Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say that Senator Marshall really lives in his own little world over there. To suggest that Senator Wong wiped the floor with her responses to questions on the economy just defies belief. I do not know where he was during question time, but he clearly was not listening to Senator Wong's responses.

To the suggestion that this government has saved the country from economic ruin, all I can say to Senator Marshall is, 'Thank goodness you had a coalition government that handed you a large surplus so that it bankrolled the government spending for its first few years in office'. Not all governments are so fortunate.

I also just have to pick up for a moment on a couple of comments and observations that Senator Feeney made earlier on. He seemed to talk about the opposition only. He was given an opportunity to talk about the government's response—Senator Wong's response—to questions and all he could talk about was the opposition; what our vision was for the country and what we would do if we were in office. I was sitting back thinking that it really was not surprising that he did not want to talk about what the government had achieved because what they have done is indefensible.

Since the election in November 2007 they only have a record of incompetence, spending and increasing debt. So what could he talk about? Why would he not want to deflect attention away from the government's track record and focus on the opposition's? So I am not surprised that he talked about the coalition's vision and plans, which he did, because to talk about the government's achievements would be incredibly embarrassing for him.

We do live in a great nation, but it could be so much better. We could be world leaders in industry and innovation, but what is holding this country back is the incompetence and the ineptness of this Gillard government. We have raised before and during questions—and Senator Wong would not address the fact—that the Treasurer, Mr Swan, said last year that this year, the year ahead, would be all about jobs, jobs and more jobs. But only last week we heard that another Australian bank has reported 1,000 jobs being lost over the last few months. This is on top of the reports from Westpac and the ANZ in relation to other job losses in January.

Only today, at an aluminium smelter near Geelong—the Port Henry aluminium smelter—the operators have announced that they are conducting a review of that smelter that is essentially putting the jobs of 600 people there in limbo. They will be very, very concerned as we speak now about what their job security is and what this next 12 months holds for them. And for good reason: the Prime Minister and those on the other side continue to ignore the fact that the carbon tax is going to cost more jobs. She continues to ignore the fact that it will reduce economic growth in Australia and is just going to hurt us more and, in particular, hurt real wages.

In the 2010-2011 financial year the Gillard government said that their budget deficit would be $12 billion, and yet we saw MYEFO estimate that the budget deficit would be $25 billion. And what do we see? The actual deficit was $37 billion. They are not particularly good at managing. The last few years have been another demonstration of what an ALP government actually delivers when in office, and economic strength and viability of the country is not one of them.

This government has turned $70 billion in net Commonwealth assets into $133 billion of net Commonwealth debt. To the people of Australia I say: bring on an election; get rid of the Prime Minister you have because this country will be in a crisis if you keep with it.

Question agreed to.