House debates

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Bills

Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2014-2015, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015; Second Reading

1:26 pm

Photo of Ed HusicEd Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | | Hansard source

Before the statements I was indicating that this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and the cognate bills was a retreat from idiocy as the government was moving away from a series of insane budget decisions and insane budget measures that were hurting ordinary Australians and was seeing a massive distortion in the way the government was working. Now we have seen retreat from one bad policy and another, not on policy grounds or on the basis that it was right, but to save the Prime Minister from his own party room, from the unpopularity with the public and the unpopularity he was experiencing in his own party room, and also as an attempt to try and save his good friend and surfing buddy New South Wales Premier Mike Baird and to make sure that he would not suffer the same fate that we saw in Victoria and Queensland.

We do not need a mate of the Prime Minister in New South Wales. We need a defender of New South Wales against what we have seen from the Abbott government. When the Abbott government cut $80 billion in hospitals and schools, what did we have? We had some meek response from the New South Wales premier and no defence thereafter. We have not seen him try to stand up the New South Wales. What we are now seeing, as I said, is a retreat from idiocy, which we are experiencing right now, as they are ditching policies left, right and centre in an attempt to save the Prime Minister and in an attempt to save the New South Wales Premier.

What did we have when Labor was in office? We had lower unemployment. We had higher growth. We had stronger business investment. We had inflation contained. Importantly, we saw that the Australian economy was saved from the worst set of economic circumstances in 75 years, and that happened under Labor's watch. We saw the coalition, prior to being elected, talk down the economy. We saw them promise all things to all people—and they retreated on some of the promises. They made the promises while in opposition and retreated from them while in opposition. For instance, they promised they would get to surplus. They promised that they would get to surplus within one year of being office and, while everyone was on holiday in January 2013, we saw the then shadow Treasurer ditch that promise. They did not even have to get into office to have the chance to ditch their promises. They were making them in opposition and breaking them in opposition—and not being able to follow through on that. They all were ditching their own promises.

They said there was a budget emergency, and what did they do? MYEFO, December 2013. What did we see? We did not see their so-called budget repair. They handed $9 billion to the Reserve Bank in one hit. Of course the Reserve Bank did not say no. Who would say no to $9 billion! They took the $9 billion. And guess what happened? Recently—and I note the presence of the parliamentary secretary and then chair of the Economics Committee, the member for Higgins—the Reserve Bank governor told the meeting of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics that—guess what?—there would be a $1.2 billion dividend to the federal government. Wasn't that handy. So at the time we lost $9 billion in funds that could have been used properly just so they could get their $1.2 billion dividend. This is what we saw happen. They doubled the deficit. They removed superannuation payments for the wealthy. They also failed to act on multinational tax.

Photo of Alex HawkeAlex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.