thing that enables us to govern in a particular way. Managing it is a revelation of our values. We have invested in Australian people—we have made sure apprentices have kept jobs—and we will continue to do that. (Time expired)

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The subject of today's matter of public importance is this government's failure to appropriately manage the nation's economy. Boy, how much evidence do we have of that? On the night that Wayne Swan brought down last year's budget a few of us, including the members for Kooyong, Macarthur and Durack, went out the back and we shook our heads—how could the Treasurer say he was going to bring down a surplus budget? At that time, the consensus of opinion was that in this budget there would be a $20 billion to $25 billion deficit. We just plucked that figure out of the air, but how close we were to the real mark of $19.4 billion.

The Treasurer had a growth rate in last year's budget of 3.5 per cent. You do not have to be Einstein to go and talk to people who have jobs, who have small businesses or who have big businesses, or to those people who are in the mining industry or who are exporting into Asia—China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia. You just had to talk to them and they would have told you that things were not too good. Since 13 months ago, things have only got worse. What is more, the Treasurer in his wisdom still maintained, until November 2012, that he was on track—everything was rosy in the House, everything was rosy in the government, everything was rosy in the country. In December he started to change his mind—'It might be hard to reach the surplus; we might get there but we might not.' Come April, in an outlandish statement he said, 'Bad news—we might have a deficit of about $7 billion.' That was for all of one week. The next week the Prime Minister herself said, 'No Wayne, you are wrong—it is going to be $12 billion.' Holy mackerel, Senator Penny Wong trumped them all with a $17 billion estimate. And she wasn't right! So much for forward projections. They cannot get their projections right for a week's time, so how can they get them right for four years or until 2019? How can they possibly get it right? It is amazing.

In the meantime there have been 30 new taxes brought on by this Labor government and 22,000 new regulations that small business and big business have to interpret and put up with. It is unbelievable. It was supposed to be one in, one out. There were approximately 200 out.

Their notion is power at any cost: 'Keep us in government at any cost. Too bad about our grandkids. Too bad about our kids. Let them pay the debt off.' What a great philosophy to have! They are not thinking ahead at all. They are thinking to the next election, and I hope they can work the odds that the bookmakers are offering at the moment. Our Treasurer talks about a $1.5 trillion economy, but that is mainly tied up in superannuation funds. And who puts the money in the superannuation funds? The Australian people, not the Australian government. So that is his trickery. He compares us with Greece, Italy, Cyprus, my old country of Ireland, Spain and Portugal but does not mention anything about our Asian neighbours China, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, who are doing very well, with growth rates around five to eight per cent in all those countries.

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

They haven't got a carbon tax.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, they have not got a carbon tax in those countries, and their emissions are coming down also.

Our credit card level went from $75 billion to $200 billion to $250 billion, and now she is raring up towards $300 billion. On the forward estimates, it is going to end up at nearly $400 billion. So where do we go? The member for Oxley said, 'We'd like to be here for another 20 years.' At this rate, there would not be many Australians left, that is for sure. We would all have to be overseas looking for work. Since 2007 electricity costs have gone up by 93 per cent, water and sewerage costs 63 per cent, utilities 79 per cent, gas 61 per cent, insurance 45 per cent, education 38 per cent, health services 40 per cent and rents 30 per cent. We talk about a low interest rate of 2.75 per cent, but I know a guy in my electorate who went to a bank yesterday for a loan for a small business and was quoted 14 per cent. So the 2.75 per cent is the cash rate but in reality, if you want to try and borrow money, do not expect 2.75 per cent. In fact, do not expect 4.75 per cent; expect a lot more.

If this country needs to kick-start our economy, there are a lot of things that we can do. This is what you do not do: there is an immigration budget blow-out of $6.6 billion and an NBN blow-out of $44.1 billion, and nearly $70 million has been spent on the carbon tax, including $100,000 on three fake kitchens for the carbon tax ads. They could not just pick an ordinary kitchen. No, they had to go and build three kitchens for $100,000. A hundred thousand dollars was spent on compensation for the live export fiasco. A hundred and fifty million a year is being spent on spin doctors to sell Labor's policies. Wait for this: the knifing of Kevin Rudd cost $1.3 million in staff redundancy packages. Unbelievable! Furthermore, $10 million was donated to the trade unions in the last year's budget. The failed Malaysian solution cost $5 million. The list goes on and on and on.

I have a lot more to say, but I should read out this unprompted email I received today from an Emerald businessman:

Now about the IR laws Government need to know this company Western Gateway Motel—

that is his motel—

has chosen to close the restaurants on Sunday nights and all public holidays because of the high cost of employment with penalty rates [that no other country in the world pays] in these economic times. It's very noticeable when you get backpackers offering to work for no penalty rates just to get a job and they can't understand if they sign a piece of paper with that offer, if accepted, and the company got caught, the person responsible could go to jail with a heavy fine.

…   …   …

It's alright for Shorten to say that he wants Australians to be the best paid in the world, lets hope there is a job at the end of it. We are competing against America at $17.00 per hour.

The Rudd government has definitely failed to appropriately manage this economy. There are several more examples I do not have time to go into—with 30 seconds left on the clock. But, needless to say, we have to get our country going: our mining industry is in a state of flux, our manufacturing industry is in a state of flux, our cement industry is in a state of flux and our dairy industry is gone, or nearly gone. We need to get in and give them the incentives they need. Cut the red tape and cut it quick. Bring on September 14 as quickly as possible, because people are out there suffering and they need help.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion on this MPI has concluded.