James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In question time today and throughout this week and in the take note of answers we've just had from Labor senators today, we've heard three novel concepts that you don't typically hear from the Labor Party. We've heard three new concerns that Labor have about this particular policy that they don't typically show in other areas of public life.

Firstly, they've shown a new-found concern for the careful use of taxpayer dollars. If only they had shown that when they were last in government. I will return to that in a moment. Secondly, they've shown a new-found and recent concern for proper process. That's something that, again, I didn't seen them particularly uphold when they were in government. I will return to that. And then, thirdly, they've shown a new-found scepticism about the fact that expenditure on environmental projects might sometimes be questionable. These are three new, different takes from the Labor Party that we're not used to normally hearing.

I will return to the first point that I made: the careful use of taxpayers' dollars. It is a little bit—just a little bit—galling to sit here and listen to lectures from the Labor Party about the careful use of taxpayer dollars. It's not something that they typically showed much sentimentality about when they were in government. We don't have to turn back the clock very far at all to remember the way in which they showed wanton disregard for taxpayers' dollars when they had the opportunity to be careful stewards of them. They are the party, after all, of pink batts. They are the party of sending cheques in the mail to people who are deceased, in the name of economic stimulus. They are the party which, when coming to government in 2007, inherited the most enviable set of books in the Western world and promptly went about absolutely smashing the nation's finances in just a few years. And they, of course, are the party which in this chamber have opposed virtually every single attempt that this government has made to fix the problem that they have caused and the wreckage that they have done to our budget. They have voted time and time again against measures designed to be more carefully stewarding of taxpayers' dollars.

When it comes to proper process, this again is a new-found and recent concern of the Labor Party. I did not hear and I have not yet heard—perhaps later in this debate or in other debates I will be surprised, but I did not hear—this same concern shown for perhaps the largest expenditure of taxpayer dollars ever conceived, in the worst and most shambolic process ever known, which of course is the creation of the National Broadband Network. It took place—we now know, thanks to media reporting and the benefit of hindsight—initially over a scrap of a napkin in the Prime Minister's VIP jet, between the minister, Stephen Conroy, and the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, during several flights around the country. The expenditure of tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money started on the back of a napkin on the VIP jet. That was not exactly proper process, and it's a bit galling to hear Labor senators come in here and question that today.

Finally, as I mentioned, they have a new-found concern that possibly the expenditure of taxpayers' money on environmental projects might not be effective. Well, I wish that was a trait that they showed more consistently and more widely and that they applied equally to their own policies as they are applying it to ours. It's almost as if their questions on this matter have been written by my friend Andrew Bolt. It's very reminiscent of his criticism of our government from the right flank, but it's somewhat unusual coming from Labor senators, on our left flank.

The real question is: what is actually underlying the Labor Party's criticism of this policy? What is really driving it? I think the senator who let the mask slip the most during questions this week was my fellow senator from Victoria Senator Kim Carr, who asked a question to the government about this earlier this week. In his question, he referred to the fact that the charity that's receiving this money is in fact a private charity. There was particular emphasis on the word 'private'. In fact, he almost spat the word 'private' in the chamber as he said it. Why was the government giving so much taxpayers' money to a private charity to undertake this work?

And that, I think, perfectly encapsulates Labor's real objection here. They believe that only public servants, only government agents—only the state—are capable of doing good environmental works or other good social works. They're deeply sceptical about the role of civil society, of private organisations, in delivering innovative solutions to the problems that we face.

I commend the government for thinking outside of the box, for looking at other ways to solve this problem, for not relying on the same traditional and sometimes unsuccessful methods to solve these problems, and for empowering a private charity to solve this problem.