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

With Easter upon us we have learnt two things. We now know that modern Labor, the Labor government, is based on two pillars. It is based on a great con and it is based on a great lie. The great con, of course, is that debt does not matter and the great lie is that the unilateral imposition of the harshest carbon tax in the world is in our national interest. It is a twin pillar: a great con and a great lie. We have the great lie, the carbon tax, to pay the great con, Labor's debt. They are working arm in arm.

It was not that long ago that Senator Joyce spoke about sovereign debt, and everyone laughed at him. The government said, 'He has no idea,' and within 18 months Western Europe is on its knees and the United States is not doing too well either. Senator Wong today in the Senate in answer to my question said, 'It's all okay, Senator Mason, because there is no real problem; Australia's debt isn't too bad.' Well, it is bad—and I will get to that in a second—but the only reason that it is not worse is that Labor have won about one in every three elections since World War II. If they had won two out of every three elections since World War II—as the social democratic parties have done in Western Europe—we would have a debt crisis.

Why can I say that with absolute certainty? It is because every time Labor get into office, what is the situation when they leave? Australia is further in debt. Every time the Labor Party get into office and then leaves, are finally thrown out, Australia is far further in debt. If the coalition had not won two out of every three elections since World War II we would be just like Western Europe. There would be institutionalised, systematic and systemic debt. If this lot survive long enough we will have that here too.

We know that because even their great stimulus policy, the Building the Education Revolution, was an absolute disgrace—not because they spent the money but because they spent it wantonly. Their own depart­ments could not even determine whether the money was well spent. They spent $16,000 million dollars doing that and they wasted much of it. They did not even have the oversight mechanisms to ensure that the money was well spent. And now what do we know? We know that each Australian already owes $6,000 to cover the interest payments on Labor's debt. So it is all very well for Senator Wong to go on and on about 'It isn't too bad', but it is already bad and it is getting much, much worse.

Every time we talk in this chamber about debt, Labor not only say, 'It doesn't matter,' but also say, 'We had to do it to stimulate the economy'—as though in some way it is very hard to spend money. You know what the hard thing to do is? Spend it well and get good value for money. That is the test of good government. On that test alone, this government failed. That is the test. It is not hard, believe me, to spend billions and billions of dollars. That is really easy. The really tough bit is to spend it well. I do not give any credit to this government for spending money wantonly. I do not give them any credit for spending billions of dollars on, allegedly, some sort of stimulus package. I would give credit if it had been well spent and the taxpayer had got value for money. Did they? No, they did not. That is the great crime of Labor, and that is why Labor are always the party of debt and have been ever since 1901.

And Queensland—look, I do not need to go there! They are $85 billion in debt—nearly as much as the Hawke-Keating debt—and we lost our AAA credit rating. It is typical, modern social democracy—placing the people of Queensland further and further in debt. It is a disgrace. But it is of course just true to form. And it is all to be paid for by the greatest lie of this century from modern Labor—the carbon tax. So we have not only that lie that the Prime Minister told the populace before the last election but also the great lie that it is in our national interest to do it unilaterally. That to me has always been a great concern: that the government has always lied and said, 'It's in our national interest to act unilaterally,' irrespective of what anyone else does. In the end, the great lie will not pay for the great con. (Time expired)