Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before I speak on the motion, I note that I detect—as maybe you do yourself, Mr Deputy President—in the comments that are being made about the backgrounds of Labor Party shadow ministers and members of parliament that there is some sort of inverted snobbery about what our backgrounds might be. It almost appears, from what Senator Joyce just said, that we should be born to rule, that they are born to rule, that they are better at it and that we should just get on with it and go back to serfdom where our forebears came from. I remind you, Mr Deputy President, that even the House of Lords has now been reformed. Even the House of Lords, Senator Joyce, is elected.

Senator Minchin today gave a pretty hysterical response to questions in relation to government advertising. I suppose that reflects the degree of desperation that the government is experiencing at the moment, particularly with its senior levels of management. I have always—and I have expressed this before—had a lot of time for the integrity of Senator Minchin. But today I thought he was quite shameless in his hysterical, unfounded attack on the state Labor governments in trying to defend a position that is clearly indefensible.

I am assuming that Senator Minchin was a member of the shadow cabinet before 1996. I was going to play the ‘who said this’ game that Senator Abetz plays, but unfortunately Senator McEwen mentioned it in her question to the minister. Let me just quote from a press release of 5 September, 12 years ago, by the then Leader of the Opposition, John Howard. Of course, Senator McEwen has already mentioned this first bit, but I will go with it again and start with the following:

In a desperate attempt to find an election life raft, the Prime Minister is beginning an unprecedented propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money.

I have already alluded to you, Mr Deputy President, that it was in fact John Howard who said that. He went on further to say:

They—

that is, taxpayers—

don’t want their money wasted on glossy advertising designed to make the Prime Minister feel good.

He went on further to say:

There is clearly a massive difference between necessary government information for the community and blatant government electoral propaganda.

Finally, he said:

The problem for the government is not communication. The problem is that it is tired, it has broken too many promises, it has hurt too many people. This propaganda blitz will make the electorate feel even more angry.

Are they not prophetic words, Mr Deputy President? They could well be the dying words of the government that is presiding over Canberra at this moment.

We could well mention, as has been highlighted by Senator Carr, that since this government has been in power nearly $1½ billion has been spent on an advertising blitz. It appears that in the next period up to $500 million is going to spent on advertising. Let me make this point, Mr Deputy President, because I know my time is going to expire shortly: if we had applied the money that has been used for blatant propaganda by the government, we could have paid for 28,000 secondary school teachers. We could have paid for 32,000 nurses. We could have taken steps to fix the skills shortage. Yet all we have seen—to give just two examples—has been that shameless ‘unchain my heart’ advertising on the GST and, even now, a planned climate change advertising blitz for a group of people who do not believe in it. (Time expired).