George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

The 2006-7 Budget is a missed chance and a wasted opportunity. This budget signifies how out of touch this Government is. This Government has become so distracted by ideological crusades that they have taken their eyes off the ball. They have chosen to ignore the issues that are holding the economy back. It is ignoring the issues that matter to mums and dads, the issues that press home every single day.

Howard and his Government have become lost and out of touch. They have lost the will for good government, they now simply seek power.

In the Sunday Age on the 7th May, ANZ Chief Economist Saul Eslake was scathing when he said:

“The resources boom has dropped $100 billion into the Government’s lap that they hadn’t expected in 2002 and they’ve spent all of it and a bit more, and I honestly and genuinely struggle to find anything that has been done with it bar win elections.”

It is obvious that this Government is not looking at the national interest. They are only interested in the political interest.

John Howard used to talk about ‘Howard’s Battlers’, and Menzies used to talk about ‘the forgotten people’. But Howard’s battlers are the new forgotten people.

This Government is forgetting working families. Look at the facts: every year another big tax cut to the well off. We see Macquarie Bank chairman Allan Moss picking up $6,000 a week out of this budget, and what do middle income families get? A pathetic token. A mere $9.81 a week.

Does this cover bracket creep? No it does not. This $9.81 also fails to address high effective marginal tax rates, fails to cover rising petrol prices, fails to cover rising childcare fees, fails to cover rising health costs and fails to cover the impact of interest rate rises.

This budget is yet another failure from an old and failing government. The greatest failure of all is of course WorkChoices.

Let’s take a look at these Australian Workplace Agreements that the Government is hell bent on promoting. Every single AWA that the Office of the Employment Advocate has looked at cuts conditions from the relevant Award. Every single AWA has contained a cut to something.

The Prime Minister defends the system saying that workers have received pay rises. What pay rise did the Spotlight workers receive? Two measly cents an hour! Two cent pay rise or no, these workers will be $90 a week worse off. And what do we hear from the Liberal party room in response? I will quote the Member for Blair, Mr Cameron Thompson, who said that they are “sick of hearing this sad-sack sorry stuff”.¹

Instead of creating policy, this Government is creating poverty. Instead of delivering productivity they are delivering pay cuts.

Laurie Oakes belled the cat the other day when he wrote about the tactics of confusion. He said that John Howard always seeks to avoid the central IR issue, that is, that many people are going to be worse off. Laurie Oakes also reminded us of a quote from 1996;

“I have no intention of permitting the critical debate about industrial relations reform to be submerged again by a welter of false accusations that wages will be lower under a Coalition Government. That is why our policy for the coming election contains an explicit guarantee. Under no circumstances will a Howard Government create a wages system which causes the wages of Australian workers to be cut. Under a Howard Government you cannot be worse off but you can be better off. I give you this rock solid guarantee. Our policy will not cut your take-home pay.”

John Howard, 28th Convention of the Young Liberal Movement, January 8 1996

A rock solid guarantee. We all know about the Prime Minister’s “rock solid guarantee”, his “never ever” and of course, his “core and non-core promises”.

The Australian people are waking up to a simple fact. The Prime Minister and his Government have to go. They are a Government on the ropes, constantly stumbling and bumbling from one crisis to the next, mishandling issues and missing the point.

Of course they throw up diversions where they can, but things keep blowing up in their faces; WorkChoices, Iraq, AWB, migration, civil unions, childcare and electoral reform to name a few.

The Government is failing. They are tired, they keep dropping the ball. This Government is full of weary minds and weary bodies, barely dragging themselves from one disaster to another. And it is not only the Opposition saying it. To quote the Bulletin:

“There are no ideas…” says one Liberal frontbencher. “We are just drifting along… It’s like he [Howard] doesn’t know why he wants to be PM anymore and he’s taking pot shots – nuclear power and gay marriage one minute, the ABC again the next.”²

The Government’s latest trick is mauling the committees of the Senate. Earlier in the week they voted to minimise democracy for the Australian people, and now they want to ensure that the processes within government are as undemocratic as possible.

This is a Government that knows it is on the ropes. They have overstepped the mark on IR reform so now they are pulling every other stunt they can to try to avoid scrutiny and hide its failings. They are hoping nobody notices how drunk on power they have become. But these failings cannot be hidden.

Look at the foreign Debt explosion. Foreign debt keeps stacking up, and the net foreign debt is growing faster than ever before. Net foreign debt stands at more than 50% of GDP. 493 billion dollars! It is pressing down on the economy.

When John Howard launched the Debt Truck in 1995 he said;

“If it weren’t for the level of foreign debt, interest rates in this country would be much lower and every Australian today who owes money on his or her home is paying a higher interest rate than would otherwise be the case because of the size of our foreign debt.”³

He also said:

“I can promise you that we will follow policies which will, over a period of time, bring down the foreign debt.”⁴

He has had ten long years. I think it has been long enough. John Howard broke another promise to the country - our foreign debt is enormous and growing, but it does not stop there. Another massive problem is our record household debt.

Latest figures put the household debt ratio at 166.4%. This means that debt is more than 1½ times our incomes. Again, this is a record level and it keeps piling up. Household savings have been negative since 2002. We are spending more than we earn.

Around kitchen tables in houses all over the country, the bills are piling up and the bills are followed around by more debt. This rams home the sensitivity to interest rate movements

Australia’s attention must be drawn to the failure of the Howard-Costello Government to do anything about our ballooning foreign debt. Every Australian should know that this failure is what keeps pushing their interest rates up.

And how low are our interest rates, really? They are not low at all, they are comparatively high. Our interest rates are among the highest in the developed world. Check the figures! We have got higher interest rates than Canada, United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom and this has been the case since August 2001. This is true whether you compare nominal or real rates. Why is this? Wasn’t John Howard going to keep interest rates at record lows?

On the 29th August 2004, the Prime Minister asked Australian families:

“Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?”⁵

During the last election campaign, the Liberal Party claimed they would:

“Keep interest rates at record lows”⁶

Interest rates have risen twice since then.

Since August 2004, the average mortgage costs Australian home owners $879 more per year.

The Government has now been in power for ten long years, and since they gained control of the Senate they have been drunk on power. They have lost touch with ordinary Australians. They have been blessed with rivers of gold and they have chosen to squander their opportunity to invest in the future. Instead they invest in their own political futures. They were given the trust of the people and in return they took away their job security. Maybe the Australian people might want to return the favour.

The rot has well and truly set in. It is time to make a change.

1       SMH, Short shrift for shop lady’s hard luck story, Phillip Coorey, June 22, 2006

2       The Bulletin, 27^th June 2006, p.11.

3       Debt Truck Launch, Parliament House, September 20 1995.

4       Debt Truck Launch, Parliament House, September 20 1995.

5       Press Conference announcing the calling of the 2004 election at Yarralumla

6       Liberal Party election advertisement, screened during September and October 2004.