Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

In good times or bad, war or peace, it is always the same, Senator Cameron—more debt. Eleven Labor prime ministers and always more debt. The only common element in Labor Party politics from 1901 is more debt. Sometimes Labor are socialist, sometimes they are social democratic, sometimes they say they are economic conservatives. Sometimes they play up to blue-collar conservative constituencies. Sometimes they play up to the inner-city swingers. They change a bit, but what is the one constant: they always leave more debt. That never changes.

Under Labor, no matter what the era, no matter how trendy, no matter what leader they have, no matter what faction, no matter what gender, no matter what agenda, no matter whether they are committed to the White Australia policy or multiculturalism, no matter whether they are committed to protectionism or to free trade, no matter whether they are pro-Soviet or pro-American, it is always the same with Labor—more debt. That is the one constant in 110 years.

What are the consequences of debt? The cost of money goes up; debt places upward pressure on interest rates. That is the one constant in 110 years of federal government. We will hear this afternoon the Labor Party say: ‘Don’t worry, because this time we promise the debt really is necessary. It has to be done. Going into debt $100 million a day this time really is worth it. This time we have got it right. This time it has to be done.’

So what did Labor do? They had two flagship programs to stop the recession: putting pink batts into the roofs of Australian homes and building school halls. That was their plan to stop the recession. In the end some buildings burned down and others were built. That was what Labor’s policies to stop us from going into recession came down to. That was Labor’s failed recipe to stop us going into recession. We now know that the pink batts program was an absolute fiasco. There were four deaths, 200 house fires, 1,000 electrified roofs and dodgy insulation that is going to cost a further $1 billion to fix. It has also left a trail of ruined businesses throughout Australia. This was their good idea to save Australia from going into recession—putting pink batts into the roofs of Australian homes. Even poor Ms Gillard, the Prime Minister, said there were issues with that program—there were issues, indeed. It was an embarrassing failure and it is going to cost another $1 billion of Australian taxpayers’ money to fix it.

Then of course there was the Building the Education Revolution, one of the greatest infrastructure projects in Australia’s history. It was worth $16 billion. What did it amount to in the end? It amounted to overpriced school halls. They were somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent overpriced. Why? Because the government did not have the oversight mechanisms to determine how much those buildings should have cost. When they asked state governments to spend the money they did not have the oversight mechanisms to determine what was good value for money. As a result, for $16 billion, taxpayers got about $8 billion worth of value; $8 billion was wasted. These were the great projects to save us from recession.

It had nothing to do apparently with having one of the soundest banking systems in the world, courtesy of the Howard-Costello government. It had nothing at all to do with having one of the soundest prudential and financial regulatory systems in the world? It had nothing to do with the fact that we ran surplus budgets for 10 consecutive years? It had nothing to do with the fact that there was no government debt? It had nothing to do with the fact that we had a AAA credit rating? No, it had nothing to do with any of that. The government thinks it kept us out of recession by putting pink batts into the ceilings of Australian homes and building overpriced school halls. It had nothing to do with the fundamental soundness of the Australian economy, which is totally due to the Howard-Costello government?

It was an absolutely embarrassing shambles. If only it were so simple then all President Obama would have had to do was put insulation in roofs and spend some money on school halls and America would not have gone into recession. It would have been the same for Gordon Brown in Britain. This is a joke, an embarrassment and a fiasco. Those schemes are indefensible.