Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate notes that:

(a)

over a decade in office the Howard Government has established a new low for government integrity and accountability; and

(b)

the Howard Government’s record is littered with scandals involving rorts, waste and incompetence.

Today the Senate is debating the proposition that the Howard government has grown arrogant over its 10 long years in office and has established a new low in government integrity and accountability. This is a timely debate—and not just as a counter to the orgy of government self-congratulation to which the nation has been subjected over the past couple of weeks. A new low in arrogance was established just this morning, when government senators voted down a proposed inquiry without debate. The proposed inquiry concerned Australia’s aviation safety regime and the role of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in particular.

It is appalling that government senators put the interests of the government ahead of the travelling public, but what makes their behaviour contemptible is that not one government senator spoke in the debate before voting the inquiry down. What we saw this morning was a gross abuse of the parliament. It is behaviour we have seen the government build up to over the eight months it has had an iron grip on this chamber. It is just staggering arrogance.

Abuses of other kinds, including the abuse of public trust, have been part of this government’s stock in trade over the 10 long years it has held office. In this week of so-called restrained celebration of the government’s decade in office, it is useful to reflect on the government’s real record—not the record celebrated at the coalition booze-up in the Great Hall last night, not the record which has been subjected to the soft-focus treatment by most of the national media, but the real record of this government: a record characterised by incompetence and littered with scandal and waste.

Let me first turn to the funding fiasco known by the Australian public as regional rorts. This was rorting of hundreds of millions of dollars through Regional Partnerships and the Sustainable Regions Program. This was rorting directed to the extraction of maximum partisan political advantage from the expenditure of public money. Labor vigorously pursued this issue through an inquiry by the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee—an inquiry this government would not have allowed had it had the numbers in the Senate, as it has now. Last year’s committee report conclusively demonstrated that the Howard government will do whatever it takes to maintain its grasp on power.

In a pattern we have seen time and time again, the government’s abuse of these funding programs gathered pace in the lead-up to the 2004 election. Grants were approved against departmental and local advisory committee advice. Grants were approved even though they did not go within a bull’s roar of qualifying under published program guidelines. In relation to the Regional Partnerships program, the Australian people learned that the government had operated a set of shadow guidelines that meant that any grant could be approved, no matter what. The Australian people were genuinely surprised, I think, by the abuse of the Regional Partnerships program in the three months leading up to the calling of the 2004 federal election.

In June, July and August 2004, Regional Partnerships grants worth more than $71 million were approved—more than one-half of all the approved funding since the commencement of the program on 1 July 2003. The committee’s analysis of approved Regional Partnerships grants to 31 December 2004 showed that in rural seats the average amount of funding approved for government held seats was $1.5 million; for Labor seats, $1.1 million; and for Independent seats targeted by the National Party, $4.9 million. In metropolitan seats, the average amount of funding allocated to government held seats was $180,000, while Labor seats were allocated just half that amount.

A whole swag of Regional Partnerships projects have become bywords for rorting. Who could forget the grants to fund: a steam train that would not go, a creek that dredged itself, a milk company that folded before the ink on the funding announcement was dry, an ethanol company worth $1 that is still yet to produce a drop of fuel, and a hotel funded to run ‘Wacky Wednesdays’ and ‘Stump Bikini Babes’ while, just down the road in the same community on the Atherton Tableland, a community was crying out for potable drinking water.

Beaudesert Rail, the train that would not go, has received millions of dollars from the government but has not steamed a kilometre of track in years. Tumbi Creek is the New South Wales Central Coast creek that dredged itself. A2 Dairy Marketers is the dodgy company that got a dodgy grant at the insistence of disgraced parliamentary secretary De-Anne Kelly. Primary Energy is the ethanol company based in John Anderson’s electorate that got more than $1 million to do everything except produce a drop of ethanol. And who can forget the Atherton Hotel—the world famous home of ‘Wacky Wednesdays’ and ‘Stump Bikini Babes’ and recipient of a $500,000 Sustainable Regions grant courtesy of the government. As I noted earlier, the recipient of that grant was favoured over a community nearby that does not have access to potable drinking water and was convinced not to apply.

The Senate’s detailed examination of Regional Partnerships and the Sustainable Regions Program has exposed the Howard government’s lack of commitment to the development of Australia’s regions. The only commitment it has, the only commitment it has ever had, is to maintain office, whatever the cost to the nation.

Of course, Regional Partnerships and the Sustainable Regions Program were not the first regional funding vehicles this government has rorted. The Dairy Regional Assistance Program was used by the government to buttress the coalition’s political fortunes in electorates right across the country. Two of the biggest recipients were, not coincidentally, the electorates held by the current Leader and Deputy Leader of the National Party.

Just as with Regional Partnerships and the Sustainable Regions Program, there were some real beauties funded under Dairy RAP. These included the Beaudesert polocrosse field, just a short drive from an existing world-class polocrosse field. Despite being fully funded, it consisted of no more than a paddock with a toolshed and a locked gate. Other projects this government funded under Dairy RAP included a wine appreciation course at a Brisbane private school, construction of duck igloos and the expansion by a boomerang company into parquetry flooring. Many of those, of course, have boomeranged on the government over recent times. Dairy RAP was a national program, but this government has never hesitated to target its rorting more narrowly.

The Eden Region Adjustment Package is a good example. It was designed to deliver a political outcome for the coalition, not a sustainable economic or social outcome for regional Australia. One of the notorious projects funded under the Eden RAP is Matilda’s Bakery. This project was granted $967,000 in December 2000 and promised to create 46 new local jobs by 2005. It closed in June 2005 after 3½ years of unsuccessful trading. Before it closed it was subject to legal action by the Australian tax office for failing to pay GST and group tax. Minutes of creditors meetings show that the bakery did not own its part Commonwealth funded building when it fell into financial difficulty—that is, the money provided to set it up went to another entity. The member for Eden-Monaro and newly appointed Special Minister of State, Mr Gary Nairn, has conceded the bakery was a financial risk and could not have obtained a bank loan at the time the Commonwealth made its grant. Certainly a bank would have made sure it secured its investment with a mortgage.

I understand workers’ entitlements, including superannuation, remain outstanding. No-one in the government, least of all Mr Nairn, has been moved to assist the workers who have been so badly done by. It is noteworthy that none of the workers at Matilda’s Bakery have received the sort of assistance directed to National Textiles—this is the Prime Minister’s brother’s company that failed, leaving a $4 million shortfall in entitlements owed to some 340 workers. The National Textiles company failed and the Howard government directed funds from the Regional Assistance Program to pay the shortfall and approved $2 million worth of retraining funds for retrenched workers. That is the sort of assistance that has been denied to the workers at Matilda’s Bakery. Why? I guess the only reason that is apparent is that they did not work for the Prime Minister’s brother.

A second notorious project in the Eden Region Adjustment Package is the Sea Horse Inn at Boydtown. This project was granted $451,000 for refurbishment in December 2000, promising 43 new local jobs by 2005. The inn closed for refurbishment but, five years later, half the term of the government’s period in office, it has not reopened. There is a promise of Easter, but I think we are more likely to see the Easter Bunny than to see that open this Easter. In a failed third project under the Eden package, the vessel the Spirit of Eden was awarded $190,000 in June 2000 and promised three local jobs by 2005. The vessel is no longer moored at Eden—it is moored up the coast—and generates no local jobs.

Not one of these projects, valued at more than $1½ million, can point to a single local job just four years after taxpayers’ funds were granted. At the time the Howard government announced the Eden RAP, it pledged that it would ‘only fund projects which have evidence of generating real and permanent jobs’. There is nothing real or permanent about the jobs that were promised under those programs. The only real and permanent job that interested the government was the job of the member for Eden-Monaro, Mr Nairn. It is only the jobs on the benches opposite that motivate the Howard government when it comes to regional development. It is the one characteristic that all the government’s regional programs share.

I want to broaden my focus and have a look at the issue of the integrity of those who hold office in the government. Senators will remember names like Woods, Sharp, Jull and McGauran, not in connection with good public policy, but in connection with travel rorts. The senior member of this government to fall under the travel rorts cloud was Bob Woods, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Family Services. He resigned from parliament in February 1997 for ‘family reasons’. It only later emerged that he was under police investigation for travel rorts. But Woods was not alone in rorting travel entitlements. Three Howard ministers—Sharp, Jull and McGauran—were forced to resign in September 1997 over claims that they had lodged false travel claims, mismanagement and cover-ups. The Prime Minister came to office promising to raise the standards of parliamentary life. His 1996 A guide on key elements of ministerial responsibility emphasised ‘the necessity of adherence to high standards by people occupying positions of public trust’ and said, ‘The Australian people have this as their entitlement.’ This turned out to be, of course, another ‘non-core’ promise.

A decade after the election of his government, there is no behaviour which the Prime Minister will not tolerate in preference to requiring a ministerial resignation. Exhibit A is Senator Amanda Vanstone’s continuing tenure in the Immigration portfolio. There is no other minister in the history of this Federation who would have survived as she has under any other Prime Minister. If you cannot get the sack for locking up mentally ill Australians in immigration detention or deporting physically ill Australians due to the colour of their skin, then no minimum standard of conduct can be breached.

In fairness to Mr Howard, while he will not sack anyone for incompetence, he does not mind moving them on when their use to him expires. The old Commonwealth Employment Service had a motto: the right person for the job. The Prime Minister has his own motto when it comes to jobs: the right mate for the job. Over the past 10 years he has appointed over 120 mates, colleagues, supporters and former flatmates to publicly funded positions. These appointments include plum overseas postings and to the boards of organisations like the ABC, the National Museum and Telstra. A good number of them have, however, backfired spectacularly. Robert Gerard’s appointment to the Reserve Bank board comes to mind as does Bob Mansfield’s job on the Telstra board—and, perhaps most memorable of all, David Flint’s stewardship of the Australian Broadcasting Authority.

Let me now turn to the rorting of public money through government advertising. In 1995, the then opposition leader, Mr Howard, committed a future coalition government to introducing guidelines for government advertising. He said:

We will ask the Auditor-General to establish a set of guidelines and we will run our advertisements past the Auditor-General and they will need to satisfy those guidelines.

But, once in government, another non-core promise was a commitment that was quickly abandoned. Prior to the 1998 election, the Howard government spent $15 million of public money promoting the Liberal Party’s proposed goods and services tax. This was just a warm-up for the 2004 election, where the pre-election spending rose to $78 million. Since the election, we have seen advertising campaigns for such things as the government’s extreme industrial relations agenda. The likely bill for that is $55 million.

No area of waste for which this government is responsible is greater than the waste of our nation’s human capital. The simple fact is that 10 long years of Howard government inaction on education and training has resulted in a national skills crisis. The government’s incompetence is reflected in the number of young Australians that are turned away from TAFE: 34,200 Australians were unable to gain a place at TAFE in 2005, which is an increase from the 34,100 of 2004. The number of Australians turned away from TAFE is growing at the same time as our skills shortage is growing.

Since 1997, the proportion of young Australians who complete year 12 and go on to university has dropped by 20 per cent. There has also been a drop in Australian students at universities for only the second time in 50 years. To top it off, Australia is the only developed country to reduce investment in tertiary education over the past decade—an eight per cent cut compared to the OECD average increase of 38 per cent since 1995. This legacy will long outlive this government, just as the legacy of the government’s attack on workers will outlast it.

The first wave was the 1996 changes to workplace relations legislation. The second was the 1997 war on the waterfront. Not having to fight a war offshore in that year, the Howard government decided to declare war on the waterfront workers. Mr Howard established his version of a coalition of the willing with Patrick Corporation to take on waterside workers. The Howard government said that they wanted to improve waterfront productivity, but the truth is that they wanted to replace the workforce with non-union labour. Taxpayer funded consultants engaged by the government devised a strategy that saw Patrick’s Stevedores training military commandos in Dubai and the expulsion of dock workers from their jobs. I clearly remember the shocking television images of workers being menaced by armed security guards, clad in balaclavas, protected by Rottweiler guard dogs.

How necessary was this Howard government devised strategy, which was probably illegal in its planning and conduct? It seems to me that it was not necessary at all. Productivity on the waterfront has increased in recent years. That is not due to the political and industrial thuggery of the government but to the willingness of the Maritime Union of Australia, waterside workers and waterfront employers to work together, as they had been doing in the lead-up to that campaign.

It is telling, but those are not matters that the government will dwell on when it seeks to bask in the glow of its generated image of 10 years in office. We have a Prime Minister who started campaigning for office by making a number of promises. This is a Prime Minister who promised there would never, ever be a GST—a promise which he decided was a non-core promise. This is a new and sinister type of politics that we are experiencing in Australia.