Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Back today relating to Western Australia and the Prime Minister.

It is one thing for an opposition to criticise the current Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, for her grotesque failure of policy in this country, but I have to say that it takes it to a whole new level when an entire state division of the Australian Labor Party—and, of course, I mean the great state of Western Australia's division—issues an edict stating that the Prime Minister of Australia and her federal colleagues are not to cross the border and are not to come anywhere near Western Australia in the lead-up to the state election.

I take you to the report in the Australian on 23 February by Samantha Maiden headed 'Gillard told "keep out of WA"'. On reading this report, I almost feel personally embarrassed for the Prime Minister. Samantha Maiden's report states:

We rang everyone in December and said, 'Please, don't come'—

to Western Australia. That is a Labor strategist speaking. Can you just imagine them sitting in their offices and picking up the phone to the Prime Minister and picking up the phone to Labor ministers and saying, 'Oh please, please, if you do anything, don't come near Western Australia because we are so on the nose in Western Australia that, if you do cross that border, if you are seen standing next to us, it is going to be a bad election result for Labor in any event but this will make it a total disaster'? Let's read it again because it is just so embarrassing: 'We rang everyone in December and said, "Please don't come"' to WA.

But what does Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten do? He flies into Western Australia regardless, because he could not care less what Labor strategists say. He could not care less what the Prime Minister says. Let us face it: we all know where he wants to be, and that is in the Prime Minister's position. So what have they said about good old Mr Shorten, who flew into Western Australia on a 'fly-in fly-out visit', as they have termed it? It has prompted much mirth amongst Labor MPs, who have suggested that he must have received special air clearance to actually undertake that visit. You have to wonder who gave him that special air clearance.

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

The MUA.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly. The MUA—good old Labor union mates. Seriously, Mr Deputy President, you can actually see Mr McGowan, can't you, sitting in his office and thinking, 'I've got this great thing happening'? It is almost like: 'It is my party, Ms Gillard. I will invite who I want to, and I can tell you: you ain't on my list of people who will be coming over.'

As most senators and members would know, we spend hours going through the invitations that come to our office and working out: 'Can we? Can't we? Should I make it a priority? Should I juggle my diary to ensure that I can get to a certain event?' The good news for the Prime Minister is that she can do a lot of juggling, because she is not allowed to get on that plane to make the almost five-hour journey west and go anywhere near Western Australia. Her staff are probably in her office on a daily basis thinking, 'Please, please, something from WA.' But the edict is very, very clear. The Labor Party in Western Australia have spoken. Federal Labor should not and will not come anywhere near our great state. Why is that? Mark McGowan, the leader of state Labor, has made it very clear. He has totally ditched Labor's carbon tax. Why has he ditched it? Because he knows it is an impost on business. It is an impost on families. He knows that federal Labor should ditch that policy. He also knows that Labor's mining resource rent tax is an anti-WA tax, and this is, of course, despite the federal member for Brand, Gary Gray, proudly standing in the parliament in its last sitting and stating:

The mining tax is an outstanding tax, works effectively and has many, many benefits.

The people of Brand should be very, very worried when their own federal representative supports a tax that is vehemently anti-Western Australia and is the one tax that the Labor Party introduced which raises next to no money. And then, Mr Deputy President—and do not start me on it—there is the Western Australian position on Australia's borders. They were behind John Howard every single step of the way.

The question that the Labor Party at a federal level need to ask themselves is: 'If state Labor have worked out that those three policies are not in the interests of Western Australia, when is the federal government going to work that out?' (Time expired)

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am absolutely amazed at the fascination that people on the other side have with the Prime Minister's diary. If you are keen to find out what is in the diary of the Prime Minister or those of the members of the cabinet, the other members and all of us—we have diaries as well—we are more than happy to give you a look at them. It is really an easy thing to do to just share that. To have the whole of this period focused on what is happening with whose diary and when seems to me to be an interesting policy process. We have seen the attempt to link the diary to policy—and I admire that. To link the diary to policy is a good effort. However, what we all know in this place and what those of us who have been working in this area for a long time know is that consistently over many years in state politics and in federal politics people have an ongoing discussion about the way to determine a strategy and a campaign. There has been this process to work this out, and that has always been—certainly from the Queensland perspective—to look at what the issues are in a state election and then focus in on them. I have looked at what has been going on—even though I do not have an intimate knowledge, as I know my colleague Senator Sterle has—and I have seen what issues have been raised in the state election in WA. People are looking at their own issues. They are looking at the budget. They are looking at job cuts. They are looking at transport. These are all things that are effective and needed in the state arena. The state strategy campaigner said: 'We are wanting to make it clear to the people of Western Australia that we are running in a state election. We are putting up our candidates. We are putting up our people. And we are focusing in on the state election in WA.' It is a process that happens all the time.

It is a noble attempt by the people on the other side to link the WA election to the diaries of our cabinet ministers—for example, the fact that Minister Shorten, at the invitation of the WA union, went into WA in a fly-in fly-out visit. It is unheard of for a minister to go to a meeting and then fly out to another meeting! It is newsworthy, and I hope that the media will look at how many times in the final period before a state election—when was the last election?—people flew into a meeting, attended the meeting and then flew away! That is a big story; we must have some kind of review to see how often it happens!

I always acknowledge the extraordinary amount of travel time that members from Western Australia have to put in just to do their job; I know that one of the major issues our members from Western Australian have is the amount of time they have to spend on planes. All too often, because of the demands on their time, they have to fly in and out on what we lovingly call in Queensland 'the red-eye'. I often see people staggering off the plane having just completed the long journey from WA.

Those opposite are fascinated with diaries and checking out where cabinet members are going to be next. In question time we had a question focusing on—and concerned about—why the Prime Minister had been in a New South Wales venue. Are we now going to say that the New South Wales people have a special double interest in whether they invite members of cabinet to their areas? The people on the other side are attempting purely to make a political point that they believe is going to help in some way their side in the WA election.

It always interests me that, every time there is a state election, you find LNP senators making speeches in the adjournment debate and saying a range of things about the evils of the Labor people in their state. It seems that they think that doing so will have an impact on the result of the election; I do not believe that it will. A media statement came out, purporting to be from the leader of the Labor Party in WA, in which a decision is made on the way that things are operating in the WA state election. Those opposite should focus on the state and on the state election. They are the important issues.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No matter how hard Senator Moore tries—and it was a good effort, I must say—to camouflage and throw up detractors, she does not deal with the issue of why the ALP state leader, Mark McGowan, has banned Prime Minister Gillard from Western Australia for the duration of the Western Australian state election campaign. This is an incredible state of affairs. It is unprecedented for a Prime Minister to be seen as such a political liability by a state division of a party—in this case the Labor Party—that the Prime Minister is banned from coming to the state—in this case Western Australia, which is driving the Australian economy. You would think that, if the Australian Prime Minister wanted to go anywhere, it would be to the state which is earning all the export income and generating all the money for Australia's development. But the fact is that the Prime Minister has been asked to stay away from Western Australia because she is such bad news there.

Senator Moore made a great effort in talking about Shorten coming to Western Australia. But isn't it interesting that he just flew in and out and did not stay there as you would expect any senior minister to do? You would expect a whole range of branches to have functions for him to come to, but he sneaked in and out as quickly as possible so he was not seen in Perth or anywhere else around Western Australia. It tells you that the Western Australian state Labor organisation knows how badly this federal government is on the nose in Western Australia.

It is not hard to understand why the ALP in WA does not want the senior federal ministers in Western Australia. It comes back to the fact that Western Australia is driving the Australian economy and to the fact that our economy is based on international investment in the resources and mining sectors. Over the years Western Australia has received huge investments, running into hundreds of millions of dollars, because WA governments from the time of Sir Charles Court—who founded the Pilbara iron ore industry and the North West Shelf oil and gas industry—have made investors welcome in Western Australia and because the state has had a low sovereign risk profile. But the federal Labor government has destroyed Australia's reputation for low sovereign risk, and it has done so in part through the very taxes which Senator Moore referred to: the minerals resource rent tax and the super profits tax, which Prime Minister Rudd sought to introduce. These taxes have scared the international mining industry. They know that Western Australia, though it was once a very friendly place to miners, is no longer so because of the overriding power and influence of the present federal government over taxation. So the international mining industries have walked. There is no doubt that they are investing very heavily in other parts of the world, such as West Africa. It is said that most of the Australian and international companies who have invested in West Africa have their head offices in West Perth. That tells a story all by itself—even Australian money is leaving Western Australia because of the sovereign risk represented by the Rudd and Gillard governments.

This government is anti-investment and antimining, and in due course we will see the consequences of that.

Another reason which cannot be overlooked is that Julia Gillard tried to use Western Australia's GST—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister Gillard, Senator Eggleston, thank you.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister Gillard—to take over the Western Australian hospital system, which Western Australia's Premier, Colin Barnett, defeated. That is another reason why she is not welcome in WA. (Time expired)

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I make my contribution, can I just make it clear that I have the greatest of respect for Senator Eggleston. I sincerely mean that. I know that the fine work that he did through the Pilbara region of Western Australia in his past life will never be forgotten. Senator Eggleston, we are going to miss you because you are one of the gentlemen. But to say that the minerals resource rent tax has frightened the miners off! Let us just get one thing very clear: it is a profit based tax. I do not know how many times—through you, Mr Deputy President—I have stood here and defended a profit based tax on our miners, on our commodities, on our resources, and I say sincerely that it is a far better designed tax than the royalty nonsense that we have now. But, Senator Eggleston, to say that we have frightened off all these miners!

I must be mistaken, but I have just seen record profits with Rio Tinto and with BHP on their iron ore—thank goodness we have got that in Western Australia. But, if you are not making a superprofit of, what, $75 million—I am confused now because of the nonsense coming from that side—you do not pay the tax. Let me think. If you are a miner, or let us just say you are a businessperson of any industry, if you make a profit of $75 million and you are going to pay a tax, would that stop you investing in your business? Come on, Senator Eggleston! I was having a giggle. I had to hide, I actually had to duck down behind the seat, because I was trying not to giggle. I wear glasses, but I could see on your face that you did not even believe what you were saying.

But let us talk about this nonsense of Minister Shorten going across to the MUA state conference in Perth. Are you ready for this, everyone? This is breaking news for the media. Damn, I was invited too, and—do you know what?—I really wanted to go, but I contacted Chris Cain, the secretary of the MUA and a good friend of mine. I knew Chris long before he was the secretary of the MUA. I actually organised with his brother John Cain at the TWU—a damn good Labor family. I apologised, 'Sorry, Chris, I couldn't be there,' and I spoke to Minister Shorten last week because he was going across. I said: 'Great. Please pass on my best to the MUA.'

In Senator Abetz's terrible description of working-class people and representatives of organised labour as 'thugs', Chris Cain must be a real thug, because when he took over the MUA he had a membership of some 600; he now has 4½ thousand members. What does that tell me? In Western Australia there must be a heck of a lot of seamen and a heck of a lot of waterside workers who want the MUA to represent them in their negotiations.

I stood shoulder to shoulder with Chris Cain on the picket lines in 1998 when a former Liberal industrial relations minister, Peter Reith, decided with his good mate Chris Corrigan, with the full support of no less than John Howard, that it was a fantastic idea that we should replace Australian waterside workers with fly-in labour or labour that was trained in Dubai. I saw that there were Alsatian dogs on the gates with thugs—I will use that word 'thugs'—in balaclavas. In all my years of organised labour and being around organised labour and working-class men and women, representing them in the workforce as a truck driver and as a union organiser, I never, ever, ever remember pulling on a balaclava. I never remember anyone from the MUA pulling on a balaclava to go and talk to working men and women about their rights and occupational health and safety on their worksite. But it was all very well for the other side of the chamber to stand there as they did, shoulder to shoulder, one on one, absolutely congratulating Peter Reith at the time, and Chris Corrigan, that it was all right to have thugs in balaclavas with Alsatian dogs. Come on! Thank goodness, Australian people are not that dumb. Thank goodness, Australian people can see through the rhetoric and the rubbish coming from that side of the chamber.

I do not have the time to say this, but I must say quite clearly that $3.7 billion in infrastructure spending has been committed to Western Australia. This is under the Gillard government. In all those years of the Howard government, we were left behind in Western Australia. It was all very well for the Liberal feds to stick their hand up to take the money that they could take from Western Australia, but did they return it in infrastructure? Did they what! Absolutely not. I have a list of things that I would love to go through with you, Mr Deputy President, to see the look on the faces of that side of the chamber: a list of the infrastructure projects that have been committed to and are underway and will be finished in the next year or so— (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I picked up the West Australian newspaper this morning to read the headline 'Gillard goes west in bid to lift ALP vote', and I thought that, as a result of the latest Newspolls, there are at least two or three people in Western Australia still voting for the Prime Minister, and I am sure their hearts were gladdened.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am!

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are here, Senator Sterle, but in fact, when we say that she was going west, she was not going west to Western Australia; she was going to Western Sydney. Western Sydney is as far west as we can expect the Prime Minister to get. But why is she not going to Western Australia? Why is it that state Labor leader Mark McGowan has banned the Prime Minister from going anywhere near WA? The reason, of course, is that he knows of her poor judgement. He knows of her poor judgement with carbon tax, with mining tax, in fact with practically every single solitary thing that she picks up.

Let me tell you here on the east coast that the Labor brand is so toxic in Western Australia that candidates are not using the name Labor. They are not using the Labor logo, and they are not using the Labor red colours. If that does not tell you something about the shame of their party in my home state then I am sure I have to go a long way further.

Let me give you an indication of where the Prime Minister's poor judgement has reflected in my state. I go no further than an article this morning in which the Catholic schools slammed the Prime Minister and Gonski reform. I will quote the Catholic schools. Incidentally, there are 1,700 schools, three-quarters of a million students and 83,000 staff. Forty per cent of students in my state are educated in Catholic schools. They said:

… Julia Gillard's school reforms lack detail, use ill-defined terms … and risk burdening principals with more red tape …

They go on to say:

… the … funding reforms had scant substance or detail about who would pay for the billions of dollars required.

You could extend that comment well beyond Gonski and school funding. You could apply it basically to everything which, under the poor judgement and leadership of this Prime Minister, is affecting Australia generally but particularly affecting my own home state of Western Australia.

When Prime Minister Gillard took over from then Prime Minister Rudd, she said that she would fix the boats. We know the results with the boats. And Senator Cash, coming back from the wheat belt the other day, I went past the enormous facility at Northam. Having just been in towns like Southern Cross, Merredin and York, and other places where there are no or very few medical and nursing facilities, very few dental facilities, we know that in Northam at the asylum seekers camp they are absolutely overflowing with those very facilities and resources that are being denied the people of Western Australia. Had the Prime Minister gone to Western Australia, had she overruled Mark McGowan, she may have learnt something of the anger of Western Australians with respect to her inability to stop the boats.

I turn to the second of her enormous promises—that was to fix the mining resource rent tax. Well, wasn't she done over? Wasn't she done slowly, she and Treasurer Swan? I remind people on the other side that under our Constitution it is the right of the states to impose royalties on minerals. As Senator Eggleston says, royalties are a price on the mineral. I heard yesterday in this chamber Labor senators talking about the funds being available for citizens of Australia. Well, hello! Are citizens of Western Australia no longer citizens of Australia? All of us who are students of the Constitution know very well that fiscal equalisation is the mechanism by which Australians generally share the benefits.

We have heard Senator Sterle going on about the big miners. The biggest taxpayer in this country is Rio Tinto. The best way of getting more income for a government is to create conditions that will allow more investment and greater profitability. In my meetings with mining industry people this week I learnt that geologists, mining engineers and mining construction workers are now on unemployment lists in ever-greater numbers. So I warn the south-east coast of Australia that the penny section is coming to a halt. There are many reasons why the Prime Minister should be in Western Australia, but the statement of the state Labor leader that he wants her to stay away from that state is a damning indictment. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.