Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

When I left off I was, I believe, talking about the government’s complete inability to manage the economy and about the waste and mismanagement that we have seen from this government since they came to office. I was discussing the different points of view of the two sides of the chamber. Obviously the government think that there should be a whacking great new tax on the Australian people to pay for assistance to the flood victims. We on this side do not. We believe that, with a budget of over $350 billion, this government are surely able to find savings measures to allow them to pay for the flood reconstruction. That would seem a fairly simple equation.

People out in the community certainly believe that the government should have gone down the road of finding those savings. When they look at the wasted money, the waste and mismanagement from this government, people quite rightly say, ‘Why can’t the government find some avenue other than whacking a great tax on us?’ Let us just have a look at a few of the cost blow-outs that we have seen from this government. Remember, colleagues and those who are listening out there across this beautiful land, that this is the reason the government do not have the money to help the flood victims. The reason the government do not have the money to help the flood victims is that they have wasted so many Australian taxpayers’ dollars already that there is simply no money left.

Let us have a look at a couple of those blow-outs. Everybody would be very well aware of the Building the Education Revolution, BER, program. There was a $1.7 billion blow-out on those school halls. That figure of $1.7 billion sounds a little familiar, does it not, colleagues? It sounds familiar because it is awfully close to the $1.8 billion that the government are trying to tax out of the Australian people. Logically, if the government had not wasted that $1.7 billion, they would have the money to assist the flood victims. Those on the other side will, I am sure, have a million excuses for that, but it is not good enough—the Australian people deserve to be treated fairly and they do not deserve to be whacked with another great tax.

Then there was the pink batts disaster. I think the amount that was wasted or mismanaged in that program was around $2.4 billion. It is no surprise that now, when the government is trying to put another great tax on them, the Australian people are saying, ‘We are not in the slightest bit impressed, Julia Gillard, Prime Minister, that you are going to tax us.’ They understand that this government has simply wasted billions and billions of dollars and that that money could have gone to help the flood victims.

The list of ALP cost blow-outs, waste and mismanagement is endless. I am sure, Senator Parry, that we all remember the computers in schools program. That one blew out by $1.2 billion.