Andrew Leigh

I spoke today on the new UN Report into Human Rights in North Korea, chaired by Michael Kirby.

Human Rights Abuses in North Korea, 3 March 2014

Three stories from North Korea's prison camps.

First, a story told by camp survivor Ms Jee Heon A:

‘... there was this pregnant woman ... The babies who were born were usually dead, but in this case the baby was born alive. The baby was crying as it was born, so we were curious, this was the first time we saw a baby being born. So we were watching this baby and we were so happy. But suddenly we heard the footsteps. The security agent ... told us to put the baby in the water upside down. So the mother was begging. 'I was told that I would not be able to have the baby, but I actually got lucky and got pregnant so please let me keep the baby, please forgive me.' But the agent kept beating this woman, the mother who just gave birth. And the baby, since it was just born, it was just crying. And the mother, with her shaking hands she picked up the baby and she put the baby face down in the water. The baby stopped crying and we saw this water bubble coming out of the mouth of the baby.’

Second, an account told by Mr Jeong Kwang-il:

‘A man left his work unit to take some potatoes because he was extremely hungry. Fearing that the guards would try to consider this an attempted escape, he tried to hide. The guards chased tracker dogs after him. The dogs found and mauled the man until he was half dead. Then the guards shot the victim dead on the spot.’

Third, an event recounted by Mr Shin Dong-hyuk. Mr Shin was 13 years old when he reported a conversation he overheard between his mother and brother in which they talked about escaping from the camp. As a result, his mother and brother were both executed. Along with all other inmates, Mr Shin had to watch the public execution of his mother and his brother.

I have only five minutes to speak about the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But even if I had five hours, I could not do justice to the depravity outlined in the pages the Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. People were sent to prison camps for watching a foreign movie, for accidentally using a mobile phone, for accidentally spilling food on a picture of Kim Jong-il or for owning a Bible.

A third of the North Korean population malnourished. At least a third of children stunted. A million or more starved to death. Mass rape. Beatings. Public executions. Forced abortions of people who return from China, a practice that is driven by racist attitudes in North Korea towards Chinese. The collective punishment of families. Trafficking of women and girls. All while the leadership build statues of themselves and import Mercedes and fine cognac.

This report will give you nightmares. It is the closest thing I have read to pure evil, yet it is the truth. The commission of inquiry has carried out its work with impeccable thoroughness. It has conducted extensive public hearings in Seoul, Tokyo, London and Washington. Regrettably, the Chinese government did not cooperate with the inquiry. It is a pity as China has much to gain from ending the abuses on its doorstep.

The inquiry was chaired by Michael Kirby, for whom I had the privilege to work as a judge's associate. Australia has no more powerful advocate of human rights than Michael Kirby. He has done our nation proud in this work—a report underpinned by the fundamental belief that all of us are of equal worth.

The North Korean prison camps have survived twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and much longer than the Nazi concentration camps. The policies of North Korea are responsible for perhaps millions of deaths. The report demands action, yet too many seem to be looking away.

I urge the government to take strong action on this report. That includes arguing in the Security Council for targeted sanctions, using our seat on the Security Council as an opportunity; arguing in the General Assembly for better human rights monitoring of North Korea; supporting referral of the report to the International Criminal Court; and working with our friends in the Chinese government to see them take action that will benefit China. These acts will demand courage by Australia but to do them we must only believe one thing: that the newborn baby I described at the start of my speech was the moral equal of any of us. If we believe that, we cannot stay silent.

This morning I joined Fairfax Media host Chris Hammer and Liberal MP Andrew Laming for a wide-ranging discussion including the importance of keeping Qantas in Australian hands, protecting the Great Barrier Reef and concerns about the potential harm of winding back racial vilification laws.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW
BREAKING POLITICS – FAIRFAX MEDIA

MONDAY, 3 MARCH 2014



SUBJECT/S: Qantas Sales Act and jobs; ‘Green Army’ and jobs; Great Barrier Reef and tourism jobs; Offshore processing of asylum seekers; Repeal of hate speech laws.

CHRIS HAMMER: Well, the big political story of the day is undoubtedly Qantas with Cabinet meeting to decide on what assistance if any the Government can give it. Joining me to discuss this issue and others in Andrew Laming, the Liberal Member for Bowman in Queensland and Andrew Leigh, Assistant Shadow Treasurer and Labor Member for Fraser in the ACT. Gentlemen, there seems to be a standoff here. You've got the Government saying it doesn't want to give a debt guarantee for Qantas. You've got Labor saying it doesn't want to relax the Qantas Sales Act at least as far as foreign ownership's concerned. Andrew Laming, can you see any way through this impasse?

ANDREW LAMING: Well, these are options that are being considered today by Cabinet. I must admit that I sense that Qantas must be feeling positively manhandled by political commentators at the moment. We've had every imaginable recipe for their survival. But in the end the affairs rest in the hands of the company itself. They've got to find that balance to look after shareholders, staff and customers and I'm just hoping that can be done as seamlessly and painlessly as possible and those options are in the hands of Cabinet effectively.

HAMMER: Is there any qualitative difference between Qantas and the carmakers? With the car markers most Australians weren't buying Fords and Holdens, they were buying imported Hyundais. It's the same with holidays and going overseas. They're just buying tickets on price. Should the Government be intervening to help Qantas?

LAMING: Well, certainly airlines are a more internationalised sector, so that means if we wish to retain some of sense of Australian identity, then we're going to have to look at every competitive advantage for Qantas in an open market, not unfair support. But in the end these are decisions for the company. They have to look after their own affairs and the more we interfere, even if we think it's benign, may just prolong the inevitable. We need the company making long term decisions for their survival.

HAMMER: What's the inevitable?

LAMING: Well, the inevitable is increasing competition. The inevitable is getting rid of the carbon tax here in Australia which costs Qantas $106 million last year. These are things that we can do to improve things immediately for the immediate survival of Qantas as John Borghetti at Virgin pointed out just recently.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, Labor has suggested giving Qantas a debt guarantee but that seems to be off the table. Tony Abbott's ruled that out. On the Qantas Sales Act is there room to move there from Labor's point of view?

ANDREW LEIGH: Chris, we're in this strange situation at the moment where Qantas has asked for a debt guarantee and the Government has now said no after having given very clear indications that it would provide such a guarantee with the four-part test laid out with Joe Hockey in December. Qantas hasn't asked for a change to the Qantas Sale Act and yet the Government is pushing that as its number one solution. So, it really does seem to me that when it comes to saving the Flying Kangaroo the Government is flying chicken. It's not doing what the company is asking for and is instead pursuing a route which, if it were successful, would see us lose our national carrier. We would effectively see Qantas become a foreign owned airline.

HAMMER: Are you concerned that if the Government doesn't do anything then Qantas may fail?

LEIGH: I think the Government needs to act to save jobs. Tony Abbott, before the election, said that he would create a million jobs, but we're already seeing jobs being shed; 63,000 fulltime jobs gone. So that five year jobs target is now beginning to recede. I worry that isn't an overall plan for job creation from the Government, just slogans around the carbon tax but without a long term plan for the investments in education and infrastructure that will generate jobs of the future. The sort of floating of thought bubbles, the conflict between the Treasurer and the Prime Minister is, I think, a risk for Qantas.

HAMMER: Can either of you gentlemen, Andrew Leigh first, suggest something that could help Qantas that has bipartisan support, or has the potential to have bipartisan support?

LEIGH: Well, Labor is happy to talk with the Government about a debt guarantee. We're happy to engage with the Government around changes to Qantas Sale Act that don't involve majority foreign ownership, that don't involve shipping jobs overseas. So, we're keen to work with the Government so long as they're keen to save the Flying Kangaroo.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming?

LAMING: Well obviously changes to the Sale Act can be considered but not other forms of support that are unique to Qantas and denied to other players in the industry. That, I think, would the range of possibilities that came up that we would consider.

HAMMER: Okay, can we move on. Andrew Leigh, you mentioned jobs. More details are emerging of Tony Abbott's 'Green Army', up to 15,000 jobs using the term loosely, because they wouldn't be paid as much as the minimum wage. How's it possible for the Government to defend a scheme when people are essentially being paid less than the minimum wage?

LAMING: Well, of course there's a range between not working and being paid income replacement at around $6 an hour or $250 a week, up to the $622 per week minimum wage. Somewhere in that area we have to transition people who don't have any form or any hope of employment into a level where one day they can aspire and hold down a job and that's why the Green Army is such an important segue there, offering wages of between $400-500 to get people a start. Where better to do it than environmental work.

HAMMER: Where do you get the figure of $500 because the reporting has been as low as $300?

LAMING: Yes, that's right. A supervisor can earn as much as $60,000 plus so there are a range of salaries that are being paid. In essence, this is small projects, 9-10 people locally deployed, highly effective and for the first time some form of activity requirement who can't get work in the private sector. I think it's a big positive.

HAMMER: This is work for the dole under a different banner, isn't it?

LAMING: Work for the dole is an obligation to work for your payment whereas this is something far different, although it fits into the spectrum you've just referred to, which is somewhere between having no work and the minimum wage.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, it sounds like a good idea doesn't it, to get people out working, get them some skills?

LEIGH: Chris, I think there's too much ideology in industrial relations and in employment services more broadly. I think Paul Howes made that comment very articulately at the National Press Club recently. So, I'm just purely driven by the evidence on this. Show me a program that works and I'll be keen to back it. The thing about the Work for the Dole is the best study that we have, commissioned by Tony Abbott when he was the employment minister, found not only that the program didn't boost employment but actually that it had the opposite effect: because people locked in doing Work for the Dole jobs, they had less time searching for long term employment. Therefore, Work for the Dole was actually harmful. So, if you want a program that is going to decrease exit rates of income support, that's Work for the Dole, it's actually a government program that will do harm. That why I'm so concerned to see a Government driven by ideology and what feels good - rather than evidence and what practically works. Ask Jeff Borland, the man that did the study. It just doesn't work.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, most of the work in the Green Army is manual work. These are young people. Is that the kind of training we want to equip them for in this 21st century, out digging ditches?

LAMING: Look right now what you're trying to do is get your 360,000 Australians between 17 and 24 in some form of regular routine, meaningful work and an opportunity to train and to work shoulder to shoulder with others. It's often a transitional situation and the evidence that Andrew refers to was at a time when the Howard Government was bringing unemployment down to very low levels where it was getting harder and harder to place people in employment. Where in the other situation. We're touching 6 per cent unemployment and now of course we have to look for new segues to get people from having nothing to do except fill out log books to having a chance at private sector employment.

HAMMER: So, is this simply a construction to lower the unemployment rate?

LAMING: Well it's certainly adds in an additional opportunity for people to earn way more than the dole but less than the minimum wage and be engaged in some form of work other than what they're doing at the moment which is filling in a log book.

HAMMER: So, is this an employment program or is it an environmental taskforce?

LAMING: It's definitely the latter but there's nothing wrong with it being both.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh?

LEIGH: I think Andrew Laming makes an important point around the potential for programs that were unsuccessful in one environment to work in another environment. But I guess, all I'd say to that is if your best study finds that this is a program that did harm in another environment, then I think the wisest course of action would be to run a small pilot with high quality evaluation and see whether things have changed so much that this new program does good, rather than doing harm.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, this is badged as an environmental program, although as you say it has employment benefits as well. Yet at the same time the Government has approved the dredging of the Great Barrier Reef around Abbott's Point. There's now newspaper reports of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority did a report into this and said don't do it, it's going to damage the reef. How can you be supporting the environment over here with the Green Army and yet ignoring expert advice on the Barrier Reef on the other hand?

LAMING: Well there’s a range of expert advice, even out of the authority itself. The amount that’s proposed to be dredged is about 1/10th of the original application, which was applauded by the then Labor state government. Sure, this is silt and sand that’s going into a portion of the marine park but it’s well away from the reef. So in all these situations you have to think of the counterfactual. If we don’t expand this location, do we then have a proliferation by the smaller ports that do way more damage? So the proposal to dredge and to dump, as has been put forward, potentially also came from experts in the field and has been rigorously scrutinised. I am very comfortable with that decision because I know that the alternative could be way worse.

HAMMER: Why not use the ‘Green Army’ to put the dredging spoil on land?

LAMING: Well, they have decided that is going to be, environmentally, even worse with the acid sulphates. So the effects are even worse doing it on land, than ocean-based dumping.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh, does it strike you as strange that the government is supporting a tourism facility for Cadbury’s in Tasmania and yet, is dredging the Great Barrier Reef?

LEIGH: Well, Greg Hunt is a man whose title is ‘Minister for the Environment’ but whose every action seems to fit somebody who’s the ‘Minister Against the Environment’. He is fighting hard against strong action on climate change, one of the great victims of which would be the Great Barrier Reef. He’s approved a dredging proposal, which Minister Butler, his predecessor and now the Labor Shadow Minister, was not willing to approve. We need to be really careful with the Great Barrier Reef, because, even if you’re not concerned about it as an environmental asset, and I suspect no one in Australia would believe that, you still need to think about in terms of the tourism jobs in the future. But of course this is a great environmental icon, and we ought to have policies that protect the Great Barrier Reef for generations to come. Future Generations would look pretty unkindly upon today’s Australians were we to simply say that we could have a short term hit to the prosperity of a small number of Australians at the cost of a great national environmental icon.

HAMMER: Can we just touch on a couple of issues finally before we finish? Anna Burke, the former speaker, has come out and said that she opposes offshore processing of asylum seekers. Andrew Laming, you first. Are you completely comfortable with offshore processing of asylum seekers?

LAMING: One word answer, yes.

HAMMER: Andrew Leigh?

LEIGH: I think that we need policies of compassion and that compassion means stopping drownings at sea. It means taking in an appropriate number of refugees. I'm disturbed by a couple of things in the Government's policies. Firstly, the cutback to the refugee intake from 20,000 to 13,000, which I think is pretty stingy for a country of Australia's level of development, but I'm also concerned that we haven't seen refugees being processed out of the Manus Island camp. This is a Refugee Resettlement Agreement and part of that requires that Papua New Guinea begin to work with Australia in processing refugees. I hope that will be an outcome of Minister Morrison's visit of Papua New Guinea, but the fact that it hasn't happen is one of the key reasons for the tension in that camp, which lead to the tragic death of Reza Berati.

HAMMER: So you're not completely comfortable with offshore processing as it is at the moment?

LEIGH: I think the way in which the current government is handling migration policy means that there are certain risks to asylum seekers and there are risks to the system as a whole. I'm pretty concerned too, by the half dozen incursions into Indonesian territorial waters. People are really asking the question 'how could you be running a policy which now has Indonesia complaining to the US Secretary of State about Australia's policies?' We ought to be having a great relationship with Indonesia. Not one where they're complaining to the US about their mistreatment at our hands.

HAMMER: The reality on this issue is that if the boats stop coming or are stopped form coming, then most people in the electorate are happy with that, and there's not much Labor can do about it.

LEIGH: My main focus Chris, is on the compassionate outcomes. Stopping the drownings at sea and taking in what I believe to be our reasonably share of asylum seekers from around the world. We ought to be driven by compassion because we have to recognise the number of great Australians who've been refugees. Frank Lowy, Majak Daw, Les Murray, Anh Do. There's so many terrific Australians that have come here as refugees. We ought to have compassion in our hearts as we try to stop drownings and take deserving people who are at risk of persecution to Australia.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, the so-called 'PNG solution' has been presented quite clearly as 'you will not be settled in Australia', but if you're found to be a refugee you will be re-settled in Papua New Guinea. There seems to be a question mark over that now. The Government has said one thing but it isn't delivering on that.

LAMING: In what way?

HAMMER: In that the asylum seekers are being told that they will not be resettled in Papua New Guinea.

LAMING: I'm not sure where those sources are, but I acknowledge that original solution was negotiated by the previous government and as a support act in all of this, the Australian Government is supporting the Papua New Guinea Government as part of a multilateral solution here in the South Pacific and you just want all of those that are held in those camps to be a safe as possible. You want the best quality services and care while they are in detention. But obviously, if there's an agreement that they are re-settled in Papua New Guinea, that’s a matter for the PNG government.

HAMMER: But can you tell us now, what happens to asylum seekers that have been processed on Manus Island that have been found to be genuine refugees? What happens to them?

LAMING: The same that has always happened regardless of where they were processed. Once they're determined to be refugees then there has to be a third country that accepts those refugees. That has been, in the past, brokered with New Zealand and in this case is brokered with Papua New Guinea.

HAMMER: Well, what are the third countries?

LAMING: Well if you're not going to take them here in Australia, you're have to negotiate with other economies obviously, that’s been the push of both governments. You're asking me, 'will they be settled in PNG or Australia?' that's something to be decided once somebody has been deemed to be a refugee.

HAMMER: Okay, just finally Australia's race discrimination commissioner has come out in opposition to repealing section 18C of the Race Discrimination Act. Andrew Leigh, your thoughts on this? It's come down, it seems, to an argument about the possible impact of racial comments against the right to free speech.

LEIGH: Tim Soutphommasane is one of the most thoughtful scholars of race in Australia. Somebody who is really very nuanced in his views on race. The view that he's taken is that hate-speech ought not be allowed in Australia. It's a provision that’s been rarely used but its been used for example to deal with vilification of an Indigenous woman and holocaust denial. I think there's no absolute right to free speech. Our Prime Minister, of course, has availed himself of defamation laws from time to time. I don't see why somebody who has been racially vilified ought not have recourse to the law, but the Prime Minister, when he feels that his good name has been traduced, should have access to the law.

HAMMER: Andrew Laming, what are your thoughts on this? Where should the balance lie?

LAMING: Freedom of speech and racial vilification should never be inconsistent. There's definitely balance, so you're talking about where that pendulum should fall. I think, after the Attorney General George Brandis has talked to a range of stake-holders, he'll be coming up with something, I think to take to Cabinet. Now, my observations are that there is no way we ever want to support or in any way have a system that allows hate speech as you define it to exist. But at the same token you have to weigh up the rights of a commentator to make genuine observations in a situation where there is freedom of speech in a nation that’s cherished it for decades.

HAMMER: But how does the existing law stop me as a commentator making a well-balanced view on one element of the society or not at the moment. Is free speech really being hampered?

LAMING: Well, if you're taken to court and found guilty for instance, then you are. So that's the balance that one is looking for.

HAMMER: Gentlemen we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for your participation.

LEIGH: Thanks Chris, thanks Andrew.

LAMING: Thank you.

Last Friday, I issued a media release about my concerns that Minister Kevin Andrews has little regard for the views and experiences of charities who overwhelmingly want to keep the ACNC.

ANDREW LEIGH MP

SHADOW ASSISTANT TREASURER

SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMPETITION

MEMBER FOR FRASER

MEDIA RELEASE

Friday, 28 February 2014

ZERO CONSULTATION AS GOVERNMENT PREPARES TO SCRAP CHARITIES COMMISSION

Senate Estimates hearings this week confirm that the Abbott Government’s promise to consult charities about its plans to abolish the charities regulator is hollow.

Minister Kevin Andrews promised charities a discussion paper on the future of the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission by the end of January and a formal consultation process beginning this month.

It’s the end of February and nothing has happened.

The Minister has stopped listening and does not care to listen.

A survey of the charitable sector found that four in five people support the ACNC. Yet those members of the sector that have written to Minister Andrews supporting the ACNC have been given short shrift.

Morale among the ACNC’s highly specialised and committed staff is suffering.

The Senate Economics Committee was told of a higher than usual attrition rate and how uncertainty about the ACNC’s future is impacting its 100 staff.

Senator Louise Pratt: Why have you lost staff over the recent period?

David Locke (Assistant Commissioner for Charities Services): Obviously there is uncertainty regarding the future of the agency, which is unsettling and difficult for staff.

The Committee also heard that the ATO is preparing to transition for the axing of the ACNC before any repeal legislation and take over some of the regulator functions of the ACNC.

This is a slap in the face for thousands of Australian charities that do not want the ATO to resume responsibility for the sector.

It is astonishing that this Government should talk about the need for transparency and accountability and yet seeks to abolish a first-rate agency that supports public confidence in the integrity of charities.

ENDS

On Sky AM Agenda, I joined host David Lipson and Liberal MP Josh Frydenberg to discuss the Abbott Government's dithering on Qantas, and other political issues of the day.http://www.youtube.com/v/f-0H9pxuwyA?hl=en_US&version=3

I spoke in parliament today on the need for a national approach to reducing the harm done by dangerous dogs in our community (and here's a podcast of me talking about it on ABC 666):

Dangerous Dogs, 27 February 2014

More often than we like we are confronted by the hurt, loss, guilt and confusion that bleeds out through families and communities after a fatal dog attack.

Three years ago in Victoria a group of children were playing in their front garden. At the same time, a neighbour's hunting dog had found its way free from its yard. The dog was agitated by the activity and noises of the children, and its instincts took over. It began to stalk the children. As they ran from it, it pursued them into the family home. When the mother of one of the children tried to fight it off, the dog focused its attack on her four-year-old daughter. Unfazed by the mother's efforts to drive it off, the dog began to maul the young girl; the mother was helpless. It was only when the child stopped struggling that the attack began to subside. Then the dog returned calmly to the yard. Paramedics soon attended, but only to take the dead child from her home. They would later reassure the mother that her daughter's death had been quick.

Tragedies of this kind confound the community. Since the year 2000 there have been around two deaths annually from dog attacks, and typically the victims are children under five. Children are the least aware of how to behave around dogs and the most vulnerable to the severest consequences of attack. The event I have described prompted a change in the Victorian state laws to recognise the accountability of dog owners and to match the extreme consequences of negligence with fitting penalties. It also prompted former Attorney-General Robert McClelland to acknowledge that the time had come for the federal government to work with states and territories to establish uniform dog laws.

Sharing our lives with dogs makes us happier, healthier, better at making friends and more empathetic to others. But dogs are not born tame, and dogs and people do not always understand each other, so living with them involves risks. Fatal dog attacks are very rare. They are the extreme consequence of a more commonplace problem. But the horror stories——the needless, senseless tragedies and the haunted, shattered families they leave behind—stay with us. They are hard to ignore and even harder to forget. The kind of intense community engagement and political investment that flares up in response to high profile dog attacks can be productive—but only to a point. We should draw on the shock and dismay we share with suffering families to galvanise a commitment to get the solution right. Then, with cool heads, we should gather facts, listen to the experts and collect evidence about what works.

The facts show that a more widespread problem underlies the headlines. While two people a year die from dog attacks, around four people every day are hospitalised by dog-bite injuries. That is 1,400 victims annually, and these 1,400 cases are only the most severe of the 14,000 dog-bite victims who present to emergency departments each year. Add to them the cases who take their injuries to a GP and you end up with around 100,000 dog-bite incidents per year. The Australian Companion Animal Council estimates that each year we spend $7 million patching up victims of dog bite injuries.

So what are the experts saying? They are now telling us that local and state initiatives must feed into and be guided by consistent national regulations, by consistent conditions of enforcement and by clear expectations about owner accountability. Around the country we have a patchwork of regulatory frameworks which have often crystallised suddenly in reaction to a single incident. These approaches are a banked fund of policy capital. But they have been generated in isolation and stored separately; what we need to do now is to pool our capital. Doing so, as Mr McClelland saw, requires the guiding hand of the federal Attorney-General. The process of establishing a framework for productive collaboration across all levels of government still has some way to go, and it is Senator Brandis who must now provide the guiding hand.

Across states and territories there have been moves in the right direction. Dangerous-dog laws have been updated in New South Wales and Victoria, and in the ACT classifications made by any other jurisdiction are recognised as if they were issued by territory authorities. But, if the experts are right that clarity and consistency are critical to solving the problem of dangerous dogs, the first step must be a set of guidelines which do not change when we cross a state or territory border.

What about evidence? We do not have enough of it. That, too, is why federal oversight of a nationally coordinated strategy is crucial. We can look at evidence from strategies trialled across the world and learn, for instance, that banning specific breeds does not reduce dog attacks; but out own record-keeping is fragmented and incomplete. One of the fundamental building blocks of a national strategy should be a national register of dog bites—a database to track incident rates countrywide. Without reliable data, how can we know the extent of the problem or which measures are working to reduce it? Authorities need clear guidelines from enforcement. Our children and our communities deserve better than a make-do patchwork of local law.

The strategies which would serve to reduce dog attacks are not complicated. But, without the national consistency Commonwealth oversight can deliver, a meaningful and long-term approach to education, prevention and regulation is impossible.

I spoke in parliament today in defence of that great national institution, the ABC.

ABC, 27 February 2014

There are more than 200 ABC employees in the Australian Capital Territory. They cover national politics from Parliament House and local issues from Dickson. They cover everything from disasters to national politics. Of course, under this government, those are not mutually exclusive categories. I do not always agree with their perspective or the questions, but I absolutely respect the role of the ABC.

I am fortunate to chat regularly with Waleed Aly and Senator Sinodinos on Radio National, a conversation with two men I genuinely respect and which I think probably makes me a better politician. When I am at home, my three boys love watching Bananas in Pyjamas, the Wiggles and Playschool. If we are in the car, you will likely find us listening to triple j, NewsRadio or one of the thoughtful podcasts such as Conversations with Richard Fidler; the Religion and Ethics Report, with Andrew West; or Geraldine Doogue's Saturday Extra.

Thousands of my constituents have registered their support for a robust, well-funded and independent national broadcaster. They are worried that this government confuses state funded media with state run media. They were worried when they heard ABC managing director Mark Scott tell Senate estimates this week:

If our funding were somehow cut, we would need to look at all our services—radio, television, online—in the cities and in the bush.

The ABC's mandate is to inform, entertain and educate. It is not all about ratings and it is certainly not about pleasing political masters. The ABC has earned strong audience support as one of Australia's most trusted and highly valued institutions.

In 2004, the Howard government announced a funding adequacy and efficiency review. Its subsequent findings, not made public, were reported to have shown the ABC's value and cost-effectiveness. Under stingy budgets in the Howard era, the ABC maintained audiences and grew platforms. Under Labor, funding was expanded, and the multimedia platforms that the ABC developed to engage news audiences are now the envy of its competitors.

But history has a way of repeating, and now we have another efficiency review commissioned by communications minister Malcolm Turnbull. Some see this review as the prelude to an amputation, a ritual of permission that will justify deliberate excisions.

Every Australian government has an obligation to provide the ABC with the resources it needs to bring Australians rigorous reporting and analysis and to fiercely expose what is in the public interest. But will the Prime Minister's pre-election promise not to cut the ABC end up as just one more broken promise? Australians cherish their national broadcaster. Regardless of where they live or how they vote, people are passionate about the ABC.

Prime Minister, don't put the Bananas in the blender. Don't stifle our frank and fearless public broadcasters, and don't put narrow partisan agendas ahead of the national interest.

I spoke in parliament on the government's failure to turn a G20 growth aspiration into a clear plan for prosperity.

MPI - G20, 26 February 2014

I congratulate the Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development on his decade-old diggings, but I am happy to assure the House that I, like all members on this side, do not support a GP tax. The aspiration set by the Treasurer for an additional 0.4 per cent growth per year over the next five years is a perfectly reasonable aspiration, and nobody in this parliament would disagree with it, but an aspiration is not a plan.

There are two very clear plans for growth on offer in this parliament. This side of the parliament believes that growth is driven by investment, by education and by fairness. That side of the parliament believes it is driven by cuts, cuts and cuts—cutting infrastructure, cutting services and cutting wages.

On this side of House, we are committed to building the National Broadband Network. We took Australia from being 20th in the OECD for investments and infrastructure to being first. On this side of the House, we believe in education. That is why we brought forward the National Plan for School Improvement and demand-driven universities. And we believe in fairness. We believe very firmly that government has a role in looking after the most disadvantaged.

But that side of the House is cutting infrastructure. The government does not believe in urban public transport, so it is not investing in projects like Brisbane's Cross River Rail project, the Melbourne Metro, the Perth Airport link and Adelaide's Tonsley Park public transport project. That side of the House does not believe in supporting services, which of course, in a fragile period for the labour market, has a negative impact on demand. If you cut back on that schoolkids bonus, you are taking money straight out of retail spending. But, if you give $75,000 to a millionaire to have a baby, the chances are that they are just going to pay off the mortgage. The spending cuts are going to hit spending hard, and that is going to hit jobs as well.

But also those on that side of the House believe that they need to cut wages. That is their solution every time to boost productivity. You hear the head of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, say things like:

… Australian wage rates are very high by international standards and … our system is dogged by rigidities …

Mr Newman gave a speech to CEDA in which he cited a number of countries, among them Canada, the European Union, Britain and New Zealand, and he said that Australian wages were high relative to those countries. What he failed to grasp, as Stephen Koukoulas has pointed out, is that all of those 'low-wage' countries have higher unemployment rates. The unemployment rate in Canada at the time Mr Koukoulas was writing was 6.9 per cent; in the US, seven per cent; in the eurozone, 12 per cent; in New Zealand, 6.2 per cent; and, in the UK, 7.6 per cent. When the going got tough, the Australian system outperformed that of other nations.

Of course, we have seen just recently new data out on wage growth which has given the lie to those who say that the secret to Australian prosperity is to cut wages. We have seen the release of the seasonally adjusted wage price index. In the December quarter, it rose 0.7 per cent, giving a growth rate for 2013 of 2.6 per cent. That is below the rate of inflation, which is 2.7 per cent, so Australian workers have had a real wage cut. This comes after a 35-year period in which wages for the bottom 10 per cent grew by 15 per cent and wages for the top 10 per cent grew by 59 per cent.

And yet those opposite, led by people like Maurice Newman, believe that the secret to Australian prosperity is to cut wages. They are utterly out of touch. And while they want to cut wages, they want to keep open loopholes. As the shadow Treasurer so eloquently pointed out, the multinational tax-shifting arrangements that the government took to the G20 were Labor's arrangements, minus the $700 million measure that the government took out and minus the transparency measure that Senator Sinodinos is going to scrap.

I spoke in parliament about the importance of Closing the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, focusing on the Wreck Bay community that I represent.

Closing the Gap: Prime Minister's report 2014, 26 February 2014

I rise to speak on Closing the Gap: Prime Minister's report 2014. Closing the Gap is not a mere slogan; it is a bi-partisan commitment to change lives for the better, and we owe this to generations of Indigenous people. Closing the Gap is about life over death, hope over hopelessness, resilience over ruin. It is an expectation that all Australians should flourish. Being an Indigenous Australian should not mean being marked by disadvantage. We are learning more all the time about the challenges and barriers facing Indigenous Australians. We are making some progress on overcoming them, but there is much more to be done. All of us in this House can make a difference in improving the poor health of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples when compared to that of the non-Indigenous population.

Since 2006 governments, Australia's peak Indigenous and non-Indigenous health bodies, NGOs and human rights organisations have worked together to achieve health and life expectancy equality for Australia's Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander peoples. This is known as the Close the Gap campaign. Many of its targets were set to be reached by 2031. Seven years ago the Council of Australian Governments agreed to hold each other accountable for reaching a number of goals. They set out six specific targets for the Closing the Gap campaign: closing the life expectancy gap within a generation; halving the mortality rate for children under five within a decade; ensuring access to early childhood education for all Indigenous children in remote communities within five years; halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children within a decade; halving the gap in year 12 attainment by 2020; and halving the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade

The most recent Closing the Gap report indicates mixed results on the goals articulated by COAG in 2008. Unfortunately, there has been little progress in closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The gap remains at 10.6 years for men and 9.5 years for women. Over the past five years the rate has dropped 0.8 years for men and 0.1 years for women. Currently the Northern Territory is the only state or territory on track to meet its 2031 target.

The goal of halving the mortality rate for Indigenous children under five is on track to be reached. From 1998 to 2012 the Indigenous child mortality rate dropped by 32 per cent, and, if this trend continues, the target for 2018 will be achieved. We are also on track in ensuring access to early childhood education within five years for all Indigenous children in remote communities—88 per cent of indigenous children were enrolled in pre-school in 2012, and the 2013 target is 95 per cent. Conversely, there has been very little improvement in halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy in a decade. Between 2008 and 2013, only two out of the eight categories showed significant improvement, namely reading in years 3 and 5. The goal of halving the gap in Indigenous year 12 attainment by 2020 is on track to be met. In 2011, 54 per cent of Indigenous Australians aged 20-24 had attained a year 12 certificate. This is a significant improvement from 2006, when the rate was at 47 per cent.

Sixthly, the target of halving the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2018 has shown no noteworthy improvement. In fact, data provided by the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey indicates that the proportion of Indigenous Australians aged 15-64 who are employed fell from 54 per cent in 2008 to 48 per cent in 2013. Moreover, there has been a statistically significant fall in CDEP participant levels from 2008 to 2013.

Education is our best antipoverty vaccine. Education helps an individual to become a valued member of the community who can participate and who has the self-esteem that comes from a great education. Meeting Indigenous targets is achieved through genuine partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, working with them as equals with compassion and a desire to understand conditions on the ground. I am proud to represent Jervis Bay Territory, which includes the community of Wreck Bay. In my first speech I spoke about its kangaroos grazing on an oval overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most picturesque parts of my electorate. I have the founders in Canberra to thank for the notion that no capital city is complete without a port. In socioeconomic terms, the Wreck Bay community is the most disadvantaged part of my electorate. I want to speak in particular about Jervis Bay Primary School and the Indigenous learning centre. Jervis Bay Primary has the lowest ICSEA score of any school in my electorate, but on a like-schools comparison it is one of the top-performing schools, if not the top performing school, in the ACT system.

I want to pay tribute to Principal Bob Pastor, who sets high expectations and is universally well spoken of throughout the community. Through the Learning 4 Life program he has engaged representatives from nearby Vincentia High School, the University of Wollongong, Noah's Ark, Booderee National Park and local preschools and childcare centres. This year I want to commend Bob Pastor for his reporting of school attendance rates, which are very much in line with the government's new Closing the Gap target for school attendance. Bob has made a commitment to publicly present his school's attendance record every week and see how it compares with the national average. For the first time in the school's 100 year history the year 5/6 attendance rate is at nearly 100 per cent, and many other classes are not far behind. On recent numbers, year 3/4 is tracking at 95 per cent, above the national average. I congratulate the Jervis Bay School for setting these high standards, and I commend them for their multifaceted educational experience, including an AFL Auskick program and visits from NRL club the St George Illawarra Dragons, who facilitate anti-bullying and rugby league skills sessions.

Also part of the Wreck Bay community is the Gudjahgahmiamia Early Learning Centre. 'Gudjahga' means child and 'miamia' means shelter. The Gudjahgahmiamia early learning hub is a vital part of closing the gaps in Wreck Bay. This centre ensures that children are based in friendly educational surroundings, and it is a centre which is absolutely vital to the educational performance of children in Wreck Bay and indeed to attaining Closing the Gap targets. The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care has spoken to me about the importance of this kind of early learning centre. However, the centre faces an uncertain future beyond June 2014 because its funding comes out of the Australian government's budget based funding model. The Gudjahgahmiamia MACS Early Learning Centre is one of 38 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child and family centres set up across Australia.

If the Prime Minister is serious about closing the gap, I call on him to confirm funding for the 38 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child and family centres beyond the expiry of the national partnership agreement in June 2014. I am told by experts in the field that, without that budget based funding, falling back onto the funding approach which characterises most other early learning centres in Australia risks a high level of drop-out if families are unable to transition from the budget based funding model through to the childcare benefit and childcare rebate system. If children drop out of the early learning centre, it is going to make it more difficult for Jervis Bay Primary School to do the good work it needs to do. So it is absolutely fundamental that the government commits to funding the early learning centre in Wreck Bay. It is part of closing the gap.

I share the passion that was felt across the parliament when the Closing the Gap statements were delivered in the House. But passion is not enough. We need results and we need commitment to funding. The government must fund the early learning centre at Wreck Bay under a budget based model.

I spoke in parliament about the economic challenges facing the government, around jobs, growth and productivity.

JOBS, GROWTH AND PRODUCTIVITY

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
26 FEBRUARY, 2014

In these bills the government is requesting that parliament approve additional expenditure of around $14.8 billion, which largely reflects the government's decisions outlined in the 2013-14 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

Let me say from the outset that the Opposition do not oppose the passage of the three appropriations bills we are debating in the parliament today. Without denying this bill being read a second time, I move:

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House notes that:

(1) the Government repeatedly stated before the election 'that if debt is the problem, more debt is not the answer';

(2) the 2013-14 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook showed a $17 billion blow-out in the 2013-14 budget deficit, which at the time represented a $167 million budget blow-out per day since the Government took office;

(3) 60 per cent of the predicted budget blow-out in 2013-14 was due to the decisions of the Government alone;

(4) the Government has sought to pave the way for deep cuts to the federal budget by deliberately blowing out the budget and establishing its Commission of Audit; and

(5) these cuts would be another example of this Government saying one thing before the election, and doing the complete opposite after it."

What we have continually seen from this government is that they do one thing after the election having said the complete opposite before the election. We have a litany of examples: the Renewable Energy Target, jobs, taxation, cuts to health and education, and this particular case—the budget.

MYEFO

We had a lot of slogans from the Coalition prior to the election and we still hear them today. There is one that I would like to bring up—the slogan: 'If debt is the problem, more debt is not the answer'. If more debt was not the answer, why did the government do a deal with the Greens to legislate for unlimited debt? And what about the issue of this budget emergency? We heard, saw and read an awful lot about that from the coalition prior to the election, but when we actually saw the Abbott government's MYEFO last year, the first budget document to be published under the new government, we saw a nearly $17-billion budget blow-out for 2013-14, more than a 50 per cent increase in the budget deficit, 60 per cent of which was due to decisions of this government. And that blow-out, with a deficit of $30 billion to $47 billion, represented a huge amount every day—$160 million per day.

The component of the budget deficit that did not represent increased expenditure was as a result, largely, of changes in assumptions. We learned yesterday morning from the Secretary of the Department of Finance, David Tune, when he spoke to Senate estimates, that the estimates in MYEFO had dropped the former Labor government's fiscal rules which limited real spending growth. Mr Tune confirmed to Senate estimates that this change in assumptions increased MYEFO's projections for the size of the budget debt over the decade to 2023-24.

So what MYEFO did was to deceitfully change the rules and then claim, lo and behold, to uncover a $667-billion debt figure. These politically biased assumptions had the effect of pumping up the debt and deficit projections—pumping them up markedly. The independent Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook clearly shows that, on the former government's policy settings, the medium-term projection had the underlying cash surplus growing after the forward estimates and reaching one per cent of GDP in 2020-21. Net debt was projected to return to zero in 2023-24.

That figure of a surplus of one per cent of GDP in 2020-21 is an important figure because we know that the terms of the National Commission of Audit were a requirement that the commission:

'… make recommendations to achieve savings sufficient to deliver a surplus of one per cent of GDP prior to 2023-24.'

But if you do not make the $9-billion grant to the Reserve Bank, if you do not give $700 million to multinational firms through tax loopholes, and if you do not relax the fiscal rules, you have got that surplus of one per cent of GDP happening in 2020-21. That surplus is there in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook.

PEFO

There have been a lot of games played with the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook. These are games, ironically, which were played by the party that put PEFO into place. After the 1996 election then Treasurer Costello put in place a Charter of Budget Honesty. That is charter required the secretaries of Treasury and Finance to prepare a Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, PEFO, that ensured, as Treasurer Costello put it at the time:

'That the Australian people know the situation before an election begins and so that elections can be conducted on the basis of facts and not on the basis of deceit, as governments in the past have sought to do.'

PEFO was the fiscal equivalent of Mortein for spiders in the closet—it made it impossible for a new government to claim that, lo and behold, the state of the books were not what had been represented, because what PEFO does is that it ensures that the independent secretaries of Treasury and Finance sit down during the election campaign and set out the state of the books. The spider-free economy that the government took on had an economy with solid growth, unemployment low by historical standards and gross debt projected to peak at $370 billion in 2016-17. That is the spider-free economy that the Treasurer took on. That was underpinned by strong economic growth during Labor's time in office.

The Rudd and Gillard Governments

When Labor took office, our economy was the 15th largest in the world; when Labor left office our economy was the 12th largest in the world. In terms of income per person, we did better yet: we rose from 17th in the world when Labor took office to eighth in the world when Labor left office. In terms of infrastructure spending we did better still. As the member for Grayndler has articulately pointed out on numerous occasions, when we took office we were ranked worse than 20th in the OECD; in 2012 and 2013 we were ranked first by the OECD for our infrastructure investment. We also continued to benefit Australians in other ways. Lower interest rates for someone with a $300,000 mortgage meant a saving of over $100 a week. We made a series of tough decisions in our budget. In fact, I warrant that Labor's final budget not only will be the only budget in Australian history to have achieved a reduction in nominal spending, but will also keep that record. I find it very hard to imagine that another government will succeed in doing that. That was done in ways that ensured that, if spending had to be addressed, it was done in the fairest possible way and in a way that did not hit jobs.

When we cracked down on multinational profit shifting, we saved taxpayers billions of dollars. When we means tested the private health insurance rebate, we did so in a way that ensured it did not include those with the greatest means in the community. Those opposite foresaw doom: they said that private health insurance take-up would plummet as a result of the means test, but the data has given a lie to that claim. When we means tested and restricted the baby bonus the second and subsequent children, the now Treasurer said it was like China's one-child policy. He gives speeches about the age of entitlement, but when Labor came to put in place modest savings measures to ensure that savings were made in a way that shared the burden fairly across the community, all the member for North Sydney could do was to run scare campaigns—big speeches in London, scare campaigns in Australia.

The Abbott Government

The decisions the government is making are decisions that are going to assist the most affluent and to imperil jobs. This is the first Treasurer to knock back a foreign investment bid by a US company, which potentially imperils jobs in Australia. The Treasurer's decision to give $9 billion to the Reserve Bank is bewildering, given that we have no evidence that the Reserve Bank asked for such a grant; and the Treasurer is defying a Senate order to produce the documentation that would support that. The Treasurer says that the reason he needed to give $9 billion to the Reserve Bank was that Labor had taken a larger dividend from the bank than was appropriate. Again, the data gives a lie to that claim. Adjusting for inflation, the Howard government took $3 billion a year from the Reserve Bank and  Labor $1½ billion a year. So, what Labor took from the Reserve Bank was half in real terms what the coalition when in office took from the bank. Of course, we know why the Treasurer has gifted $9 billion to the Reserve Bank; he wants the 2013-14 budget to be someone else's problem. He is like a coach who takes over the job a quarter of the way into the season and wants to be able to blame a whole set of decisions on his predecessor.

This is a man who has not made the transition into government. Like the Prime Minister, the Treasurer is the shadow Treasurer in drag. He is a man who is still out there attacking the economy, when he should be fighting for jobs. He is happy to come in here and play a game of high stakes poker with Holden, but when he loses he wants to blame that on someone else. At the same time he is making decisions which will cost the budget still further. Take the parental leave scheme, which his own backbench strongly opposes, for instance. Alex Hawke, the member for Mitchell, is the most articulate critic of the parental leave scheme on the other side. He argues, not unreasonably, that a scheme that gives $75,000 to a millionaire family to have a baby is probably a scheme that is pretty hard to justify to the average family when they are having their Schoolkids Bonus taken away.

What were the talking points when the coalition was putting this gold plated, diamond encrusted parental leave scheme in place? They told us that it was appropriate to have such a generous scheme, because it was an entitlement. That is why we had to support it—because wage replacement parental leave paid for by the taxpayer was an entitlement. So much the end of the age of entitlement! I think the age of entitlement is just getting going for those millionaire families. And it is just getting going if you are mining billionaire: you are going to see a very generous tax cut under this government—something in the order of $4 billion under the forward estimates is forecast by this Treasurer to be lost when the mining tax is repealed.

Commission of Audit

For the no-surprises, no-excuses government that the Australian people were promised, they are seeing something entirely different. The Prime Minister—who said there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to the pension or to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS—is now facing off with the Treasurer who says that all options are on the table. Last Friday we heard reports that the Treasurer was flagging changes to Medicare, education and the pension age. Despite the fact that he spent an election campaign clutching a 'Real Solutions' pamphlet—which says on page 49 that the government would be more accountable to the Australian public—we now have a Commission of Audit, which has been sitting on the Treasurer's desk since Valentine's Day.

If it had been a bunch of roses it would be a little the worse for wear by now. The roses that I purchased for my wife on Valentine's Day have had to be consigned to the dustbin.

But the Treasurer has apparently been more interested in other reading. We have seen in recent media reports that he is halfway through a new biography of Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps while he is reading Margaret Thatcher's biography he could share with the Australian people the Commission of Audit report. Of course, that is what the Howard government did when they commissioned a commission of audit report. They had a commission of audit that was independent and which released its report to the Australian public at the same time as it did so to the Treasurer. But this is a government which is even more secretive than the Howard government, which, let us face it, did not set many international records for its commitment to transparency and openness. The Treasurer said that he would release the Commission of Audit report sooner rather than later. Well, Treasurer, the clock is ticking. This is, of course, the Treasurer who said he would give us a budget update in his first 100 days in office and failed to meet that deadline. So he clearly has form. That is right: MYEFO—not delivered in the first 100 days.

We hear a lot from those opposite about the state that Labor left the budget in. But the state that they claim was the state in which they received it is not what Peter Costello would have said. Peter Costello would have said: 'If you want to know the state of the books when you took over, look at PEFO.' Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann want you to look to MYEFO, a document delivered more than three months into the Abbott government.

When Labor left office, as independently verified by the Pre-Election Fiscal and Economic Outlook, there was to be a surplus in 2016-17. Labor had deficits across the forward estimates of $54.6 billion. But, by the time we got to MYEFO, those cumulative deficits over the forwards had more than doubled, to $123 billion. We saw, from the PEFO to MYEFO, Labor having net debt at zero by 2023-24 but, once the Abbott government had put in place their changes in expenditure which we are debating today and their shonky changes to the fiscal rules, net debt by 2023-24 was projected to be 14.3 per cent of GDP. So the fact is: Labor had the budget heading into surplus in 2016-17 and to zero net debt in a decade; this government, by decisions totally of its own accord, has blown that out of the water.

This debate is occurring in a broader context, and it is absolutely critical to recognise that context, which is that the government is trying to pretend that Australia is a different country from that which it is. The social services minister, Kevin Andrews, has been found by the ABC Fact Check unit to be false in his claims that Australia's welfare system is not sustainable and in suggesting that there is a European-style fiscal crunch coming within a decade.

Size of Government

The simple fact is that, when we look at how Australia compares with other countries and at the size of government in Australia, Australia is a relatively low-taxing country. Do not take my word for that. In 2006, then Treasurer Peter Costello—I cannot quite believe I am quoting him twice in this speech, but there you go; even a stopped clock is right twice a day—requested a run-down on how our tax system compared with those of other countries. The report, which was co-authored by Peter Hendy, now the member for Eden-Monaro, concluded simply:

'… Australia is a low-tax country.'

That report pointed out that we do not have wealth, estate, inheritance or gift taxes. It found that, for individuals, we have one of the lowest income-tax burdens in the developed world. Since then, federal Labor has delivered significant personal income tax cuts. When Peter Costello was describing Australia as a low-tax country, the federal tax to GDP ratio was 24 per cent. After six years of Labor, that ratio had fallen to 23 per cent. Add in state and local governments, and the tax ratio is around 33 per cent of national income. To put that in perspective, New Zealand and the United Kingdom currently have a tax take that exceeds 40 per cent of GDP, and they have got conservative governments in charge.

So let us see this for what it is: the size of our government is much more similar to those of Korea or the United States, not, as ideologues on the right would have you believe, in the league of Finland and Switzerland. So, when this government attacks expenditure, and when it says that it is unsustainable to have a Schoolkids Bonus, to have income support payments, or to ensure that low-income earners get a fair deal on their superannuation and do not pay a higher tax rate on super than they pay on wages, then you are listening to an ideological agenda. When the chairman of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, describes DisabilityCare as 'reckless', he is striking fear into the hearts of thousands of Australians with a disability.

This government has engaged in backflips on school funding and backflips on debt. This is, after all, a government that went from holding press conferences in front of a debt truck to striking a deal with the Greens for uncapped debt. It is hard to tell whether BA Santamaria, Friedrich Hayek or the Marx Brothers are in charge. And you do not need to take it from me. Peter Costello—

Mr McCormack:  Three times!

Dr LEIGH:  It's three times the cock has crowed, isn't it! Peter Costello famously replied, when asked if he had endorsed Tony Abbott, 'Oh, not on economic matters.' And he was said, in private, to describe the Prime Minister as economically illiterate. His former employer, John Hewson, has covered off the other side of the basic skills test by describing the Prime Minister as innumerate.

This is a government which needs to recognise the broad context in which it sits—which needs to recognise a report from the mid-2000s which describes Australia as a low-tax, low-spending nation.

Productivity and Jobs

The vital debate in Australia at the moment is over productivity and it is over jobs. If you are serious about jobs, you have to get the short-term settings right and the long-term settings right. In the short term it is absolutely vital that we do not withdraw demand from the economy at a time when employment is fragile. This is a government that came to office with a target to generate a million jobs in five years, yet since it won office we have seen very modest growth in part-time jobs but backsliding in full-time jobs: 63,000 full-time jobs lost since this government came to office. So the net result is 7,000 net jobs gone. That million jobs target is slipping away by the day. Partly that is because—and I am sure the minister at the table may have something to say about this—this is a government that said no to foreign investment in GrainCorp, said no to foreign investment that would have generated jobs in the rural sector.

[Mr McCormack interjecting]

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Mitchell):  The parliamentary secretary can have a go later if he likes.

Dr LEIGH:  Did I just promote the parliamentary secretary? He can make a personal explanation later. This is a government which is withdrawing regional jobs as it closes ATO offices. A government which is serious about jobs ought not to be firing public servants left, right and centre, particularly not as the growth in public sector employment under Labor was slower than the population growth. The growth in the number of public servants was smaller than the growth in population. Most public services are deployed on the basis that you need a certain number of people to look after the population, whether that is the hardworking public servants in the Centrelink offices, Family Assistance offices or Medicare offices. Anyone who argues that Australia has a bloated public employment problem ought to say that doubly of the Howard government, which had more public servants per capita than we have today.

So in the short term the government is withdrawing demand and it is cutting jobs at a fragile time for the economy. But it is the long term that worries me even more. In the long term if you want to sustain employment you need to make the investments in skills and in infrastructure. You need to make the investments in the National Broadband Network and in urban rail, both of which this government is walking away from. Having breached their solemn pledge to the Australian people to deliver 25 megabits a second to Australians by 2016, they have now said that, disappointingly, that that is impossible to deliver on. Having said that he wants to be the infrastructure Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has now backed away from Infrastructure Australia, a process designed to put infrastructure decisions at arm's length. And he is being criticised by members of the business community for being unwilling to fund urban public transport, something which is fundamental to city productivity.

Then there is what they are doing on education. You need investment in great schools if you are to build the jobs of the future. This is where Labor said, 'We're going to strike a deal with states where we put in $2 of federal funds and the states guarantee a dollar for federal funds.' This government's funding deal is, 'We'll put in $2 of federal funds and if you want to take out your funds at the same time, feel free.' That is a very different deal to the unity ticket that Australians were promised on school funding and it is fundamental to Australia's economic prosperity. We cannot be a high-skill, productive nation in the future if we are slashing into schools, if we are getting rid of trades training centres and if, as this education minister has suggested, we walk away from the demand-driven model which has allowed children first in their family to attend university and which has benefited particularly rural and regional students.

These hits to Australia's productivity and to our short-term growth prospects are deeply disturbing. We need the government that we were promised before the election, a government of no surprises and no excuses that takes responsibility, steps up to the plate as an adult government and is willing to make the decisions that the Australian economy demands.

On 25 February, I joined host Peter Van Onselen and Liberal MP Steve Ciobo to discuss how the Abbott Government has managed to blow out the 2013-14 budget deficit by more than 50 percent.