Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Abetz proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The Rudd government’s litany of broken promises.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I quote:

Trust is the key currency of politics, and unless you can be trusted to honour that to which you’ve committed to do, then, I’ve got to say, you’re not going to obtain the enduring respect of the Australian people.

Those prophetic words were spoken by no other than the Labor leader himself on 29 February 2008, some two years ago. Put simply, the Australian people no longer trust Labor, because Labor has not honoured the people of Australia by keeping its promises. Indeed, Labor discards its solemn promises as easily as we discard our used tissues: it spares them not another thought.

The list of broken promises, this shameful record, must surely be vying for a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Who else could recklessly make so many inflated promises—inflated both in number and actual size—and then so dismissively walk away from them other than Labor, led by the promise-making, promise-breaking duo of Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard—and, might I add, every single Labor member and senator in this place?

We all recall the galling, high and mighty pontifications of the odd couple of Australian politics telling Australians that the greatest moral challenge of our time was climate change. That was why we needed their big new tax on everything by 2010: because to delay until 2011 or 2012 and go with the rest of the world was simply irresponsible. It was immoral, no less. We then had the indecency of the Prime Minister, during question time, blaming a heatwave on climate change to underscore the importance and urgency of Labor’s emissions trading scheme, only to have it delayed by one year and then out to 2013—after not only this election but the one after that as well. The great moral challenge of our time simply evaporated. Why? Because Labor never meant it. They had focus group testing and a series of phrases clearly tested very well, and they regurgitated them, but without conviction, without sincerity and without belief, but with absolute cynicism, with connivance and with manipulation of the Australian people in mind.

The list of cynical promises and overblown commitments that Labor took to the last election is mind blowing. Remember Fuelwatch? Treasury officials worked 37 hours straight to deliver to a cynical political agenda and delivered a policy debacle. Fresh from the humiliation of that debacle, the government simply turned to GROCERYchoice, with similar cynicism and similar results.

We can turn to Ms Gillard’s trifecta of debacles. Remember the huge promise of a laptop for every student? It was the toolkit of the 21st century, we were told—but it was empty and it was not connected, and the cost blew out. Let us recall the Building the Education Revolution program—just a minor blow-out there of over $1,000 million. The worst example of Ms Gillard’s trifecta was the commitment that no worker would be worse off under their industrial relations changes. Remember that? Tens of thousands of Australian workers today are worse off—some in excess of $120 per week worse off—and all Ms Gillard can say when confronted is that her new Fair Work system is working ‘as expected’. If it is truly working as expected, why didn’t Ms Gillard tell the Australian people before the last election that tens of thousands of Australian workers would be worse off? And, of course, as minister for training, Ms Gillard was responsible for the lack of training in that literally fatal debacle with the pink batts. And Ms Gillard is seen as one of Labor’s leading lights. You can see how bad they all are when somebody with such a ministerial record is seen as one of the leading lights.

But it will be noted that these breaches of promise are in the area of economics, workplace relations, environment, climate change, education, consumer affairs and health as well. Just witness the private health insurance rebate, which Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard so solemnly promised to keep—and discarded just as easily. Look at the non-GP superclinics.

We turn to family policy. Remember the chest beating about the double drop off? How outrageous that was and that the Howard government had done nothing about it! That was why we needed 260 new childcare centres all to be funded, quite responsibly, by Mr Rudd. What did they do? I think they built three and then simply dumped the policy—no apology, no contrition; just greasing their way to the next issue hoping that people would forget that which they have broken.

I could go to border protection. What a great promise that was: that Mr Rudd would turn the boats back in the seas. Indeed, he has welcomed them with open arms and we now see the greatest flood of illegal immigration into this country for many years—I believe, ever.

Then we have the Japanese whaling debacle. Remember that? We were going to take Japan to the International Court of Justice, and how weak was Mr Howard in not doing so! Unfortunately, a lot of Australian people believed that rhetoric. What have they done? Absolutely nothing other than—and here is a hint as to when the election is going to be—they will consider taking Japan to the International Court of Justice in November or thereabouts if nothing has occurred by then. We all know the election will have come and gone by November on the basis of that promise.

What we have with this government is all inflated brash promises based on cynicism, not on the evidence or the national interest. I make this observation: the people of Australia wanted this Labor government to succeed. The people of Australia elected them. But Labor, with a huge well of goodwill to draw upon, have failed the Australian people to the point of blatant betrayal. The Australian people now see the Labor Party for what it really is: a party without character, a party without backbone, a party without belief and a party that has betrayed—remember this phrase?—the working families of Australia. Labor and its leadership team have betrayed the Australian people.

The coalition, on the other hand, under Mr Abbott’s leadership—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are your policies?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very timely interjection, Senator Pratt. On the other hand, under Mr Abbott’s leadership the coalition is plain talking. We have genuine direct action plans—no need for programmatic specificity and other nonsensical gobbledygook, no need for spin. We just have plain talk and direct action, which are such a breath of fresh air to the Australian people after three years of a barrage of stifling, meaningless verbiage.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Give us one credible policy!

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just in case those Labor senators think that the list I have raised is exhausted, let me take them through the list: the Commonwealth takeover of hospitals by July 2009; GROCERYchoice, Fuelwatch and delaying the ETS, which I have already mentioned; prudent government spending; capping IVF treatment; no budget deficits; simplifying GST paperwork for small business; GP superclinics; delivering health services to military families; providing for the homeless; taking a hard line on terrorism; taking a hard line on immigration; private health insurance; reigning in corporate salaries; the bank deposit guarantee; responding—remember this one?—to the 2020 summit; that no worker would be worse off; building a broadband network for only $4 billion, for which the figure is now $43 billion and, I suspect, will increase; restricting employee share schemes; and living in Kirribilli House. Remember that outrage? Where is he now? Swanning around in Kirribilli House.

This is a government that has breached every single one of its solemn promises to the Australian people, and that is why the Australian people have run out of patience with this government.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am nearly speechless after that diatribe of completely unfactual rubbish. What a load of rubbish! In response to the matter of public importance today, I would like to make it very clear, particularly for those opposite, who seem to live in some sort of alternative history paradise, that the Australian people understand that the Rudd government has been delivering and will continue to deliver. It is doing that knowing that those sitting opposite could not and did not deliver in 11 years of government—11 years! The blatant hypocrisy of those opposite is astounding, especially with regard to the MPI for today.

When I read what the MPI was for today, I was instantly reminded of John Howard’s promise of the never, ever GST. In fact, one of the things that I think I will best remember—and a lot of other people will too—about the Howard government is the notion of ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises, non-core promises being the kind that you do not have to keep.

A classic example of this—and there were many quotes, but I have limited time today—was the doorstop interview of 2 May 1995 with John Howard and a journalist.

Journalist: So you’ve left the door open for a GST now, haven’t you?

Howard: No, there’s no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy.

Journalist: Never ever?

Howard: Never ever. It’s dead. It was killed by the voters at the last election.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? It also makes you wonder about Mr Abbott’s ‘Work Choices is dead’ comments too. I do not think that has actually been a promise, but it does make us wonder.

Let us not forget John Howard’s promise that he would keep interest rates at all-time lows. History, of course, tells us a very different story there. In fact, so arrogant and out of touch were he and his government that he said Australian families had never had it better. Obviously, Australian families did not agree with him, did they?

Let us put this into perspective. The Rudd government have been governing since November 2007 and already we have delivered on many of our worthwhile election promises, some of which I intend to outline—

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce interjecting—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Joyce! I intend to outline some of those election promises for those opposite. It comes as no surprise that those opposite want to whinge and moan. They have made a habit out of it; that is all they do. They have no policies. They have some plans, allegedly, but no policies. In fact, all we get from those on the other side is nagging, grizzling, moaning—they are like spoilt little children. We just turn off to it after a while. Where are their policies on improving the health and education systems? Where are their funding commitments to local communities? I will tell you where they are. They are not there; they are nonexistent. The complete audacity of those opposite is evidenced best by looking right here in the Senate, a Senate which is currently being obstructed by those opposite. They have nothing constructive to add. They are just opposition for opposition’s sake.

Being a passionate advocate for Tasmania, it does give me great pleasure to inform the Senate of some of the many funding promises that have been and will continue to be honoured by the Rudd government. Let me start with Franklin. Delivering on the Rudd government election promises in the electorate of Franklin has been the very energetic and hardworking federal member for Franklin, Julie Collins. Ms Collins has worked hard to deliver on every election commitment to the local residents of Franklin since being elected in 2007, all of which of course will be of ongoing benefit to the people across the electorate.

The Franklin electorate commitments included $15 million to fund construction of the Kingston bypass—tick; $12 million to fund the Huon Valley regional water scheme—tick; $10.5 million to fund stage 1 of the south-east Tasmania recycled water scheme—another tick; $5.5 million to fund the Clarence GP super clinic, about which I thought I heard the previous speaker say there was none—tick; $166,000 for the Green Tea program—yet another tick; $155,949 for the redevelopment of the Dennes Point community centre—tick; $35,000 for the Cygnet gymnasium—tick; $10,000 for the Kingborough Lions soccer club—tick; $10,000 for the Rokeby Cricket Club to install nets—tick; and $10,000 for the Port Huon Sports Centre—tick. Those are just an example of some of the promises that have been met in Tasmania. The Rudd government is delivering on its promise to the Australian people—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a sustained exercise in irony, Senator Joyce!

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The exercise of the MPI from your side is just an exercise in complete futility. The people of Australia know that the Rudd government does keep its promises, is continuing to keep its promises and will continue to keep its promises. We will give the kids an opportunity to obtain skills and education.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce interjecting—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you think that is not a worthy cause, do you?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what amazing about you guys: you sit there and you laugh about things you know that we have done. We have kept those promises— (Time expired)

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know how many of the interjections Hansard would have caught. I just want to put on the record profound relief that the chamber just showed that you got the Green Tea program in Tassie right. I want to speak briefly about one of the things that the Rudd government has got very wrong—and I like green tea.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don’t?

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I do. I am a big fan. It is just a relief to know that something has been going right.

On the matter of radioactive waste, the Rudd government has been nothing short of a disaster. The government has not delivered in the spirit of or to the letter of very simple commitments that it made in the run-up to the 2007 election. So, in the context of this debate on the Rudd government’s broken promises, I want to return briefly to the heady days of the 2007 election campaign, with Kevin Rudd in opposition castigating the Howard government’s approach to radioactive waste management, which had been, I should say, appalling. But the Rudd opposition at the time—quite senior ALP spokespeople and to a person all of their Northern Territory representatives and candidates in both Houses—made very strong commitments in the area of radioactive waste.

Let us reflect briefly on what the promise was and what the 2007 election platform said. Chapter 5 stated:

Labor is committed to a responsible, mature and international best practice approach to radioactive waste management in Australia.

Accordingly, a Federal Labor Government will:

• not proceed with the development of any of the current sites identified by the Howard Government in the Northern Territory, if no contracts have been entered into for those sites.
• repeal the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act 2005.
• establish a process for identifying suitable sites that is scientific, transparent, accountable, fair and allows access to appeal mechanisms—

this is pretty simple language. If elected, a Rudd government was also to:

• ensure full community consultation in radioactive waste decision-making processes.
• commit to international best practice scientific processes to underpin Australia’s radioactive waste management, including transportation and storage.

I was working as one of the advisers to Senator Rachael Siewert when this legislation was first rammed through the Senate towards the end of 2005, in the same sitting fortnight as the former government’s Work Choices legislation, Welfare to Work legislation, the legislation abolishing compulsory student unionism and, of course, the infamous terror laws, which are all still on the books. They found time to ram through radioactive waste dump legislation as well. Again, the ALP condemned that. They called the legislation—accurately, in my view—extreme, arrogant, heavy-handed, draconian, sorry, sordid, extraordinary and profoundly shameful. Some of these words were put to us by Senator Trish Crossin, Senator Carr and Warren Snowdon, MP. Of course, they were spot on. They took a very clear and unequivocal position on this issue into the closing months of the 2007 election campaign. So that was the promise, and exactly when has it been broken? Indeed, is there a case to say that it has been?

The first thing that happened subsequent to the Rudd government taking office after the 2007 election was that radioactive waste management issues were mysteriously taken out of the science portfolio, where they had been right through the period of the Howard government and well before, and given to Martin Ferguson in the resources and industry portfolio. That is a bizarre decision to make, quite honestly: to transfer radioactive waste management from the science portfolio to the resources portfolio; to give it to somebody with absolutely no expertise, no subtlety and no idea, really, about any of the commitments that had been made by the Rudd government and by its representatives in the Northern Territory and around Australia in the run-up to the election. So it was given to this minister with no background, no expertise and no willingness to follow through with the ALP’s election commitment, and we waited for several months for the government to fulfil that promise. It was pretty simple, really: repeal the legislation and replace it with something scientifically defensible that actually brings the community along, rather than simply ramming something through, as the former government had attempted. We started to get pretty edgy. This was at the time when I took my place in here, and I started testing the ALP on whether they actually would come through with this election commitment. On a couple of occasions we brought motions through here and watched the government vote against the exact same language that was in their policy document in the lead-up to the 2007 election. We were not asking them to do anything, simply to note the language in those policy commitments, but the ALP lined up against the Greens and voted against it. That was interesting.

In 2008, the government-dominated Senate Environment, Communications and the Arts Committee conducted an inquiry into my private senator’s bill to fulfil the ALP’s election commitment for them: a repeal of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act. That committee did some very good work. It was very collegial. We travelled to Alice Springs, and we had hearings here in Canberra. We heard from the agencies with the lead portfolio responsibility for radioactive waste management, from the industry and from environment groups around the country with a very large membership with a strong interest in these issues. In Alice Springs we heard from some senior traditional owners from around the Territory, because at that time four sites were still under consideration and they were very strongly opposed to the approach of the former government and wanted to know why on earth the ALP had not followed through with their commitment. Senator McEwen, who is with us this afternoon, chaired that committee. We in the Australian Greens had quite a degree of affinity, and we signed on to the majority report. We had some additional comments but the recommendations flowing from that report were quite satisfactory to us in large part in that they said that the government should do what they said they would do when in opposition. The committee came out with a set of recommendations that were not perfect, as far as we were concerned, but that we could live with. We shared common ground at that time on the objective of establishing a consensual process of site selection, which looks to agreed scientific grounds for determining suitability and the centrality of community consultation and support.

So what exactly happened after that? Nothing at all. The first thing that the government did was to ignore the committee’s recommendation that the repeal bill be brought in to this place at the beginning of the first quarter of last year. That did not happen. It took a full year for the minister to get around to serving up what we have before us now. The Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee was given, in the government’s view, 11 working days to inquire into to the government’s repeal bill, which in fact is nothing more than a rather shabby and amateurish cut and paste of what the former government had been proceeding with. At least with the former government you knew where you stood. What we have now with the Rudd government is exactly the same approach with an added dash of hypocrisy, because when they were in opposition they had been castigating senators and MPs on this side of the chamber for doing what they are now quite clearly doing in attempting to ram it through this place. That is indeed a broken election commitment.

Who cares? Who was the Labor Party making this election commitment to in the run-up to the 2007 election? Chiefly, of course, the people on the front line, the people targeted to host, against their will and without their consent, a facility hosting Australia’s most dangerous industrial waste materials—radiotoxic waste, the low-level material that ticks for a period of approximately 300 years, the long-lived intermediate level waste, the old reactor cores and the spent fuel that has been reprocessed overseas and returned to Australia, which is deadly for tens of thousands of years, for periods that will last several ice ages from now. The government are attempting to force this facility on to a cattle station 100 kilometres from Tennant Creek in a direct violation of the commitments that they made in the run-up to that election. For the people who are on the front line, and who are facing this juggernaut now in the name of Martin Ferguson, sitting in an office in Canberra planning this assault on their sovereignty and on their rights to stand up for country and culture, that election promise has been violated. For ALP voters, who during the federal election campaign put their trust in the representatives that the ALP would send to Canberra, the promise has been broken. For anybody who preferenced the ALP, including a large number of Green voters who helped carry the Rudd government into office, the promise has been broken. For environment groups, with tens of thousands of members around Australia who have taken a long interest in this and who have played an enormously important role in galvanising community support around the country for communities on the front line, the promise has been broken and for every Northern Territory citizen who thought the ALP would be able to serve up something better than what we have seen now that promise has been broken.

So now what we see is a 2007 election promise becoming a 2010 election liability. I see it as a very important part of my job in the remaining months, whether or not the Rudd government succeeds in blasting this flawed and disgusting piece of legislation through this place, to make sure that right around the country this is not seen as a Northern Territory issue. When the Senate committee sat in Darwin we had rallies as far away as Hobart, Perth and Melbourne, a very long way from where that Senate committee was hearing evidence from the traditional owners on the front line, from the Northern Territory Chief Minister and from people right on down the line. This is not an issue that is going to go away. This is an election commitment that will haunt the government in this election campaign.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a little more than three years since the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kevin Rudd, planted himself in front of some rural fencing against the beautiful background of the Nambour countryside. Looking straight down the barrel of a camera, he read from a script prepared for him by an advertising agent, and he said: ‘When it comes to being an economic conservative, it is a badge I wear with pride.’ Several months later, when he delivered the Labor Party’s policy speech for the 2007 election, the line that resonated in that speech—the one line everybody will remember, though we remember it these days for a very different reason than we did then—contained the words ‘this reckless spending must stop’.

Mr Kevin Rudd and his team were elected by the Australian people on 24 November 2007 to be the government of Australia because the Australian people trusted them. They did not know very much about Kevin Rudd at the time, but they knew that he was a fresh face. They knew that he was a glib, articulate and, evidently, intelligent public spokesman for the Labor Party. They put their trust in him. They trusted that he was as good as his word. After he was elected, he maintained that he was a politician who could be trusted. When he spoke at the Australian War Memorial in March 2008, only five months after he was elected, Mr Kevin Rudd said:

We’re going to adhere to the integrity of the budget process but all working families ... will be protected by our Government in the production of that budget and we will honour all of our pre election commitments.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just another lie.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, just another lie. He went on:

Every one of them, every one of them.

They were Mr Rudd’s very words in the first blush of electoral success, five months after he was voted into office. A few months later, he addressed the National Press Club and, reflecting on the government’s first year, he said:

When we formed government, I said I had no intention of recycling the absolute cynicism of previous governments—making a swag of pre-election commitments then reneging on them ...

That is what he said then. As late as year, Mr Rudd seemed to continue to command the confidence of the Australian people, if the opinion polls are any guide. But you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Marshall, as every senator in this chamber knows, that there has been a significant change of sentiment across this nation over the Easter recess. What those of us who know Kevin Rudd well knew would happen—particularly those of us who have known him from the Queensland days, the bad old days even before he was a member of parliament—has happened: the people have found him out.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You all sat there mute.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Quite right, Senator McGauran. The Labor Party, who must have known what he was like, sat mute and defended the indefensible. Let it not be forgotten that these are the people who wanted to make Mark Latham Prime Minister in 2004 and told us how good he was, until he was found out by the Australian people. They knew what Kevin Rudd was like too, but this time the con trick worked. This time, the Leader of the Labor Party was not found out before the election in the way that Mr Mark Latham had been.

What we have had over the Easter recess is what I call the ‘Mark Latham moment’—the moment when the penny dropped with the Australian people that Kevin Rudd was not what he represented himself to be, that Kevin Rudd was as cynical a politician as god ever put breath into. That moment came, in particular, when Mr Rudd humiliatingly and comprehensively abandoned, for electoral reasons, what he had only four months earlier described as ‘the greatest moral, social and economic challenge of our time’—the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bushby interjecting—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, Senator Bushby, if he was a man of courage, he would call a double dissolution on the issue. But it is not likely now. What the Australian people have discovered about Kevin Rudd is that for him promises have no meaning. Do not worry about core promises and non-core promises. There are no such things as core promises in the Rudd government; there are merely expendable words—words that get you from one news cycle to the next but contain no integrity, no commitment and no purpose.

This government must be such a disappointment to its supporters, to those who serve as its ministers and those who serve as its apologists on the backbench. You must have known about this man—this man you elected as leader in extremis when you had run out of other options four years ago. The Australian people have now woken up to the fact that he cannot be trusted, that nothing he says can be believed, that he stands for nothing, that he has no core values, that he has no guiding philosophy, that he has no policy courage, that he is a hollow man and a hollow political leader.

This is the first Australian Prime Minister in the lifetime of anybody in this chamber today—and I am sorry to say this about a Prime Minister of this great country—about whom one must say has a character problem. You would not have said that about John Howard, loathe him or love, nor would you have said it about Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser or Gough Whitlam, or any Australian Prime Minister I can remember. Regardless of what you thought of his policies, regardless of what you thought of his style of government, every Australian Prime Minister on both sides of politics I can remember in my lifetime was a person of character, a person steadfast in their beliefs, whatever those beliefs may have been. This man has no steadfastness in his beliefs because he has no beliefs. He has no core values and his commitment to any sense of values is nominal, transitory and temporary. He is a politician who lives from news cycle to news cycle. The hollow man, caricatured on ABC television, now leads a government tainted forever in the public mind and to be forever condemned in Australian history as the government led by the man who stood for nothing.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are a government that has faced up to enormous challenges, including a financial crisis that threatened the livelihoods of Australians right across the nation. I am proud of the way that we have faced up to these challenges. It has been done with courage, conviction and purpose. We make no apology for coming into government with a big agenda, with big aspirations for this nation and with a determination to address more than a decade of neglect of Australia’s interests under the Howard government. It was a decade where unfairness was entrenched and where the proceeds of the last resources boom were squandered while productivity stalled. It was a decade where the big issues in health and education were ignored. Under Mr Abbott’s watch $1 billion was ripped out of public hospitals and nothing was done about a chronic shortage of nurses and GPs. It was a decade where working Australians suffered the insecurity of Work Choices—a policy that Mr Abbott rules out in name but will not rule out in practice. It was a decade where the stolen generation was denied an apology and where asylum seekers were used as a football for political gain.

But I am not going to waste further time talking about the Howard years because we all know that the forthcoming election is at the core of this debate today. This debate is about what Australians want from their future government. That is why today I stand proud. Like my colleagues, I stand behind our achievements and our commitment to reform in the national interest. I know that we are well placed to deliver on our commitments. We can look forward to a bright future because we have avoided a global recession through the strong and decisive action that stimulated the economy and saved a quarter of a million jobs by investing in local communities and essential infrastructure. We are delivering on better health and hospitals, ending the blame game with the states and putting together a $15.6 billion plan, including commitments for thousands more doctors and nurses and caps on waiting times.

We are providing a fairer distribution of the nation’s wealth in ways that also support economic growth. For example, we have delivered a massive increase in the childcare rebate. It was a great Labor initiative that was good for families and good for the economy. We have also delivered a long overdue increase to the pension—reforms to make the pension more sustainable. We also have a plan to ensure that the surplus profits generated by this mining boom are shared, not squandered. We have a plan that will benefit all Australians through lower company taxes, especially for small businesses—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, I ask you to come to order. You were mostly heard in silence and I ask you to give the same courtesy to Senator Pratt.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is just a bully.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator Collins, I think I can do without anyone else’s help. The Senate chamber will come to order.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have a plan for better super, especially for low-income earners, and for more infrastructure, especially for the mining states like my own. These are responsible reforms for a stronger economy and a fairer Australia. We are delivering on our education revolution through the My School website, the national curriculum and new facilities for all schools around the nation.

Our commitment to justice and social inclusion has seen the removal of children from detention centres and an end to inhumane temporary protection visas, a plan that is tackling homelessness around the nation, equality for same-sex couples and their children in 85 laws, an apology to the stolen generation and a commitment to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We have had to fight tooth and nail for many of our reforms and the numbers in this chamber also mean that we have not won them all. Climate change remains the greatest environmental challenge of our time and one that can be fully addressed only when those opposite show the vision required to do so.

You talk about broken promises, but what you deliver are broken policies that have not worked—like your blame the states health policy under your leader, Mr Abbott, which ran down our health system and like your plan to put a massive new tax on business to make higher parental leave payments to those who already earn the most. It was a policy that broke Mr Abbott’s no new taxes policy just five weeks after he announced it.

Then there are your policies that are policies in name only, like your leader’s statement that Work Choices is dead, and the policies that you renege on under Mr Abbott’s leadership, like your commitment to put a price on carbon. So, as you sit there in your obstructionist, broken policy zone, think about this: the Rudd Labor government will be getting on with creating jobs and managing the economy, reforming our health and education systems, and making Australia a better and fairer place for all Australians.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Welcome, Australia, to Labor’s philosophical brothel of ideas where any virtue is for sale—purchased for popularity but never loved beyond the dirty, grimy bed where these ideals have been laid down to be abused and deflowered by the Labor Party and by their cohort of senior ministers. It is the philosophical brothel of ideas. It has no substance, it is so tacky, it is so horrible; and everybody—even the Greens—feels they have been used. That is the resentment that is welling up because people—even we on this side—believed that Kevin was serious about what he said. But we were duped.

Now we have this incredible many and varied personality. It has always amazed me. This personality started with ‘2020 Kevin’—that earnest man sitting on the carpet, cross-legged with his clipboard and taking down notes. He was taking notes, he was listening to Australia, he had a thousand people around for tea and he was going to make them all feel satisfied. What did we get out of that? What a revelation: we got the republic. I thought we had already heard that idea. Anyway, that is what we got from that. Then we had ‘Combat Kevin’. This man wants war. He had a war on obesity. He had a war on drugs. He had a war on inflation. He is a very violent man. He had a war on unemployment. He had a war on executive salaries. He was going to help the disadvantaged but he was going to have a war on homelessness. When he was not at war he was starting revolutions. He had a Building the Education Revolution. It was revolution and wars. It was him in his DPCUs with his Steyr under his arm. He was out there having wars.

Then we had ‘Earnest Kevin’, who was saying ‘sorry’ but not actually doing anything about Indigenous disadvantage. He was having review after review; he was having reviews on reviews. He was a man who lived in reviews, who lived as a dilettante wandering across the nation picking up daisies and thinking about the world. It was ‘Earnest Kevin’—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce, you are really skating very close.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He had jets and he believed in visiting people—wherever they lived. This is earnestness.

Then we had ‘Copenhagen Kevin’. He was going to cool the planet from a room in Canberra. He told us so. He was going to do it by himself. He did not need anybody else; he was flying solo on this one. He was really going to show us how big his muscles were! The unfortunate thing was that he was not only going to cool the planet; he was also going to try to cool everybody’s house. He was going to spend $2.45 billion cooling everybody’s house. But, far from cooling people’s houses, he actually ended up burning down in excess of 110 of them. Tragically, there were deaths associated with this. So much for ‘Copenhagen Kevin’.

Then we had ‘Casualty Kevin’. He was dressed up in a blue smock. He had a little plastic blue hat, a plastic blue jacket, and he had his little plastic pants and his plastic booties on. And it came with an association: he had Nicola in blue as well.

The Acting Deputy President:

Senator Joyce, I have really cut you a lot of slack, in one sense, but I think you need to bring yourself back to addressing people by their correct names and titles.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister was dressed up in blue. He was very blue; and I know that. And he looked at the camera, and he winked at the camera, and he took his little blue smock and he disappeared. I was wondering what he was going to do. Maybe he was going to operate on somebody. I did not know. But I earnestly believed that today he was in blue and he was going to do something. It was all part of the rhetoric. The last one we have is ‘Castro Kevin’. This is the one who nationalises the mining industry.

The Acting Deputy President:

Again, Senator Joyce, I have pulled you up.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘Castro Prime Minister’—this one believes in nationalising the mining industry. This manifestation—in the ritual of new images being displayed for the Australian people—is peculiar in the extreme. Where was this promise at the last election? Australia has not heard something like this since 1949, when they were going to nationalise the banks. Don’t worry; it almost brought about a civil war, but let’s just put that behind us. Let’s forget about the new guard and all the things that occur when you nationalise industries. People are asking very serious questions about where we are now. What on earth has happened to this nation? It has devolved into something that is quite peculiar. You are getting all these manifestations, and it is costing you only $1¼ billion a week. What a bargain! What an absolute bargain! It must be a bargain to live at the philosophical brothel of ideas for only $1¼ billion a week—

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that million or billion?

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is billion. It is ‘b’ for ‘bravo’ and it is ‘b’ for ‘billion’—and that is what it is costing Australia to live at this place. This is incredible. How did we get ourselves into this bind? How could Australia honestly stay with this person for another three years? How could we possibly even venture down the path of living at this philosophical brothel for another three years? Look at the absolute hypocrite that Mr Rudd has made of Minister Wong. I honestly believe that what Minister Wong said was what she believed. But now, in his absolutely mercenary way, he has not only let down the Australian people; he is also destroying his colleagues, one after the other. He does not care who he shoots. He does not care what he does. It is beyond his capacity to have empathy and to actually understand what is happening.

Look at all the people who are going to be cast aside and who are going to be made to look like hypocrites. Whether you are Peter Garrett or Penny Wong—next it will be Combet—you would do well to stay away from the Prime Minister. But there is one thing I do not want you to do: don’t you dare change him, because we want him there. Don’t you dare change to Julia Gillard; you leave Mr Rudd right there, because he is turning into our biggest asset. We will watch tonight with wonderment as they put forward Wayne Swan to try to shade out Mr Rudd. Now we know that this is how far it has descended: Wayne Swan is going to save Kevin Rudd. That is where it has got to and that is what we will see tonight on television. It has really become total and utter pathos.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, this debate has declined significantly. Some elements of humour do not cover the types of references that have been covered by opposition senators. Rather than argue their point—and I will come to what I think has been the main point in this debate—we get the sort of rhetoric that came from Senator Joyce about ‘brothels of ideas’ and ‘deflowerings’ and ‘being used’. We get all sorts of opinion as to the character of the Prime Minister from people who know very little about the man—in fact, from the same people who said very different things about John Howard when he was in government. I seem to recall reports about Senator Brandis’s references to John Howard as ‘the rat’, and yet he has the arrogance to come in here and say that our Prime Minister has no character and to claim that the very same Mr Howard is a man whom he holds in great regard.

In my short time today, I want to concentrate on what I think has been the main point—which Senator Brandis alluded to—and that is: this is about honouring promises. This is not about keeping promises regardless of changed circumstances; this is about having a plan, having an agenda and honouring the promises you have made. The best example I can give, just by virtue of my personal experience in this area and in the past, is what I would characterise as the national agenda for children. We refer to it as a national agenda for early childhood in Australia, but I recall when the minister of the day back in the early 2000s said that the Howard government would eventually introduce a national agenda for children. He claimed this for roughly five years. And we waited, and we waited, and we waited, and nothing happened.

Perhaps one of the most audacious claims of this opposition, when they mark their little tick boxes for what promises have been kept and what promises have not been kept, is when they talk about the 260 childcare centres that were part of our broader strategy of a national agenda for early childhood, because those centres were designed to rectify what the previous government had done to the market in child care. The promises that it made at that time were never kept. The promises of Barnaby Joyce’s former colleague Larry Anthony were never kept. The ministerial standards and the character that were meant to be part of the Howard government never occurred. That man left this parliament and went on to be a director of ABC child care and took fees from them during this process. I was only reminded a couple of weeks ago when he appeared in the Federal Court. We have seen the details of his consultant’s fees, his director’s fees and his lobbying on behalf of ABC child care, yet this opposition has the audacity to say that, because there are now changed circumstances in the market for long day care places, we have adjusted our policies in that area. We have, for some very good reasons which the government is able to justify and which are supported by the sector. Not only did we need to spend $58-odd million to rectify the problems around ABC child care—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Opposition senators raise their arms at the reference to $58 million. Is it nothing, Senator? What the former government did in this sector was one of the most outrageous elements of the previous government. Today we have a much broader agenda that is being delivered and being implemented. We have promises such as: access to early childhood education for four-year-olds, which is being delivered, and national quality standards, which are being delivered. And, yes, we do have promises around accessibility to child care, which are being delivered.

In your usual trite way, you address the commitment in relation to childcare centres, but it is what you do not say that is critical. You do not say that the number of childcare centres has grown by 1,000 over the relevant period. So our earlier promises are less relevant today than they were when they were made. They were made at a time when the previous government was deliberately denying us market data so that this sector could not be planned competently. So we come into government, we deal with the collapse of ABC child care—which had been allowed to grow into an enormous monopoly of delivery—and we stabilise the sector. Then, after we have had access to the relevant information, we are able to assess what the real growth in the sector has been and we see that accessibility has been improved by changes in the market and that an extra thousand childcare centres have been delivered within the market. And only a fool would proceed with a policy once they understood what change had occurred.

Those opposite talk about integrity, quality and character, but I look back on just this one issue you claim is a broken promise and I remember what Prime Minister Howard allowed his minister to do in this sector. Let us look at some of that whilst I am on that point. Let us look at the fundraisers and the lobbying that was allowed to occur in ABC child care. That is the nature of the character of the former government—which you do not find in this government. You cannot find the casualties that occurred under the Howard government amongst our ministers. (Time expired)

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak on this subject this afternoon. One interesting thing I would say at the outset about this MPI is that it does seem to have been the inaugural outing of the Liberal Party’s new Senate leadership team. We have seen Senator Abetz and Senator Brandis put themselves through their paces in attempting, to use that worn old phrase, to develop a narrative for the Liberal Party.

I guess when one considers the subject of broken promises, one has to concede at the very outset that those opposite are very well credentialled indeed when it comes to broken promises. Let us look for a moment at Howard’s and, indeed, Abbott’s record with respect to broken promises, because for 11 years those opposite governed this country on the back of one broken promise following another. ‘There will never, ever be a GST’ was the pronouncement before the 2006 election, and of course we all know what became of that promise. ‘No worker will be worse off’ was the solid undertaking from those opposite when introducing Work Choices. That commitment is now a matter of record, a continuing stain on the honour of the coalition. John Howard declared in 2001:

… I re-state the assurances I have previously made …

• Nobody’s benefit will be cut as a result of changes to the social security system.

Yet only a short time later, in June 2002, the Howard government cut the pensions of some 200,000 disability support pensioners.

In 2004 John Howard swore that he would keep interest rates at record lows. Mr Howard told an interviewer at the time: ‘There won’t be any pressure on interest rates from us.’ This, of course, was followed by five interest rate rises, which again stands as a lasting testament to the fact that those opposite cannot manage a boom and do not have the stomach to manage anything else.

We should not simply confine these broken promises to the former Prime Minister. Tony Abbott himself has star qualities in this debate. In October 2004 Tony Abbott himself gave ‘an absolutely rock solid, ironclad commitment’—those were his words—that the Medicare safety net threshold would not be raised. After the election the threshold was indeed raised. In an interview with Laurie Oaks, when questioned about this spectacular backflip, this spectacular piece of callisthenics, Tony Abbott admitted that the government had indeed been aware of significant budget blowouts in this particular item before the election. Laurie Oakes remarked:

But your word’s not worth much any more, is it? A Tony Abbott commitment now will rouse horse laughs.

That was 2005, but the horse laughs continue, because those opposite today have the stomach, have the gall, have the cheek, to come into this place and try and accuse the Rudd Labor government of being behind ‘a litany of broken promises’. Let us take a moment to look at the profound deceit that sits behind and underpins that proposition. Since the Rudd Labor government came to office those opposite have worked assiduously as saboteurs in this place to block the government’s program. They have left no stone unturned in their resolve to obstruct and stymie the democratic mandate, a mandate secured by Kevin Rudd and Labor in 2007.

I have procured a list of all of the various pieces of legislation that those opposite have successfully blocked in this place and I seek to mention only some of the highlights for the edification of those opposite: the luxury car tax imposition, the Interstate Road Transport Charge Amendment Bill, the business investment partnership bill, the climate change bill version 1, the Household Stimulus Package Bill 2009, the Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Bill, the Tax Laws Amendment (Medicare Levy Surcharge Thresholds) Bill 2008, and the Fairer Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill. It is a short taste of a much longer list which stands as testament to the fact that you have left absolutely no stone unturned in your commitment to blocking the program of this government. For you this might indeed be a list of pride, because you have successfully sabotaged and dismantled, at every available opportunity, the program of this government. Having succeeded in that heinous task all too often, you now have the cheek to come into this place and try and complain about the fact that some of this government’s commitments have not been achieved—the fruit of your own obstructionism. It is an absolute outrage.

Of course, the greatest of those outrages, at least to my mind, is in relation to climate change. While those opposite seek to crow about the fact that climate change legislation has been successfully defeated in this parliament, they do not seem to take the bow for succeeding in achieving that. That bill was brought to this parliament and it was successfully blocked by the coalition and the Greens. Undeterred, the government continued with its resolve to create action on climate change. Penny Wong and Greg Combet, undeterred, entered into negotiations with the Liberal Party. As we know, when it comes to breaking promises those opposite have absolutely superb credentials. So it is no surprise to us that, having reached an agreement with the opposition about the passage of that climate change legislation, the catherine-wheel of the Liberal Party’s climate change policy finally came to rest over the corpse of Malcolm Turnbull. Having finally reached a resolve to be climate change deniers—after 10 or 11 permutations—you blocked that legislation for a second time.

Let us consider the enormity of that deed, because not only were you reneging on an agreement you reached with the government, not only did you tear down your own leader to achieve it, but you did it in the face of your own commitments to the Australian people and in the face of your own policy. (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the debate has expired.