Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to contribute to this debate. It was only in June of this year that the Labor Party advised us that they had lost their way and on that occasion had to get rid of their Prime Minister. At least on that occasion they had a way. The simple fact of the matter is that this current Labor government does not know the way. It has no way; it has no direction. Anybody who succeeds in business knows very well that to actually establish and run that business, as indeed government, you need a vision. You need to know what the perfect world is for the people in that country or the business. You need to have a mission that will get you there. You need to have objectives and, heaven forbid, you actually need targets upon which the community can measure you.

This Gillard Labor government can best be described as an LFG—a legislation-free zone. For those who come into this place and wonder what legislation is, it is designed to give effect to the vision and mission of the government—if only they had one. Legislation is the foundation or the building block upon which the edifice will be constructed. It is in anatomical terms the skeleton around which the body will be formed. If you have legislation, if you have a vision and a mission, if you have objectives and if you have those foundations and skeletons, then you can develop the regulations, the policies, the procedures, the practices and the directives to the civil servants and others that will complete that dynamic entity which we would normally expect to be a successful country. Regrettably, this particular government has none of those.

This government has not participated, for example, in a process of consultation and dialogue. Have we not seen evidence of that around Australia with the failed border protection policies and the failure to consult with communities? It has no structure. This government is moulding nothing to give to the people of Australia on which historians will be able to look back and say, ‘The Gillard government stood for something.’

It was towards the end of the financial year last year and again this year that I recall our whip and those on this side managing the business of the Senate going to the government managers and saying, ‘There is legislation that you’ve got to get passed by 30 June because it has effect in the new financial year.’ So for the government to stand here and say that we have in some way obstructed the management of this place is a joke. I know in June this year they did have other priorities on their minds: getting rid of someone who at least had a way, even if he had lost it. The simple fact of the matter is that this is a formless government. It is an amoeba. It is without spine or structure. It is ground feeding instead of reaching for the stars as we would expect. It is no wonder that this government in fact was not elected.

If I think of the concepts of vision and mission and business planning, there is no better illustration of the failure of this government than the NBN. In my own speech on the NBN last year, I tried to impress on Senator Conroy that the starting point of any venture, let alone the biggest in Australia’s history at $43,000 million, is a business plan, and within that business plan you would create the vision and mission—and, amongst other things, you would have a cost-benefit analysis. Senator Conroy, in his usual way, stood there and derided us. Here we are, 12 months later, and there still has been no business plan released. And, if in fact there is no cost-benefit analysis within that business plan, it speaks simply to the incompetence and arrogance of the government.

Even in Senator Conroy’s own answer today to Senator Birmingham, taking two minutes with all of the interjections, all the points of order and with his ministerial colleagues around him, he still could not answer the question. When he actually mentioned it, in the final seconds before his time expired, the figure was $437 million of infrastructure at 30 June; in fact, the figure is $453 million. If he had spent more time actually addressing himself to the issue and if this government spent some time addressing itself to legislation, we would not find the amoeba like condition and performance of the Gillard government.

Question agreed to.