Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Moore, I move:

That the Senate condemns the Coalition for its failure to honour its pre election commitments to the Australian people.

Today is just short of 100 days since the election, and I think what we have seen since that time is a very clear indication of what sort of government the Abbott government is and what sort of government it will be. This is a government that is time and time again, in the short period since the election, walking away from its pre-election commitments to the Australian people. This is not the government it said it would be. It has been very clear from the commencement of the government that this is not the government it said it would be.

There are many, many areas which we could go to to demonstrate this. Perhaps we should start with the biggest issue of the moment and certainly one of the biggest issues facing my home state of South Australia, as well as the state of Victoria and workers around this country, and that is in relation to the car industry and the extraordinarily sad, distressing announcement by General Motors-Holden that they intend to cease manufacturing in Australia. I think it is very interesting if you go back to look at some of the things that the coalition told Australians before the election. They said:

The Coalition is committed to supporting a viable automotive sector in Australia for the long term. We have always worked closely with the car industry and will continue to do so.

Yes, we really saw that in this last week, didn't we? Do you know what we saw? We saw the government first say to Holden and to the rest of the automotive sector, 'Not only are we going to take $500 million off you between now and 2015; we are also going to put you into a period of uncertainty by sending the prospect of any further assistance off to the Productivity Commission review.' What did the government do? They said to Holden, 'Don't make a decision prior to the PC reporting.' But that did not suit the game plan of some of those opposite.

So what have we seen instead from the people who told Australians that they were committed to supporting a viable automotive sector in Australia for the long term and that they had always worked closely with the car industry and would continue to do so? We have seen since Thursday of last week senior economic ministers in this government backgrounding the newspapers and the ABC that a decision had already been made. What extraordinary economic irresponsibility that a minister of the Crown, in the context of a negotiation around further industry support in the years ahead, would actually lean on a company by anonymously backgrounding the newspapers that a decision had already been made. That was a blatant attempt to strongarm the negotiations from some on that side—including, I would suggest, the Treasurer of this nation, who recognises that he did the wrong thing when it came to GrainCorp and needed to make what he saw as a hard decision on auto assistance in order to prove his credentials. What we saw on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and on, was continued backgrounding by ministers in this government against General Motors-Holden. But, as if that irresponsibility were not enough, we then saw the Treasurer of this country stand up in the other place and goad General Motors-Holden to make a decision: 'Are you in or are you out?' Well, he got what he wanted: he got a decision.

The chaos that is this government is really demonstrated by two documents in this whole sad debacle, in which the price is paid by Australian workers: first, the Acting Prime Minister of the country demanding the day before the closure decision that Holden make a decision; and then the media release from the Minister for Industry, in which he said, 'We are disappointed that Holden did not wait for the conclusion of the Productivity Commission review before making a decision.' So the Acting Prime Minister demanded that a decision be made; the industry minister, who I suggest was the only minister who was actually advocating for this industry and the workers and the families of those workers in this industry, made it very clear he was not in the cart either for the overt strongarming by the Acting Prime Minister and the Treasurer or for the leaking from cabinet colleagues. This is from the government that said in opposition that they were committed to supporting a viable automotive sector and that they had always worked closely with the car industry and would continue to do so.

But, of course, this is not the only example of the way in which this government, in less than 100 days, has sprinted away from commitments that it made to the Australian people. Perhaps one of the best examples of that comes from Mr Pyne and Mr Abbott when it comes to schools. I think we can all remember in the course of the last few years the different positions that have been articulated by the coalition when it comes to schools and the former Labor government's Better Schools reform.

I can recall Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne attacking the Better Schools Plan, calling it a 'conski' up hill and down dale. They said they did not like it; it was a con and a dreadful thing. They said it was outrageous and they wanted to keep the existing system, which, of course, guaranteed unfairness in our society and unfairness in our schools and which is broken and does not address what is required for schools in Australia in the 21st century. That was the system that Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne were supporting. Then, all of a sudden, in the lead-up to the election, they had this miraculous conversion, in which suddenly Mr Abbott made it very clear that he really loved the Better Schools Plan. After bagging and criticising that plan, suddenly the Liberal Party loved it—they suddenly loved equity; they suddenly loved making sure that students around this country could receive the same level of resourcing plus loadings. They suddenly realised that it was needed to make sure every child in every school could be the best that they could possibly be, because that is the fundamental principle at the heart of the former Labor government's Better Schools Plan—that you invest in ways that ensure that every child in every school can be the best that they can be. This was the model that those opposite panned and criticised until, in the lead-up to the election, they suddenly had a conversion. They told the Australian people: 'Guess what, we love the Better Schools Plan; we love it. And, guess what, we are on a unity ticket. Isn't that fantastic? You can vote for us and it will be exactly the same. We will honour all the commitments.'

Anybody watching what occurred in this last month would know that that was a lie. It is a lie that has been partially rectified, because even Tony Abbott realised that it was just too bad, but his intentions were absolutely clear. Post the election, the government—the government that was going to be a grown-up government; the government that promised no surprises—that had said in opposition it would honour all commitments that the then Labor government had entered into had a change of heart. Then we saw Minister Pyne say: 'I do not like the Gonski model; we need to go back to the drawing board. There are no finalised agreements with Victoria, Tasmania and the Catholic sector. It is all Labor's fault.' And then it was all the media's fault, and then he argued that the Howard era SES model was the best model to base a new one on. Then, when everybody across this country, quite reasonably, was completely outraged at the extraordinarily blatant breach of faith—a breach of trust with the Australian people—all of a sudden the Prime Minister had to find a solution. His solution was that they would strike a deal with Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, but, of course, the details would not be released, though they confirmed that states could pretty well do what they liked with the money. It was an interesting negotiation that went something like this: 'Hello, WA. We would like to send you some money.' 'Oh, yes, that would be great. Thank you very much. Bye.' That was the negotiation for political convenience that occurred on the other side. It had no focus and no transparency on the outcomes for students and parents across the country.

I thought that the day prior to that hasty announcement was very telling. The decision, in which $1.2 billion of taxpayers' money was spent without getting any commitment from the states that they would not reduce funding, did not even go to the cabinet. That is a most important consideration: if you as a federal government are going to put more funding into schools, you want to make sure the states do not simply pull money out. You do not just put money into a leaky bucket. It is very clear that this government has not ensured that the states cannot withdraw money. Poor old Senator Cormann was not even in the room when the decision to spend another $1.2 billion was made—something that someone conveniently leaked to the newspapers. I digress. I thought the most interesting interview that the Prime Minister has done since the election was on the Bolt Report the day before the press conference in which the government threw money at a broken promise in the hope that no-one would notice. He said:

We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make.

What he was saying was: 'You know when I said there is a unity ticket there was a little asterisk and a little footnote at the bottom that said, "Well, we don't actually mean this and we are not actually going to do what Labor would have done." And when I said we will honour all agreements there was also a little asterisk there that said, "Well, actually, we do not mean that because we are going to run a lawyer's argument that the agreements were not really signed."'

It really gave an insight into the sort of Prime Minister that this Prime Minister is. He wants to pretend that he is keeping his commitments and he wants to pretend that is keeping faith, but he is quite happy to make a decision to mislead the Australian people about the commitment that was made. He is quite happy to pretend and mislead people about what commitment was actually made. What he is saying there is: 'You did not get it right.' The reality is that he was breaking his promise and he then lied about whether or not he was breaking the promise.

Another area in which this government is doing something very different to what it promised is its utterances on debt. Prior to the election, you could say there was a fair bit of focus on debt and public finances and, frankly, a lot of lies were told by those opposite about the state of the nation's finances. I predict a lot of lies will be told in the midyear budget update next week, because the political strategy is very clear. On that point, let me make this point: today in question time not a single South Australian or Victorian senator asked the government to outline its plans to help and support workers at Holden plants in their states. What they wanted to do is play politics with the National Broadband Network. That was their priority, and it really says something about this government. They are so anxious to find someone else to blame for not keeping their promises that they have to do an NBN strategic review, create a budget emergency and tell Australians, as the Prime Minister did, 'You heard it wrong.' When it comes to childcare workers, they have to try and get someone else to break their promises because they want them broken.

In question time today, it was very interesting that the focus of the coalition was so much on making a political attack on the National Broadband Network that senators from these states could not be bothered to ask a question about thousands of workers, who must be devastated about the announcement yesterday. It really says something about the values and priorities of this government.

I come back to the issue of debt. We were told before the election that the coalition was the party of no debt. We were told before the election by Mr Abbott that he would lead a government of no debt. Before the election, they said that all debt was bad, that more debt was not the answer and that Australia was drowning in debt. Then, after the election, they went from being the government of no debt to the government of half a trillion dollars worth of debt and now to the government of unlimited debt. In order to be the government of unlimited debt, they had to do a deal with the Australian Greens, the party they described as the 'economic fringe dwellers', to ensure they could get their unlimited debt provision through the parliament.

This is from the Prime Minister who said he would lead a government of no debt. This is from a man who said he would not lead a party that did deals with the Australian Greens. That did not take long to break, did it? 'We are not going to do deals with the Australian Greens, except when they are going to vote for having unlimited debt,' which is something that they never told Australians before the election.

In the last few minutes, I will return to child care. We could talk about boats, about what happened to the 'buy back the boats' policy and the 'turn back the boats' policy and about a government that was supposed to be open and transparent imposing the greatest level of secrecy I think anyone in this chamber has ever seen when it comes to this issue and many other issues, but I want to talk briefly about child care. One of the decisions of the Labor government was to create an Early Years Quality Fund as part of a range of reforms over a number of years to child care. I am the first to say that this is a policy challenge that requires reform over a number of years—more than one or two terms of government—because it is a transformation of the sector. But part of that reform process is recognising that these workers—these educators—are paid far too little for the work they do.

As a nation, if we decide that we want quality child care and want to ensure that our children receive that care from people who have appropriate skills, then we have to be prepared to renumerate them. The former government had the Early Years Quality Fund. This was something that had a lot of support in the community. The coalition said before the election that they would promise to honour the Early Years Quality Fund wage increases. In fact, last week in parliament, the Prime Minister told the chamber that his government would keep its election promise to honour these contracts. He said:

We will absolutely honour all of our commitments, and contracts which have been entered into will be honoured.

Guess what has happened since? They had already factored in the saving from breaking that promise, and, all of a sudden, the Prime Minister has said on the floor of the parliament, clearly not knowing what he was committing to: 'Actually, yes, we're going to do what we said before the election'. And in response everyone has said, 'Oh, no! We have already factored in that saving. He said the wrong thing; he had the wrong brief.' So the minister comes out and says, 'We are inviting you to do the right thing and return the money. We want to break our election commitment, but, actually, we are going to try and get you to do it for us.' What an unbelievably cynical position to take.

This is a government that promised before the election that it would increase accountability and enhance transparency. But what have we seen? We have seen secrecy. We have seen this chamber treated with contempt by ministers on the other side. I understand that there is a bit of argy-bargy in question time, but the minister—particularly the minister who is in the chamber today, Minister Cash—has treated this Senate in question time with absolute contempt. Their essential proposition is: 'I know that in our political tradition question time is where ministers have to answer questions, but—guess what—it is not Friday, so I'm not going to tell you anything.'

Whether it is on education, Australian jobs, the car industry, debt, boats, childcare workers or openness and transparency—and the list could go on—in less than 100 days, we have seen what sort of government this will be. It is a government that walks away from its promises to the Australian people. It is a government that does not honour its commitments and it is a government that breaches faith and trust with the Australian people time and time again. We already know what they are like. (Time expired)

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hypocrisy, thy name is the Australian Labor Party. We have just listened to that—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's all very private school debating society.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are the one who went to a private school, Senator Wong.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's true!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I ask you to direct the senator back to relevance instead of personal assaults.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Grow up, Senator Polley. Really—

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Birmingham, I will have you address your comments through the chair.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President—with your stern voice! Hypocrisy, thy name is the Australian Labor Party, because what we just heard was a remarkable tirade from Senator Wong, who, for six long years, was a senior cabinet minister and a member of the leadership group in a government that could not lie straight in bed and in a government that systematically broke every clear-cut commitment it seemed to ever make to the Australian people. Way back in the days, a sanctimonious Kevin Rudd, the opposition leader, would stand before the Australian people and pretend to be 'John Howard lite' and plead about how he would run a government of fiscal conservatism that would not be blundering into the debt levels that we had seen from previous Labor governments.

But of course he did not. He didn't, did he? He plundered the debt. He went straight in, as deep as he possibly could, as soon as he possibly could, and we saw him spin about as fast as he possibly could. No longer was he the fiscal conservative. Instead, he was the man writing essays for The Monthly talking about just how we needed to turn around from the capitalist regime and how we needed to turn back to some form of greater government involvement and government spending—and did he spend!

He, of course, was replaced. The Labor Party could not even manage to keep a commitment to the Australian people about who the Prime Minister of the day would be, so they rolled Mr Rudd and put in Ms Gillard just before the 2010 election. She went through that election, and what wonderful words did she have to say? 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'—the infamous words, the words that came to haunt her and haunt the government, the words that she then broke. Pretty much the moment she had been elected at the 2010 election, she struck a deal with the Australian Greens and broke that clear-cut commitment, and off went the government on another flight of fancy.

We could go through Senator Conroy's National Broadband Network, the $4.7 billion NBN that was going to be complete by 2013. Here we are in December 2013, and we discover it was going to actually take more than $70 billion and take until 2024. So much for the word of those opposite.

So it is remarkable that, after just three months of a new government, Senator Wong comes into this chamber, moves a motion and tries to get all preachy about trust and honesty and truthfulness. But I will happily address some of the issues that Senator Wong went through in her comments and try to demonstrate to the chamber how wrong they were but also, importantly, where and how this government is setting about meeting and honouring its commitments.

Senator Wong started on the topic of the car industry. It is a tragedy that yesterday General Motors made the announcement they did. It is a tragedy.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could have saved that company.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell and others—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—sat on their hands in government while Labor broke, in the last two years, $1.4 billion of their own promised funding commitments as they chopped and changed in government. That was $1.4 billion that they chopped and changed in government, of their own funding commitments. The broken carbon tax promise slugged the whole automotive sector with a $460 million additional cost impost. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard went along to Ford, promised them $34 million and said it would create 300 jobs, yet within eight months 330 jobs were gone. The same Prime Minister announced $215 million for Holden, saying it would secure its future in Australia until 2022, but within months 670 jobs were lost.

Senator Farrell interjecting—

All of that demonstrates, Senator Farrell, if you think about it, that, for all the money being thrown at the industry, it was still going backwards. That is the reason why in 2008, for all the money that had been thrown at it, Mitsubishi left. Earlier this year, for all the money that had been thrown at it, Ford announced it was closing its doors.

This, of course, is because we had become such an unsustainable, uncompetitive place in which to do business. The core of this government's commitment is to reduce the cost of business for Australia.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

$150 million would have kept them going. That was all you had to do.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is just a lie, Senator Farrell. You know that.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the truth.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it's not. The business model was unsustainable, and it is very clear for all to see that that had become an unsustainable business model. And the problem facing Australia is that, if those opposite do not wake up and realise that we need to do something about the level of taxation in this country, that we need to do something about the level—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Get a government that cares about manufacturing.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You cared so much you watched two of the manufacturers walk right out the door, Senator Farrell, and basically Holden did it on your watch as well. Really, you just think about it. Within three months, they followed the previous two. The industry collapsed under your watch.

Senator Farrell interjecting—

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Birmingham, take your seat.

Senator Farrell interjecting—

Order!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. The truth is that those opposite need to wake up and realise that we have to reduce the cost base of doing business in this country. We have to reduce the cost of taxes of doing business. We have to reduce the regulatory burden of doing business in this country. And, if we are to succeed as a government in doing that, we need to be able to pass some legislation through this Senate. We need to be able to get it through the Senate to ensure that we do not face more situations like Holden in future.

The remarkable thing is that, whilst the Labor Party in government spent all their time breaking the promises they had made to the electorate, in opposition the Labor Party seem to be spending all of their time trying to stop our government from honouring the promises we have made to the electorate. We told the electorate very, very clearly that we would repeal the carbon tax, yet those opposite and those on the crossbenches will not even let us get it to a vote. They will not even let us have a vote on it, let alone accept the mandate and the commitment we made to repeal the carbon tax, to repeal the mining tax, to strip some red tape and some green tape out of this economy and to try to get us to a position where the long-term economic fundamentals stack up so that we do not see more instances like Holden, so that we do not see more companies leaving Australia, but we actually have a lower cost place in which to do business and an attractive place in which to invest so that we might actually see new jobs created in the future. This government will not step away from those core principles. We will, day in, day out, whilst we are in office, seek to reduce those cost pressures, generate the jobs and create a sustainable situation for Australian industry into the future.

Senator Wong also had the gall to come in here and talk about debt, which was hard to believe. I admire her front, at least. Senator Wong had the front and the gall to come in here and talk about broken promises on debt. As I indicated, I can remember in 2007 when Mr Rudd was going to be the fiscal conservative. Instead, he inherited an office with around $50 billion in the bank, but then the Labor Party kept up racking up deficit after deficit—record deficit after record deficit. They had to change their own debt limit not once, when in 2008 they lifted it to $75 billion, not twice, when in 2009 they lifted it to $200 billion, not three times, when in 2011-12 they lifted it to $250 billion, but four times in six years when they had to lift the debt limit to $300 billion in the end. Even then when they left office it was hurtling past the $300 billion level, well towards and beyond $400 billion in gross debt that, because of Labor's budget mismanagement, they had racked up—a remarkably sad and tragic legacy of those opposite. But they come in here and have the gall to talk about debt.

It is bad enough they have the gall to talk about debt, because they racked it all up; it is equally bad that they are now trying to block us from doing the things we said we would do to try to rein that debt in. Labor are even opposing some of their own savings measures. What they committed to before the election they are now blocking and opposing in the Senate after the election. All up, the Labor Party are blocking around $20 billion of savings measures the government has identified, $5 billion of which was identified by their own government and that they said they would make if they won the last election. They are now coming into this place and voting against that having lost the election. This is a remarkable turn of events from the Labor Party.

They said they would freeze the indexation of the childcare rebate. Senator Wong spent a little time talking about childcare issues. They said they would freeze the indexation of the childcare rebate. Now it seems they are revisiting that. They announced $2.3 billion of higher education savings on 13 April this year. At the time Prime Minister Gillard said, 'Some of the biggest businesses in our nation can forego an extra research and development tax credit to fund this package.' That was the argument used by Prime Minister Gillard and Labor then, but no more. The Labor Party want to block that too. It is their own measure they are blocking.

As an opposition we were very honest and upfront when it came to matters such as the schoolkids bonus. There have not been too many times in this nation's history when an opposition has gone to an election saying quite clearly, 'Yes, the government are making a payment to families across Australia and we are going to axe that payment.' But we did. We were honest. We told the public that that was what we were going to do, that it was unsustainable in the budget because it was funded from an unsustainable mining tax that does not generate sufficient revenue. We were very clear and upfront with the Australian people.

We have come to office. We are trying to implement our promise. Once again, we find the Labor Party blocking us in that implementation. We find the Labor Party stopping us from being able to go through and implement something that, frankly, we could not have been more honest and upfront about before the election and that we could not be more honest about in attempting to implement after the election. Whether it is on debt, the carbon tax or the range of measures before the Senate at present, the Labor Party seem to be spending all their time trying to stop us from actually implementing our promises. That is why it is so remarkable that they want to come in here and have a debate about the implementation of promises.

Senator Wong also raised school funding. She talked about school funding. Again, it was remarkable front from Senator Wong, who would have been the finance minister to sign off on the stripping of $1.2 billion in funding out of the budget just before the election. That was a $1.2 billion cut that ensured that they could not implement school funding reforms across Australia and could not deliver funding promised to every state and territory. They took it out of the budget to fudge the budget bottom line. That was the step taken by Senator Wong.

Our government have recommitted that funding. We have put it back in so that it will not matter whether you go to school in a state that signed up beforehand or a school in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, you will still get that funding flowing through. That is the commitment that we made. It is a commitment that we are honouring. We are honouring it despite the fact that the Labor Party in a budget sleight of hand did everything they possibly could to make it impossible to honour. One can only wonder had they won the last election what they would have done. Would they have then had to find the funding to work with those other states or would they have run a school funding model where they paid significantly less for school students in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia than they did for all the other jurisdictions? Would that have been of the approach of the Australian Labor Party—to discriminate on how much money you get based on which jurisdiction you happen to go to school in? Would that have been their approach? Would they have backed away from the savings measures that they had committed to before the election?

It is very clear that we as a government are getting on with not only implementing our promises but fixing up their mess. The area of child care and the Early Years Quality Fund is another classic example of us implementing our promises while fixing their mess. We are committing the entire $300 million towards the education and professional development of long-day-care educators. We are following through on the full investment of that sum of money. We are not keeping the flawed model that we criticised before the election, which Labor was trying to implement and which was just a cruel hoax. The Labor model was only ever going to be accessed by a fraction of childcare workers and was only ever going to fund any type of wages benefit for that fraction of childcare workers for two years.

Labor's claims on this could not be further from the truth. Under their model 70 per cent of long-day-care workers would not have received a dollar of the $300 million fund. All it did was create a pay wall within the sector where, just like the discrimination between states over school funding, there would have been discrimination between childcare centres. Where the level of government funding going to support workers in one childcare centre would have been different from that going to support workers in another childcare centre. What was going to be the defining factor? Pretty much whether or not the United Voice union had signed them up; whether their union buddies gave the tick off on whether they could get the money. Only 16 per cent of the entire childcare sector was going to receive any form of funds from the program and it was only going to last two years.

Once again, what would have happened had the Labor Party won office? Would they have paid it out for two years and then the workers who got it would face a wage cut? Would that have been the option? Or would they have realised they had created a budget black hole. Would they really have continued to run such an equitable system where some workers got it and others did not, depending on whether or not they joined the union?

We are keeping the $300 million. We are investing it in professional development that is open to all long-day-care educators. It certainly will not be preferenced on whether they are active in the union. We hope that, when it comes to wages for childcare operators, we will see a wages ruling soon from the Fair Work Commission, that the independent umpire does what it is expected to do and comes up with a fair ruling.

I come into the chamber amazed at the fact that Labor has the gall and is so full of hypocrisy to want to debate the issue of promises. As a government, we have set about honouring our promises. We have set about fixing up Labor's mess. The only thing getting in the way of our delivering on our promises is the obstructionism of those opposite, who come into this place and block any measures even to extend the sitting hours to bring matters to a vote. The shame lies on their heads. (Time expired)

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate Senator Birmingham on managing to avoid discussion of his own government's performance over the last 100 or so days. As Senator Birmingham knows, it is quite an extraordinary achievement. I think it has been ranked as the shortest honeymoon in political polling history. That is because those opposite are so incompetent, they are such a shambles, that this motion—to demonstrate and highlight that—is absolutely worthy of debate on this floor. We have already seen them want to avoid any discussion in question time of some of their debacles. They went through what was probably be limpest attempt to suspend standing orders I have seen in six or seven years, pretending they wanted to stay longer. It was just like Senator Birmingham now, who is rushing out of the chamber and who at 7.30 tonight will be rushing out the door to the airport, because he does not want to talk about all of the government's broken promises. He does not want to discuss the fact that every time we look at this government it is engaged in childish behaviour. Everywhere we look decisions are being made for short-term political gain, not the long-term needs of the Australian public. They are not the government they said they were going to be.

It is increasingly clear that the coalition has a plan for opposition. They are still running the same tired one-liners, pretending that that is a substitute for hard work, policy reform and determined delivery of legislation through the parliament. Within three months—I do not know if it is even 100 days, Mr Acting Deputy President—this government has sold out 50,000 families by publicly goading Holden into leaving Australia. You just had to pick up any newspaper in the last two weeks to find leaks from the cabinet against Minister McFarlane—leaks like: 'It's 18 votes to one to give Holden nothing and make them leave the country.' Headlines such as those in today's and yesterday's Financial Review: 'Minister Hockey goads GMH.' This is a government that has set out systematically to drive Holden out of the country and betray 50,000 Australian families.

We have seen education used as a political plaything. The government has shown scant regard for thousands of families and children across this country—but I will come back to that.

I lost count of the number of lies that were exposed and the promises that were broken by Mr Turnbull in his document, at his press conference and in his parliamentary performance today. I lost count of the broken promises. He promised to roll out 25 megabits-speed download to every Australian by 2016. We have seen today that in his own document, a deeply flawed document, written by his handpicked mate—handpicked at taxpayers' expense—whom he owns a yacht with and sails around Sydney Harbour with, has delivered a shonky set of figures and assumptions based on shonky inputs to come up with the numbers that he did. But even that document, based on his own figures for his own rollout, shows that all he will reach—despite promising every Australian that they would be getting an improved broadband speed—is five per cent of Australians by 2016. He made promises to everybody before the election and he is delivering to five per cent of Australians by 2016. So, at every level, this government are sending Australia and Australians backwards. Nothing they do is about the future prosperity of our country. It is quite an extraordinary start. It is quite frankly a disgraceful start.

Holden have been building cars in Australia for 65 years but now they are leaving because this government, the Liberal government, the Abbott government, does not have the wit or the desire to make them stay. Let me be clear: the coalition has abandoned Holden and 50,000 Australian families. It has sabotaged the lives of 50,000 Australian families. They have been abandoned across Victoria and across South Australia, because they rely on the automotive industry to pay their mortgages, to feed their kids and to ensure that they can have a Christmas break in a few weeks time. Before the election, the coalition said that they supported highly skilled manufacturing jobs in Australia. After the election, the coalition have not lifted a finger to help those 50,000 Australians.

The performance of the Treasurer and the Acting Prime Minster this week on this matter has been nothing short of disgraceful. Their performance in the other place left Holden in no doubt that they had no friends in the Abbott government. No-one in the coalition was standing up for Holden and the jobs that they represent. Before the election, the coalition promised no decision would be made on Holden before the Productivity Commission reported next year—no decision. After the election, the coalition demanded that Holden make a decision before Christmas. So, before the election it was: no decision is needed until after March next year; in government, it is: we want to know by Christmas. These are job losses of high-skilled jobs. There is a place for these jobs in Australia's future but the government does not get the future.

It really was quite an extraordinary performance on education. We had a minister who wanted to play politics and did not have a single clue about policy. He had not done the hard policy yards before the election. Before the election, the coalition had two diametrically opposed positions on providing extra money for our public schools. When the Better Schools Plan was first announced, you will all remember Mr Christopher Pyne announcing that the coalition considered it to be a 'conski'. It was not a Gonski plan; it was a conski plan. But the political penny dropped fairly quickly for Mr Abbott, at least. I do not know whether the political penny has ever dropped for Mr Pyne. What we then saw was an abandonment of Mr Pyne's policy—an abandonment of the conski before the election. Before the election, the now Prime Minister stood up before the Australian public and said, 'We're on a unity ticket with the Labor government on education.' But after the election what did we get? The education minister reverted back to his true policy position; it was a conski again. There was no more talk of a unity ticket. It was back to the conski.

But, yet again we had a backflip. When you do two backflips like that, you have done a full 360. So you are back to the unity ticket. Twice in three months it is a conski. But, no, Mr Abbott has to roll Mr Pyne again. The finance minister is not even invited to the meeting where they decide that they are going to spend an extra $1.2 billion on an education package. They just tossed it on the table. Before it was: 'No more debt. We can't have more debt. We can't have a bigger deficit.' But over a breakfast $1.2 billion was just tossed in. It was the most expensive breakfast this country has seen in a while—$1.2 billion. What a complete and utter shambles the minister made of education policy in a few short weeks. The government have delivered no certainty to students, no certainty to parents and no certainty to schools.

Mr Pyne has long been known for fighting battles of the past. He has a long memory of all those humiliations he had in student politics. He has never got over them. He is a bit like Senator Abetz—never got over them. So what did he say? What did he say when he went to the meeting of state education ministers? He said, 'No, no. We won't take any money off private schools. All the money that we're missing,' he claimed, 'will come from the public school sector.' Scratch a Liberal—scratch the surface—and there it is: public education does not matter to those opposite. It was all revealed just in that one little conversation he had with a majority of Liberal education ministers. It did not matter if they were signed up to put that money into public education. The true Mr Pyne-Liberal Party position slithered out, under the door of that COAG meeting, to the Australian public.

As I also said a little earlier, when it comes to the National Broadband Network, those opposite have now achieved what Mr Abbott tasked Mr Turnbull to do: demolish the National Broadband Network. Mr Turnbull has run round this country for three long years saying, 'No, no; I'm not doing what Mr Abbott said. I really believe in faster broadband. I know what Australian families need.' He started off in the first 12 months saying, 'No, Australian families can get away with three megs of download.' He quickly realised that that was a risible position, so he dumped that. Six months later, it was, 'Twelve megs—that's all Australian families need.' As the echo of laughter subsided around Australia, he realised, 'Oh, dear.' Then he announced he was going to have a 24- or 25-meg plan. This genius, the man who invented the internet in Australia, according to Tony Abbott—what a completely and utterly idiotic statement that was—said, 'I know what Australian families need. They only need 25 megs. They don't need any more.' Well, it is very, very kind of Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott to decide that they know what is best for Australian families, for the future of Australian kids! They are going to put in place an artificial cap because they are too short sighted, they are too miserly, to actually build the national broadband network that this country is crying out for.

Mr Turnbull can keep talking about incumbents overseas and how they are sweating their copper and that is good thing. He can talk about BT in the UK: 'They built a fibre-to-the-node network. They rolled it out to 16 million homes in just four years—put aside all the prep for that; let's pretend it was four years.' And what is the take-up rate? How many people in the UK have taken up Mr Abbott's preferred version of broadband? Ten per cent. Ten per cent have taken up using Mr Abbott's preferred broadband model in the UK. That sounds like it is worth spending $40 billion on! Yes, despite promising it would cost only $29 billion going into the election, Mr Abbott quickly discovered—when he was told by not a lot of people; just almost every tech journalist in the country!—that it would cost more, that it was rubbish to pretend it was going to cost the $29 billion he was talking about. Those opposite want to spend $40 billion. Actually, I am being cheap there! It is $41 billion. They want $41 billion to build a network that will deliver only 25 megs on a good day. That is a $1½ billion, roughly, per megabyte download. Oh, my God, you are geniuses! Those opposite are geniuses! That is $41 billion to build a network that will be outdated before it is actually finished, because every projection other than Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull's projection is that Australians will be using and needing more than 50 megs by 2020. Every reputable forecaster says they are going to need more than a $41 billion network can deliver by the time it is finished—every single reputable technology forecaster. But of course we have Mr Abbott—not a tech-head, he admits on television—and Mr Turnbull, the man who invented the internet in Australia and knows what all Australians want!

Well, my goodness, what a promise they have broken today. They have abandoned their commitment to give every Australian fast broadband of 25 megs by 2016. They have abandoned their commitment to build fibre to the node in HFC areas; it is not happening anymore. And, as I said earlier, by 2016, they will have delivered fibre to the node to only five per cent of Australian homes—in three years, five per cent rollout success, and that is before you even ask how many people have started using it.

But the real scandal is that Australians will have to pay again in the future. When it becomes clear over the next few years that the technology forecasters were right and Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull were wrong, we will have to invest in fibre to the home to meet the demands of Australians anyway. So the scandal of today's announcement is that they are going to spend $41 billion and then Australian taxpayers in the future will have to pay to upgrade the network again.

So this is a government dominated by small-minded ministers, whether it is Mr Pyne—'No, we'll just take money away from the public schools'—or Mr Turnbull—'I know what Australian families need; I know how much they're going to use the internet, and not just today; I don't just know how much Australian families are going to use the internet today; I know what they're going to use the internet for over the next five, six, seven or eight years.' That is the entire basis of Mr Turnbull's policy. What a small-minded man Mr Malcolm Turnbull really is, that he thinks he can speak on behalf of my family; of my daughter, who is seven today, and will be using more and more of the internet over the next five years; of the families of you in the gallery; or of the families of those people who are listening to this broadcast or reading the Hansard in the future. Mr Tony Abbott and Mr Malcolm Turnbull think they know better about what is best for your families.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before I make my speech on this motion, I would like to address some issues from the earlier debate on the motion to take note of answers where I reflected poorly on Senator Kim Carr; I seek to withdraw those remarks.

I will move on now to debate the motion before us:

That the Senate condemns the Coalition for its failure to honour its pre election commitments to the Australian people.

That is quite a brash motion to bring before the Senate when the current government is less than 100 days old. No, we did not rush to a 2020 Summit; we did not invite every celebrity across the land to Parliament House with some butchers paper and some whiteboard markers and seek to map out a legislative agenda. No, you are right; we did not do that. We took a very different approach. We took the adult approach.

Our ministers had been working for a long time whilst in opposition to come up with comprehensive plans of how to deal with the travesty that the former government left us with, and those plans are being rolled out in a very clear, methodical way and we are making a great start. So I think this is great hypocrisy from the former government, the now opposition. I think the Australian people have noticed a stark contrast between the behaviour of the past three governments—the Prime Minister Rudd government, the Prime Minister Gillard government, and the Prime Minister Rudd mark-2 government—and that of the Abbott government.

Our national priorities have also been making excellent progress, and I will run through some of those. As I said, the job of cleaning up Labor's mess is not easy, and will take a long time, but we have made an extremely strong start. What I found most challenging, as I sat and listened to the debate across the chamber over the last few days, is the complete denial and rejection by the now opposition of the effect their hand and their policies and their decisions taken over six years and their approach to a variety of portfolio areas has had on the current state of things. So I think this motion is a bit rich. They might have left it a little longer, but no, they jumped the gun—so eager they are that, less than 100 days in, they think they are going to somehow put their mess at our feet, while we are actually just heads down, working at cleaning it up.

We promised legislation to scrap the carbon tax. I just love it! It has been on the Red for a long time, this legislation to scrap the carbon tax. If you, Senator Farrell or Senator Stephens, were to go out and do a straw poll right across Australia—you could even go to Wycheproof in Victoria; you could go to Cairns, to Burnie, to Kangaroo Island—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They'd say, 'We want Labor back!' That's what they'd say: 'After three months, we have had enough! Let's get rid of them!' I know Kangaroo Island.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could ask them, Senator Farrell, though you might want to wait until I ask the question before you attempt to answer it, because the question I would be straw-polling is: 'Do you know what Tony Abbott's government's No. 1 election promise was, prior to election day?' And I can tell you, Senator Farrell, you will get them in droves. To a man, woman and child they will all be able to quote back what Tony Abbott had promised to do, and it was to repeal the carbon tax. We were mocked about how often we said it. And now you stand in the way of what the Australian people voted for, and what has been on our legislative agenda here in the Senate. So for you to be moving a motion here that condemns us for not meeting our election promises while you stand in the way of us actually being able to vote on the No. 1 election promise, despite having the opportunity from day one to do so is, I think, the height of hypocrisy.

You have to accept the will of the Australian people. They were very, very clear. We promised legislation to scrap Labor's disastrous mining tax—a tax without revenue that has hit at confidence in this vital sector. It is time for the mining tax to go. It is also on the Red. We can vote on it anytime you like. You can assist us. You do not have to condemn us. You can actually assist us to fulfil our election promises. And we look forward to you assisting us to fulfil our election promises rather than trying to condemn us. We are systematically going about the task of implementing our promises and doing what Australians asked us to do at the ballot box. We are dealing with the debt cap, the budget, Labor's NBN, schools funding and Labor taxes. And you need to get on board and assist us to do the job, not condemn us and stall the program.

Other achievements so far include Operation Sovereign Borders. We have said our policy would mean lower taxes and lower costs, and almost 100 announced but unlegislated tax changes are being dealt with. You actually could not get your legislative program together. Does anybody seriously remember the last day of sitting in the last parliament before we headed off to summer break? Remember, Senator Farrell? You are looking blankly at me. Let me remind you—

Senator Ronaldson interjecting—

No, Senator Ronaldson; don't go there!

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's there, on the floor.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is, and it can remain there.

We were here till all hours of the evening with less than 15 minutes to debate the varied legislation—the childcare legislation et cetera. I could go on and on and on about the number of bills that were guillotined through here. It is absolute hypocrisy for them to stand up day after day, saying that they need to have their say on these bills, when at the very same time last year we were here until way past midnight while Labor and the Greens guillotined bill after bill. It is absolute hypocrisy.

We are improving the ability of people in Indigenous communities to take control of their own economic destiny, and we have kick-started talks at APAC. One of the election promises the Prime Minister made prior to the election was that the first country he would visit on becoming Prime Minister would be Indonesia, and it was. The Commission of Audit is underway to deal with the debt and to actually kick-start our economy and start getting rid of the layers of regulation and burden that you have wrapped up our most productive sectors in in that short six years—the most significant examination of the cost of government in more than a decade.

We are delivering on the one-stop shop with the states for environmental bilateral approval and assessment processes. That is going to be a much-welcomed change, and an election promise that I am looking forward to delivering on. I am sure that discussions on Friday will assist that. It was one of Labor's own legislative programs until the hasty-hasty deal with Windsor and the Greens, and you backed away from it. But do not worry: we will get the job done.

Work is underway with state governments to fast-track the new major road links and upgrades as we promised at the election. We have established, as we promised, the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council and the Indigenous Advisory Council. Compensation will be available to victims of terrorism overseas, as we said it would be. And last week we concluded negotiations for a free trade agreement with South Korea, as we said we would do. We said that we would fast-track those negotiations to ensure that our producers can get our fabulous produce, financial services and the like into countries of strategic importance. Regional Australia is going to be the big winner out of the Korean free trade agreement—$700 million to beef, $500 million to sugar and a significant increase for our dairy industry, which is going gang busters every single day.

We are dealing with Labor's debt legacy, and that is going to take a little longer, Senator Farrell, than the little under 100 days you are wanting us to get it all fixed by. It will be a little longer because it is such a mess.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've created the mess!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were left with a surplus and here we are: net debt spiralling out of control and hurtling towards $400 billion. It is going to take us a little longer than 100 days, Senator Farrell, to deal with that election promise, but we are committed to the task.

Just this week the government has taken another step towards cutting red tape for universities, yet another election commitment that we are honouring. The reporting requirements for Australian universities will be reduced and simplified in a new push to cut red tape for the sector. The minister has just made announcements to adopt all 27 recommendations out of the 2012 PhilipsKPA review into reporting requirements for universities. This is great news for our education sector. We want universities spending more time delivering the best higher education possible—researching and teaching in areas that are going to build our nation—rather than trying to do the work with one hand tied behind their backs: academics filling out forms, counting and shifting bits of paper around to their pro-vice-chancellors rather than getting on with the good work of what a university should be doing in the community.

The Senate should do the right thing this week and scrap Labor's bad taxes and give our economy the clean start it needs for 2014. Here is your chance: a Christmas wish for all! If we had asked Australians what they would have liked for Christmas on election day—another little straw poll—I think the result would have been quite clear, and that would have been to get rid of the carbon tax. You can still deliver. Now is the time for Labor to accept that there was an election, the people spoke and they said, 'Get rid of the carbon tax.' You could do it now— actually you probably cannot do it now, but you had the chance. You had the chance to alter the sitting arrangements. You had the chance to bring the Senate back tomorrow or bring it back next week. Let every single Labor Party senator and Greens senator have their say on these important bills.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You waited three months to bring the parliament back!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let them have their say, Senator Farrell, and let us get to the pointy end and actually put the bill before the Senate and vote for it, as was the mandate given to the Abbott government at the election.

There is more to do, but we are keeping faith with the Australian people after they were so badly let down after six years of Labor. Before the election, Labor said they would scrap the carbon tax. Just this week, Mark Butler said they would scrap the carbon tax. Now is the time for Labor to determine whether or not they will break their own election promise. How hypocritical of the now opposition to accuse us of not honouring the election promises, when every person in the country would have known, as I said earlier, what our No. 1 promise was. Labor gave us six years of chaos and poor governance, and we need to remember what that Labor legacy is.

We are meeting our promises. We are actually delivering on Labor's promises, which I find quite curious. There is one Labor Party election promise that we are not going to commit to, because, in a very cynical way, the then Minister for Regional Development, Local Communities and Territories, Catherine King, went around in the lead-up to the election, misleading community after community, and community group after community group. Round 5 funding agreements in the Regional Development Australia Fund will not be funded. They were election promises by the Labor government during a very bitter election campaign. She put that out into communities that are now seeking us to fulfil Labor's promises, but that is not our job. Our job is to do what we were elected to do, which is to get rid of the debt and to repeal the carbon tax and the mining tax.

I am quite chuffed, though, that some rounds of RDAF have been funded by the government in terms of building sustainable regional communities. These rounds 2, 3 and 4 of RDAF grants were not dealt with by the previous government, even though they were Labor election promises. In Indi, for instance, in my and Senator Ronaldson's home state, the government is funding $150,000 for a feasibility study of the Bright Hospital redevelopment. I know that is something the local member, Bill Sykes, has championed. The Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Jamie Briggs, made the announcement two days ago. The government is funding $405, 000 towards the construction of the Bonegilla boardwalk and bike track. The Abbott-Truss government will also deliver $50,000 towards CCTV cameras in the Alpine shire, $5 million towards the catheterisation lab in Albury-Wodonga and $1.4 million in local roads funding, as well as funding for a Green Army project for Lake Hume, the Murray River and the Kiewa River.

This is delivering on election promises. This is about the Liberal-National government making sure that regional communities are not left behind, as they were by the former government, despite promises from the former minister—empty promises, as it turned out, because the money was not there, is not there. We will deliver on these promises, and that announcement was made by the minister. Each of these projects will provide critical investment in regional communities so that they can continue to develop and prosper. They are projects that were developed with the assistance of coalition members, Liberal members, and the ministers in charge, who are very supportive of these projects. The Bonegilla boardwalk project, for instance, will contribute to closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage through skills development and employment on enhancing the tourism infrastructure of the Kiewa River flood plain.

One election promise that I am really looking forward to delivering is the establishment of the National Stronger Regions Fund. From 2015, regional communities will be able to apply to that fund for social and economic infrastructure that will contribute to their economic development. It is a $1 billion fund over four years starting in 2015. So we are actually doing what we said we would do. We are keeping faith with the Australian people.

It is the height of hypocrisy for those opposite to come in here and, after less than 100 days, ask why we have not repealed the carbon tax. Why haven't we? Well, it got through the lower house okay, but here we are, standing in the Senate on the last day of sitting, and it has been on the red every single day. When it was first listed we had the debate to separate the bills, so we could maybe multiply each of the 11 bills before us by the number of Greens and Labor senators. If you do the calculations—and I haven't brought my calculator in with me and my arithmetic is a little rusty—I think it might take us until April before we can actually get to a vote when we have run out of speakers from the opposition. The debate throughout the past two weeks has been quite repetitive—we could have tabled the talking points and gotten on with it. I do believe it is important for the Senate to ensure that senators are able to air the concerns of their communities and constituents, to bring those concerns to the Senate and ensure that issues are properly debated. I would also ask, after the amount of time and the range of issues that have been canvassed in this debate, why we are still unable to put that package of bills to the vote, why the Labor Party refuses to accept that the Australian people want this legislation repealed.

I had SPC, a food manufacturer in my home state of Victoria, come up to Canberra today to talk to coalition members and senators about the challenges that face food manufacturing in Australia, particularly in regional areas. The challenges are significant, and not dissimilar to the challenges faced by Holden and by General Motors, spoken about by their head, Mr Akerson. It is about a high dollar and high input costs. When the Leader of the Opposition was on ABC News 24 this morning and was asked by Virginia Trioli about what made up those high input costs, particularly for automotive manufacturers here in Australia, he was unable to give an answer that gave any comfort that he understood the very real concerns of the manufacturing industry in Australia. That is a huge concern. It is huge concern for AMWU members in Shepparton. It is a huge concern for workers more generally right across manufacturing. It is similarly of concern to the small and medium enterprises, many located in regional communities, who support the larger automotive industry and the larger food-processing industry and may employ upwards of five to 10 people. How are they going to sustain their business? The disconnection that the Labor Party and the Greens have from the reality of the everyday life of Australians was demonstrated by Australians throwing them out of government. Now they need to recognise that and to get on with the business of delivering on the people's will.

The task before us is daunting. I do not think any of us could have predicted just how much mess Labor has left us with. They have wreaked havoc on the Australian budget, and not just for the coming term, the coming parliament, but for decades ahead. We are going to work very hard to deal with that issue. We are up to the task. We have been given a job by the Australian people, we have started that job and we will not stop until it is completed.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner, you have about a minute and a half.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. It is a very brief time indeed, Mr Deputy President. Then again, the Abbott government, as you know, has had a very brief time. We have had just under 100 days of the Abbott government and so far it has been bad for education, bad for Australia's foreign relations, bad for Australian industry, bad for transparency, bad for accountability—but it has been very good for comedians. I thought I would just leave this very brief contribution by congratulating the best effort from the comedians, which goes of course to the Minister for Education, Mr Pyne, who has managed to get the Twitter nickname, after all his broken promises, of Mr Pyneocchio. That is a very good effort in just two months.

Debate interrupted.