Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You were left with a surplus and here we are: net debt spiralling out of control and hurtling towards $400 billion. It is going to take us a little longer than 100 days, Senator Farrell, to deal with that election promise, but we are committed to the task.

Just this week the government has taken another step towards cutting red tape for universities, yet another election commitment that we are honouring. The reporting requirements for Australian universities will be reduced and simplified in a new push to cut red tape for the sector. The minister has just made announcements to adopt all 27 recommendations out of the 2012 PhilipsKPA review into reporting requirements for universities. This is great news for our education sector. We want universities spending more time delivering the best higher education possible—researching and teaching in areas that are going to build our nation—rather than trying to do the work with one hand tied behind their backs: academics filling out forms, counting and shifting bits of paper around to their pro-vice-chancellors rather than getting on with the good work of what a university should be doing in the community.

The Senate should do the right thing this week and scrap Labor's bad taxes and give our economy the clean start it needs for 2014. Here is your chance: a Christmas wish for all! If we had asked Australians what they would have liked for Christmas on election day—another little straw poll—I think the result would have been quite clear, and that would have been to get rid of the carbon tax. You can still deliver. Now is the time for Labor to accept that there was an election, the people spoke and they said, 'Get rid of the carbon tax.' You could do it now— actually you probably cannot do it now, but you had the chance. You had the chance to alter the sitting arrangements. You had the chance to bring the Senate back tomorrow or bring it back next week. Let every single Labor Party senator and Greens senator have their say on these important bills.