Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

the Treasurer, Mr Swan—I suppose you can call him a treasurer. Still on their historical form you have the carbon tax promise: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'—and then there was. We had the crazy association of this Labor-Green-Independent alliance, Green-Labor Party alliance, glee club or whatever you like to call it. Then we had the surplus promise that turned into the deficit promise. We had the live cattle debacle where we got our biggest neighbour and decided to try and make them our biggest enemy overnight. If you were not on the microform, we have the purchase of Toorale Station for $23.75 million—I have mentioned it before—without even setting a foot on the place. They observed the place from 30,000 feet as they flew to Darwin. Then we have, of course, Mr Thomson, who was going to be the member for Dobell for a long, long time. Then we had their appointment of Peter Slipper. We had the AWU slush fund. If you go right back to the start, I can remember Mr Rudd leaking the conversation that he had with the President of the United States to the front page of the paper. It just goes on. It is no wonder that it is manic. It is no wonder that it is out of control.

Then you think, 'Well that is all in the past; they have had an epiphany; they fell off their donkey on the road to Damascus, and everything is better now.' This is the only crowd who can stuff things up at work without actually being there. Before they have even come back, I turn on the television and, so help me, they have taken some person who is not even a member of the Labor party and made them the senator for the Northern Territory. Where does that come from? How do you dream these things up? We could not possibly do that to you; you're too good! We should have stayed away for weeks! You would be out of government if you had stayed away for another couple of weeks. You would have finished yourselves off. Where else are we going to have a captain's pick? I bet you they are worried in the ACT—we might get a captain's pick down here. Who are you going to pick as your senator down here? Who would know? What else is the captain's pick? It sounds almost unsanitary what she is picking!

Then we have senior ministers just resigning—they are dying like flies. Of course we get this every time: 'Don't worry. It's all under control.' The Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia goes 'pop' and disappears. The 3IC—the third in charge—of the running of our nation goes 'pop' and disappears. They are just gone, and they have all got these gracious reasons of why they have got to go. I can never work out why the Attorney-General became the Attorney-General, because apparently a year ago she knew she was not going to be the Attorney-General. She must have just wanted a temporary posting in that role, because that is what the Commonwealth needs: a temporary person to run the legal system and jurisprudence of this nation! That's so logical! As soon as the Prime Minister knew about it, she should have said, 'Yes, you're going to be so important for 12 months you must stay in that role.' No, that is a completely believable situation! I am completely on board with that. Of course now we have got Mr Thomson—149 charges. I think he is over there. He is still in the building. It just goes on. All it needs is the Monty Python theme song.

On a more serious note, we have the debt that I have been talking about over and over again. The gross debt is now in excess of $262 billion, and I admit that I started banging on about this when it was $80 billion, so I have a bit of a concern about this. Since we have been here, I have seen this crowd go through the $75 billion overdraft limit, the $200 billion temporary overdraft limit, the quarter-trillion dollar limit, and now we have a $300 billion limit. Last week you borrowed $2.2 billion just for the week. It just rolls off the tongue. I will tell you that there are 2,155 companies on the Australian Stock Exchange and 2,064 of them have a capitalisation less than what you borrowed last week. Ninety-six per cent of them have a capitalisation less than what you borrowed last week. And you think that is sane? If you were buying houses in regional Australia you would buy between 6,000 and 7,000 houses with what you borrowed just last week—and that is supposed to be sane. When there was a change of government, the net financial worth—which is your financial assets less liabilities—was about $18 billion in the red. Our net worth position, which is total assets less liabilities, was actually in credit by $70 million.

But I can tell you where we are now. In the budget papers—the general government sector net financial worth—the net financial worth of our financial assets less our liabilities is now $¼ trillion out the back door. That is our position. These are your own figures. It is going to be worse than that, because that was on the basis that this year there would be a surplus. But of course this year is going to be a deficit so it just gets worse and worse and worse.

In the meantime, whilst all this is happening, we have this scenario. I can assure you that when people hear our Prime Minister speak now, they just turn off the television. They cannot stand it. When they see our Treasurer they almost cry; they cannot believe that this person is in a role of responsibility. It is out of control. Then you hear that apparently they cannot deal with the fact that 600 farmers are being done over by an overcentralised retail market with $1 for milk. The government cannot deal with that—that is all too complicated—but they can change the temperature of the globe! With a carbon tax they can change the temperature of the globe!

Senator Faulkner says that I deny climate change. I do not deny climate change at all. I just deny that they have the capacity to change it back. I was watching the weather intently over the Christmas break and since the carbon tax it seems to be around about where we left it last time. I thought that it was all going to be better now that the carbon tax is in. I thought that we had climate nirvana, but it is about where we left it. I want my money back. What happened to the weather? It was supposed to be fixed up by now after the carbon tax!

Dairy farmers are being ripped off. Small businesses are so much under the pump. The high street is so much under the pump. They are doing it tough. As for the infrastructure, where is inland rail? What happened to it? They put $30 million towards it. They put more towards advertising than they do towards looking after regional Australia's crucial infrastructure. This is the result of what we have got.

I once had a boss who, when he looked at a set of books, would always say to me, 'If you did not laugh, you would cry,' and that is how we feel about our nation at the moment. It is pathetic. It is so out of control that if you did not laugh, you would cry. And grinning over it all is the Cheshire cat, Kevin the cat. We can see what is going to happen. We can see it a mile away. The press are around him—they are leaking; it is all coming back. They have just come to the epiphany that they are about to lose their job, and all of a sudden we can see turmoil and craziness about to break out into its next stage. When I see a big smiley face on the member for Griffith, I know that he is not going anywhere but back into an office that is between here and the other chamber on the other side on the blue carpet.