Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers given by Senators Evans and Conroy. I will start with Senator Polly’s last comment about ‘our good management out of this budget’. If it was not so appallingly incorrect it would be laughable. The Labor government can only go down the economic path that they are choosing to go down because of the good economic management of the previous coalition government. There are no two ways about it. There is no other answer than that.

Our previous government is the reason that this country has the economy that it does, and it gave the current government the ability to make the decisions that they have chosen to make. What did we see after the end of the coalition government? What did Labor actually inherit when they came in? There was a $20 billion surplus and $60 billion in reserves. Let me just repeat that for anybody that might have missed it: a $20 billion surplus and $60 billion in reserves.

What is quite extraordinary is that those on the other side, from the Prime Minister right through their ranks, refer to ‘our surplus’. They are only able to do the things that they want to do economically, as I said before, because we left them that surplus. That surplus is there by dint of the previous coalition government and for no other reason. The only reason up until recently they could say ‘our surplus’ was because, unlike previous random Labor governments, they had chosen not to spend it straightaway. Previously, most Labor governments just chose to spend, spend, spend. But yesterday we saw the big spend coming. It did not even take 12 months.

It would be interesting to see the information and the assessments that those decisions were based upon, although unfortunately answers given today did not provide those things to this side of the chamber. It would be interesting to see exactly what advice the government received on the size of the package that would be appropriate to provide what they saw as the economic stimulus needed. It will be very easy to see how those decisions were made once those figures and that advice actually come out. But today there was absolutely no indication whatsoever that we are going to be told anything about the basis for the decisions that the government have taken surrounding the economy in the last couple of days, so we have no idea.

Yet again, it is another example of the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister. On the one hand he is saying that he wants to be open and accountable, that he will hold nothing back from the Australian people and he will be open and transparent but, when asked, what answer do we get from the other side: ‘I am terribly sorry. It will come out in MYEFO. I will not talk about it now, blah blah blah.’ Senator Conroy’s answers were not actually answers, because they did not address the questions that were asked today—but, really, that is not out of the usual form because he chooses mostly not to answer any of the questions. Apparently that transparency, which the Prime Minister is so keen to talk about, is going to come a little bit later: ‘We will make these very important decisions now because they are very important for the economy.’ We know that Mr Rudd is an economic conservative—apparently he became one during the election campaign!—but we are being told that we, and more importantly the Australian people, are not allowed to see the basis for those decisions: ‘That will all come in the fullness of time.’ I would say that the Australian people deserve to be told that now—right now, today—by the Prime Minister. He keeps talking about transparency; he is the one that should give that information now.

What we are seeing is absolute hypocrisy from the other side of this chamber—from the government—talking about ‘our surplus’. They have not done it, they have not built it and they have not invested in this country to give it the economy that it has. That was clearly done by the previous coalition government. Anybody who thinks any different is barking up the wrong tree. There is no doubt that our former coalition government is responsible for the economic state of this country—no two ways about it. And, in true Labor form, the coalition was given a $96 billion debt when it came into office, which it paid off. The coalition fixed the economy, strengthened the country, allowed it to get through the Asian crisis at the time. For the government to turn around—(Time expired)