David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer ) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much for the interjection from the member for Berowra, who says: 'And they are still spending stimulus money!' He should have a look at the speech that his colleague, the member for North Sydney, gave just the other night, when he said 'The economy is tanking so badly that it will need another stimulus package.' If Joe Hockey, the member for North Sydney, believes that things are so dire that the economy needs a stimulus package, why was it that just a short time ago he was over on the other side of the world talking the politics of austerity? The politics of austerity means ripping funding away; it means less government expenditure and jacking up taxes. It is the height of hypocrisy when the member for North Sydney comes in here and says the worst thing you could do is introduce a big tax that will slow growth and hurt the economy.

Then he went on to say that the Treasurer was not there at the press conference when the carbon price was announced. I do not recall the member for North Sydney, as the shadow economics spokesman, having his name on the press release that announced the opposition's monster $20 billion paid parental leave tax. That is probably because he does not support the policy. The Leader of the Opposition says it is a signature policy—a policy that will give millionaires up to $75,000 in payments while they go off and have a child. Yet the Leader of the Opposition is the same bloke who, when he was in government, said he would only support a paid parental leave policy over his dead body. We had to climb over it, but as a government we have delivered a sensible, responsible and very fair system when it comes to paid parental leave. The minister at the table has been instrumental in delivering that. We do not talk about it; we have done it. It is just another one of the achievements of this government.

Members opposite talk about how dire the economy is. As I said, they have been through a period of denial. They have been denying that the global financial crisis existed. In fact, when we stepped up to the mark and we invested billions of dollars to stimulate the economy to keep the wheels of commerce in this country turning, they voted against it, or at least those that turned up in the chamber voted against it. We know that the Leader of the Opposition is someone who has been described by his former boss as someone who is economically illiterate and by his former colleague as someone who is bored by economics. So bored and so illiterate was he on this occasion that, when the biggest global economic crisis of a generation struck and our government was required to stand up and put in place policies to address that challenge, he did not even come into the chamber to vote on those important measures.

So, whilst the member for Berowra and the member for Goldstein do not have a lot of credibility, they do have this degree of credibility: the credibility they have is that they can say that at least they voted against the stimulus package. The member for North Sydney is now saying we need another stimulus package, so I think his defence is a bit more complicated, but the two members sitting on the front bench opposite at least had the stomach to walk into this place to stand up for their convictions, which was to take a path which, frankly, would have been a job-destroying course of action for the Australian economy. Think of the hundreds of thousands of Australians who would have lost their jobs and been put on the scrap heap of unemployment. Think of the wasted skills. Think of the wasted human capital of those people turfed out onto the unemployment queue, because if those opposite had been in government they would not have stimulated the economy the way we have.

Right around the world people have looked at the stimulus measures this government put in place and they say we have delivered. Why do they say that? They say it because our economy is growing stronger than any other major advanced economy—14 per cent larger today than when we came to office. We have a AAA credit rating from all three major ratings agencies. Those opposite come in and they lecture us about the golden era of economic management under the Howard and Costello government. They call it the golden era. The next member on that side of the chamber who stands up should tell us when they achieved the AAA credit rating from all three ratings agencies. Which year was it? Let us start at 1996: was it 1996? Was it 1997? Was it 1998? Was it any year all the way through to 2007?

Opposition members interjecting—

They were still paying off debt in 2007, were they? We have had the Parliamentary Budget Office and a review by Treasury into the structural position of the budget and they say the same thing: those final few years in government from the Howard government squandered the opportunities of the mining boom. They put us into structural deficit. That is what those reports independently prepared have both said. It was because in the final years of the Howard government they spent like drunken sailors.

An opposition member interjecting—

The member opposite says 'structural deficit' as if he has never heard the term. He should go and have a look at the Parliamentary Budget Office report. In fact, it is an opportune moment to remind him that we have put in place a Parliamentary Budget Office so that those opposite can avoid the ignominy and the embarrassment of what they faced at the last election. This is where the member for Goldstein gets uncomfortable and starts to move around in his seat and look at his shoes. He has to accept personal responsibility for the costings debacle of the last election, where after the election his policies were costed by the Treasury and found to have an $11 billion black hole. I remember growing up and watching a program on television, The Six Million Dollar Man. The member for Goldstein is the $11 billion man, and that is not a compliment. That is the size of the budget black hole that you left behind.

Mr Christensen interjecting—

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