Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Senator Paterson and Senator Chandler in question time today.

We saw in question time yesterday and through the correction that Minister Gallagher was forced to provide to the chamber today the importance of the truth in this chamber and why Australians should be very wary about believing anything that Labor are saying. We heard, through the last debate, the minister make a joke of a serious matter with regard to orders for the production of documents and the complete lack of respect that Labor has shown in this chamber with respect to delivering information that the chamber—the parliament, the representatives of the people—have asked for. They show no respect for that and they do the same in question time. They will do anything that they possibly can to deflect from the truth, from the reality.

Yesterday, on a day when interest rates went up by 25 basis points and Australians were hurting, the Labor Party tried to say that the Howard government was the highest-spending government in the last 40 years, and of course we know—because the minister was forced to correct the record today—that wasn't true. The government tries to deflect from its high spending, which is driving inflation up and keeping interest rates higher for longer. It tries to deflect from that. In fact, the Howard government never achieved a spending-to-GDP ratio anywhere near what this current government is doing. The current government's spending-to-GDP ratio, according to their own documents, is 26.2 per cent of GDP. The highest level for the Howard-Costello government was 25.1 per cent in 1996-97. And let's remember, they were coming off the Hawke-Keating years, when spending did run out of control, and it was that Howard-Costello government that put in spending parameters and delivered budget surplus after budget surplus after budget surplus—paid off $96 billion of Labor debt, left zero debt when we left government in 2006-07 and had put billions of dollars into the Future Fund.

That's the government that Senator Gallagher tried to blame for having the highest spending. And of course today she had to correct for the pandemic, when all of us were concerned that the Australian economy wouldn't crash because we had to close so much down. And yes, we did spend a lot of money during that time, but Labor wanted us to spend more money; let's not forget that. Labor complained when we stopped JobKeeper. Labor complained when we decided it was time to cut back on programs. They said, 'Spend more.' So you can't believe a thing they say. This government is the highest-spending government, outside of the pandemic, in 40 years. It's that simple.

Yesterday we also saw that the Defence Force, desperate for money, is having to flog off our heritage—defence heritage around the country—to pay the bills. It's shameful. In my home state of Tasmania there is no question that it will be much harder for young people to engage with cadets, whether Air Force, Navy or Army, because it's not going to be in their home town. We don't know whether Devonport or Burney is going to have a base anymore. They're combining the two into one. The 44th Transport Squadron, which has been there for decades, is being sold off. It's a disgrace. And the facility at Scottsdale, which, for 60 years, has been at the forefront of food innovation, in developing materials and meals for our Defence Force, and received an $18 million upgrade in 2014—they're going to flog that off, too. That capacity is being taken out of Tasmania. It's no wonder that the head of the Tasmanian RSL said:

Such a withdrawal fundamentally alters Tasmania's role in Australia's Defence posture and sends a clear signal that Tasmania is no longer regarded as a state of Defence significance.

It's shameful. This is an extraordinary position to adopt, given Tasmania's longstanding and disproportionate contribution to Defence recruitment. It's an outrage. (Time expired)