Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise at this late hour to warn Australians of the scenarios facing their representation in the Senate after the coming election. Put simply, there will be either a coalition majority or minor parties holding the balance of power with Labor. With only 28 seats in the Senate chamber of 76, I believe it is effectively impossible for Labor to win a majority in its own right in the Senate. I also expect that the Greens will eclipse the Democrats in the half Senate election as the minor party in the Senate with the most seats. In short, there is now a real possibility of a Labor-Green accord in the Australian Senate and the Australian parliament.

Given that scenario, I can place on record that Australians have a clear choice at this half Senate election: to elect a majority of coalition senators—and, in Tasmania, Liberal senators—and ensure that the Senate remains a vehicle for progress and careful reform in the parliament, or face a Senate controlled by a minor party, the Greens. Yes, a Labor-Green accord or coalition. The Tasmanian Labor-Green accord of 1989 to 1991 was a disaster, and any federal Labor-Green coalition or policy accord of any nature will also lead to peril for our community. Is this alarmist? I think not. Two of the four Greens in the current Australian parliament, Senator Bob Brown and Senator Christine Milne, figured prominently in minority Labor and Liberal Tasmanian governments, with both experiences beset by massive political instability and economic development paralysis. After the so-called Labor-Green accord years 1989 to 1991, interstate investors largely boycotted Tasmania as a place to invest.

To understand the disaster of the Labor-Green accord days, when both Senator Bob Brown and Senator Christine Milne negotiated these outcomes for the Greens in the state parliament, I will give an example: the Tasmanian government spent $3.4 million to halt a forestry development, Huon Forest Products south of Hobart, and to compensate the owners. They spent taxpayers’ money to axe jobs, not create them. Contracts were torn up by the government and sovereign risk concerns skyrocketed. The disastrous Labor-Green accord experience exposed the Greens as nothing more than the extreme socialist left of the Labor Party, always trying to control the Labor Party. The tail was wagging the dog, and that is why we on this side of the chamber think it such a farce when the Greens threaten Labor on preferences. Greens preferences usually flow 70 per cent or more to the Labor Party.

As a consequence, this period in Tasmanian politics was beset by instability and political turmoil, coming on top of the successful campaign by the Greens to have the Hawke Labor government destroy the $1.2 billion pulp mill near Wesley Vale in 1989. Likewise today, the aim of the Tasmanian Greens is to kill off the Gunns pulp mill at any cost, no matter what environmental conditions are attached. So investors abandoned Tasmania in droves, business confidence was sapped and so the Labor government gave up and went to the people in February 1992 and recorded its worst ever vote—29 per cent, including a loss of two seats—so that Labor was left with 11 seats in the 35-seat parliament.

The same happened again in 1996 when the Liberal government lost its majority and continued to serve as a minority government. The Rundle economic and social reforms were too much for the Greens. They did not bring down the Rundle government with a no-confidence motion; they simply created a climate of instability. They threatened the government often enough to make governing untenable. The Greens are very clever at running a covert campaign against community stability and good government. Conflict is their modus operandi, their main tool of trade. For them to do otherwise would be tantamount to coming a distant third as a mainstream political party. The Green definition of good government is the Greens getting their way no matter what the cost, and that is the scenario awaiting Australians if the Greens gain the balance of power in the Senate at the election. Both periods of minority government were a disaster, saturated with rampant political and economic instability even when the Greens said they were being cooperative. The Greens’ nirvana is a hung parliament where they use their clout to push their agenda while the hapless majority government suffers the public stigma of chaos and instability. The Labor-Green majority in the Senate would spell disaster for our economy and our community.

Mathematically there is only one alternative to this mayhem: a strong, stable and economically effective government with sensible family and social policies and a strong track record on both the economy and national security. Contrast that with the Greens’ policy to legitimise the use of certain drugs, many anti family, anti jobs, anti development policies, harebrained schemes like their proposal to drain Lake Pedder in Tasmania, and making a spectacle of themselves by disrupting a speech to a joint sitting of parliament by the US President George Bush. The Greens’ version of free speech is when they speak. That the Greens may do preference deals with the ALP merely exposes the Greens’ extreme Left culture. It also confirms the Labor-Green alliance is alive and well. I am sure that if Labor were to win government this year we would face the worst-case scenario of a federal environment minister Peter Garrett, a former Greenpeace activist, running rampant against the interests of business and industry in Australia and emboldened by the extreme Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate. Forget about those strong economic statistics made possible by the Howard government showing more jobs—yes, 417,000 new jobs since March 2006—higher wages, record low unemployment, and very few strikes. As my colleague and Tasmanian Liberal Senate candidate Don Morris once quipped, you would have a Rudd Labor government resembling a set on the Universal Studios: you know, where all you have is the main street of facades propped up from behind by wooden scaffolding and no reality, no depth. This analogy is appropriate. Mr Rudd and federal Labor are superficial and inexperienced, with policies based on opinion polls.

My alert for Australians is to think carefully before voting to bestow such unbridled power on the Greens so that they may hold Australians to ransom on the floor of the Senate. In terms of investment and economic progress and prosperity, a Labor government with a Green controlled Senate would cost Australians dearly. In a balance of power relationship, the Greens would thrive on power for the sake of power, without responsibility.

In that context I want to talk up the reason why we need a return of the Howard government and a strong coalition majority in the Senate—we have the runs on the board. Why risk a change? Why risk all this for the sake of a major party, the Labor Party, controlled by the unions and ruled by the Greens in the Senate? The results would be instability, economic upheaval, conflict and social and family division for its very survival.

In my home state of Tasmania we have endeavoured to build a firewall against this scenario with a strong Senate team led by Parliamentary Secretary for Finance and Administration Senator Richard Colbeck, Senator David Bushby, and Senate candidate Don Morris. Senator Colbeck has run his own building company. He was President of the Chamber of Commerce in his home city of Devonport and held a directorship of the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, amongst many other achievements in the world of business, sport and the community, and of course in the Senate.

Senator David Bushby, who is in the Senate and with me in the chamber tonight, was appointed a senator on 30 August, very recently, and was sworn in today. Senator Bushby is a graduate in economics and law. He practised law in Sydney, Launceston and Hobart. He has worked both in senior positions in government and for a senior federal cabinet minister. He was a director of two companies and Secretary of the Tasmanian Small Business Council. I have known David for many years. His father, Max, was state MP for Bass for 25 years and his mother is a stalwart of numerous community and church groups in Launceston. Senator Bushby will be a great asset to Tasmania, the Liberal Party and the Senate.

Don Morris has been senior private secretary to two Senate Presidents, Senator Margaret Reid and Senator Paul Calvert, and remains private secretary to the current President. He has been adviser to Senator Watson, worked for former Tasmanian Governor-General Sir Phillip Bennett, and worked as an adviser to the federal Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government. He has also worked as a senior public servant on Norfolk Island. We attended the same school together in Launceston and our families have been friends for at least two generations. His experience and his knowledge of the Senate and how to get things done in this parliament are exceeded by only a few.

All three are outstanding candidates for the coming half Senate election and, with great respect to our political opponents, I say that these three are the best credentialled by a country mile in the Tasmanian Senate contest. May I say they will make an excellent acquisition by the Tasmanian people, given the chance, while providing a strong buttress against the worst-case scenario of the Greens having Senate control in accord with the Labor Party. (Time expired)