Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I must correct Senator Gallagher. Perhaps in the interests of brevity she forgot to mention the $3.5 billion of spending on utility helicopters that has now been cancelled as well, and the Army Battle Management System that has been withdrawn from service. Thank you very much, Senator Gallagher, for leaving that for me. That's good. There is a huge problem in the defence space. Everything the Prime Minister is doing is targeting 2040—we're going to have a submarine in 2040, we're going to have submarine bases in 2040 and we're going to have an upsized ADF in 2040. Right now we have trouble in Ukraine. That's a spark that may let off the tinder box that is Taiwan and China. We have had Chinese warships travelling through the Arafura Sea lighting up P-80 aircraft with a laser, we've had regular deployments to watch Exercise Talisman Sabre and now we'll likely have a military base set up by China in the Solomons. Yet the government focuses on 2040. Can I remind the chamber and those listening that the only way a 2040 submarine delivered to the Royal Australian Navy will be able to properly help us in defence is if it's got a time machine to be able to come back to the present moment where we need to have good ADF capability. I was disappointed in the budget last night with some of the spending commitments envisaged for the Future Submarine, and I will come back to those.

I want to talk about the fuel excise cut, and I note that I do have a second reading amendment in relation to this. On 22 February, I called on the government to reduce the fuel excise. I did that because, whilst it was prior to the Ukraine crisis, we could see the Russians mounting up at the border and it was almost inevitable that the Russians were going to cross into Ukraine. So I made a call for a cut in fuel excise. Then we saw a whole bunch of ministers responding to that call. On his show on 9 March, Ben Fordham asked Angus Taylor, 'Are you absolutely ruling out any change to the fuel excise between now and election day?' Angus Taylor replied, 'What I'm saying is that we have no plans to do that, Ben; we have no plans to do that.' Scott Morrison, at a presser on 15 March, said: 'You don't go and completely recalibrate your budget based on fluctuations in oil prices. They have gone up. They have gone down.' He was asked: 'Barnaby Joyce says changes to the fuel excise are off the table. Is he right?' The Prime Minister said: 'I haven't seen those comments'. Let's go to an interview on 17 March:

Asked whether cutting the tax would help in easing cost of living, the Deputy Prime Minister said: "No it won't".

"But what it will do is it'll take money away that we spend on roads," …

There's quite an irony. When the Treasurer gave a hint, over the weekend, that the fuel excise would be cut, at the same time he announced $18 billion in infrastructure programs, including roads. The Australian public have to make sure they understand this: fuel excise is not connected to road spending. Fuel excise, by law, must go into consolidated revenue, and it is politicians who decide how much is spent on roads. So there's a fallacy there.

The government has been dragged, kicking and screaming, yesterday, to have a reduction in fuel excise, which is desperately needed by Australians who are suffering from increased rents and increased grocery prices. We've seen fuel prices go from $1.80 to $2.20 per litre, and that's crippling. You can't ease off on your fuel expenditure: you have to go to work; you have to take the kids to school; you do need to go to a doctor. Indeed, if you're in the country that situation is worse, because all of the distances are much greater. So it was obvious we needed some form of relief. But what did we see last night? We saw a halving of the fuel excise for six months.

Let me tell you: the reason fuel prices are high is that there has been an unlawful invasion of Ukraine by Russia. That's driven up the fuel prices because of sanctions. If you look at what's happening in Ukraine, the Russians are bogged down. They are not—thank goodness—going to annexe Ukraine. They might get part of it, and stop, and there will be some sort of negotiated settlement, no doubt. But before that there will be an insurgency, and these fuel prices are going to remain high until that insurgency concludes, because the sanctions are going to stay. There is no way that this is going to be over in six months—no way. And the government should know that. The government should be aware of the strategic circumstances.

So why has it only given six months of relief? Because that's what it takes to get through the election. That's why we've got only six months of the cut in the fuel excise, because it's about buying votes. In fact, when I look at the budget as released last night, it is a budget to buy power, with a whole bunch of short-term sugar hits. Billions and billions of dollars are being spent to buy power. And that money will be a debt for our children and grandchildren. That's what's going on.

When I looked at the budget last night—and particularly as a South Australian—I was very disturbed. It is clear to me that Mr Morrison has delivered a budget that is a payback budget for South Australia. It's a payback budget because South Australian electors decided to elect Premier Malinauskas as our state leader. I am sure what's happened is that the government has gone through and struck out, deleted, all the bits about South Australia and said: 'Here's our punishment to you. Here's our payback to you.' If I look at the expenditure that's taking place, it delivers so little to South Australia. The portion of infrastructure spend for South Australia has gone from 22 per cent last year to only 16 per cent this year.

South Australia has also been left out of the government's regional transformational infrastructure program, which is basically $7.1 billion targeting the Northern Territory, northern and Central Queensland, the Pilbara and the Hunter. Let's make no mistake—and I've just glanced at a Greens amendment in relation to this—that is pork-barrelling. That is pork-barrelling to win an election. Now, I just want to make sure that the chamber is really clear on this: pork-barrelling is corruption. I'll say that again: pork-barrelling is corruption. It's taking taxpayers' money and directing it at projects that are intended to buy votes to allow people to stay in power. That is using taxpayers' money for personal benefit. We really have to think about change here. I'm sick and tired of us sitting here watching time go by and, just prior to an election, suddenly a whole bunch of announcements are made. They're made depending on a red or blue square in a spreadsheet. There are people who live in safe seats—and I'm talking about safe Liberal seats and safe Labor seats—who sit back and get nothing. Do you know what? There is likely to be a need for those people that is simply not being met because of political corruption. It's wrong. I had someone say to me yesterday on Sky: 'But that's how it has always been.' That might be the case, but it's wrong. We've got to change that. We've got to stand up and act with integrity. Let's start having projects planned out, going through a proper needs analysis, a proper check for value for money, making sure that we spend our money wisely in a coherent manner that seeks to grow the economic pie, to make the economic pie much tastier. None of this corruption, please! The Australian public are over it, including people who might be the beneficiary of some of this pork-barrelling.

I foreshadow that I will, at an appropriate time, circulate an amendment to future appropriations bills related to that program to include South Australia. I would think that if Senator Lambie is listening she will do the same for Tasmania. And I would think that if Zali Steggall is listening she will do the same for people in her electorate. That would be harder for people in the Labor Party or the Liberal Party because they have to stick within party lines. But we Independents don't. I can assure you that that amendment will be circulated in due course.

I look at the budget spending for South Australia. The North-South Corridor—that's all we ever seem to get in our budget spending. There's so much that we need in South Australia that is just not being addressed. I look at the Eyre Peninsula. We need a desal plant there. Just as Thomas Playford brought a pipeline from Morgan to Whyalla that totally transformed regional South Australia, we need to have proper water resources on the Eyre Peninsula. We need to have rail on the Eyre Peninsula. We need to have proper power capacity on the Eyre Peninsula. We need to have an extended runway at Coober Pedy. We need to fix up the road that leads to the ferry down at Kadina, in Wallaroo. We need all of those things. This is a punishment budget for South Australians voting for the Labor Party—make no mistake.

I want to give a wake-up call to Rowan Ramsey. Liz Habermann may run in your electorate. You've got to get off your butt and stop just getting road funding, which is just a normal share. You stand up and wave a flag and say you've done a great thing for the Eyre Peninsula and for Grey. But you simply haven't—perfunctory at best. We saw what happened with Sam Telfer in Flinders, where Liz gave him a good shake-up. Good on her. She's taken a long-term safe Liberal seat and turned it into a marginal seat. That's going to be great for the people of Port Lincoln and Ceduna and all up the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula.

I looked at the shipbuilding plan. I looked at the graphic the government put in the budget around shipbuilding. For South Australia, for jobs, they included the Air Warfare Destroyer, the Hunter project and the Collins full-cycle docking work and life-of-type extension. But there is no graphic there that shows a future submarine—and that's because it's a decade away.

The government keeps promising to South Australians projects like the Future Submarine project. We are obviously the most capable state for delivering something like that. But, in actual fact, there's really nothing in the budget in relation to that. We are not going to be building a submarine in South Australia for a decade, if ever, because the government's realised the mistake of the 2040 deadline. They are trying to roll it all the way back now. As they try to crunch that schedule, they are going to try to removes risks and they are going to point to South Australia and say: 'You know what? We are not going to do that there.' It will be just as we saw with Minister Reynolds making an announcement that they were going to build an HADR ship in Australia. Then, because of changing strategic circumstances, they have decided to buy that offshore. That's just the way this government has worked. Sadly, for South Australia, there's payback in this. People should remember when they go to the election that that's exactly what's happened. We have been ignored and punished because people chose to vote in Peter Malinauskas.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but:

(a) the Senate highlights the impact on Australian families and small businesses, including inflationary consequences, of current extreme petrol prices;

(b) the Senate calls on the government to:

(i) introduce legislation to amend the Schedule to the Excise Tariff Act 1921to cut the fuel excise by 23 cents a litre for a period from 31 March 2022 to 30 June 2023, and

(ii) suspend indexation of the fuel excise for the same period; and

(c) a message be sent to the House of Representatives informing it of this resolution and requesting its concurrence in the resolution".