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

You are here, Senator Sterle, but in fact, when we say that she was going west, she was not going west to Western Australia; she was going to Western Sydney. Western Sydney is as far west as we can expect the Prime Minister to get. But why is she not going to Western Australia? Why is it that state Labor leader Mark McGowan has banned the Prime Minister from going anywhere near WA? The reason, of course, is that he knows of her poor judgement. He knows of her poor judgement with carbon tax, with mining tax, in fact with practically every single solitary thing that she picks up.

Let me tell you here on the east coast that the Labor brand is so toxic in Western Australia that candidates are not using the name Labor. They are not using the Labor logo, and they are not using the Labor red colours. If that does not tell you something about the shame of their party in my home state then I am sure I have to go a long way further.

Let me give you an indication of where the Prime Minister's poor judgement has reflected in my state. I go no further than an article this morning in which the Catholic schools slammed the Prime Minister and Gonski reform. I will quote the Catholic schools. Incidentally, there are 1,700 schools, three-quarters of a million students and 83,000 staff. Forty per cent of students in my state are educated in Catholic schools. They said:

… Julia Gillard's school reforms lack detail, use ill-defined terms … and risk burdening principals with more red tape …

They go on to say:

… the … funding reforms had scant substance or detail about who would pay for the billions of dollars required.

You could extend that comment well beyond Gonski and school funding. You could apply it basically to everything which, under the poor judgement and leadership of this Prime Minister, is affecting Australia generally but particularly affecting my own home state of Western Australia.

When Prime Minister Gillard took over from then Prime Minister Rudd, she said that she would fix the boats. We know the results with the boats. And Senator Cash, coming back from the wheat belt the other day, I went past the enormous facility at Northam. Having just been in towns like Southern Cross, Merredin and York, and other places where there are no or very few medical and nursing facilities, very few dental facilities, we know that in Northam at the asylum seekers camp they are absolutely overflowing with those very facilities and resources that are being denied the people of Western Australia. Had the Prime Minister gone to Western Australia, had she overruled Mark McGowan, she may have learnt something of the anger of Western Australians with respect to her inability to stop the boats.

I turn to the second of her enormous promises—that was to fix the mining resource rent tax. Well, wasn't she done over? Wasn't she done slowly, she and Treasurer Swan? I remind people on the other side that under our Constitution it is the right of the states to impose royalties on minerals. As Senator Eggleston says, royalties are a price on the mineral. I heard yesterday in this chamber Labor senators talking about the funds being available for citizens of Australia. Well, hello! Are citizens of Western Australia no longer citizens of Australia? All of us who are students of the Constitution know very well that fiscal equalisation is the mechanism by which Australians generally share the benefits.

We have heard Senator Sterle going on about the big miners. The biggest taxpayer in this country is Rio Tinto. The best way of getting more income for a government is to create conditions that will allow more investment and greater profitability. In my meetings with mining industry people this week I learnt that geologists, mining engineers and mining construction workers are now on unemployment lists in ever-greater numbers. So I warn the south-east coast of Australia that the penny section is coming to a halt. There are many reasons why the Prime Minister should be in Western Australia, but the statement of the state Labor leader that he wants her to stay away from that state is a damning indictment. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.