Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (17:40): I thought Senator Rice was on the list before me but I am very happy to speak on this subject. As you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, and as my colleagues know—I have made it clear to all of them—I am not in favour of the increase in excise. As I say, I have made my views very well known. I call this the Labor Party's tax increase. Why do I do that? Because if it was not for the Labor Party's mismanagement of our economy over a long period of time—the six years that they were in power—we would still be in surplus. Rather than increasing taxes, which, regrettably, this does, we would be cutting income tax, as was a feature of the last Liberal government—the Howard government—when, on a number of occasions, the actual income tax rate payable by ordinary Australians was cut. When you have $60 billion in the bank and when you are running annual surpluses, you are able to do that sort of thing. You are able to cut taxes. The Labor Party came into government in 2007 with, as I said, $60 billion in the bank and an annual surplus of some $20 billion a year. So it was a pretty good situation when the Labor Party took control. But within six short years there was not one Labor surplus, despite promises we used to get from the Labor Treasurer, Mr Swan—does anyone remember him?—who, each budget year, would promise that there would be a surplus but who never delivered one. There were two Prime Ministers during this period, but neither of them was able to properly manage money. In the Labor Party, neither the Prime Minister nor the Treasurer could manage money. Rather than having $60 billion in credit and surpluses of $20 billion each year, the Labor Party put us in a situation whereby if nothing is done we will end up with a $600 billion deficit. This is what Labor did to us—$600 billion in debt. Work out the interest on that! Already we are paying $33 million a day in interest to foreign lenders because of the Labor Party's incompetence. I ask: how many roads in Australia could you build with $33 million extra every day? I can tell you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that you would get a four-lane highway between where I live in Ayr in North Queensland and where my office is in Townsville in North Queensland. We could have a four-lane highway there if we had $33 million a day to spend on it. But we do not have that, because that $33 million each and every day that we are paying in interest goes to foreign lenders, not to road constructors in my part of the world. That is why I call this fuel excise increase the Labor Party's new tax. It is the Labor Party's fuel increase, because I understand that Mr Hockey has to take extreme measures to try and address the debt and deficit left to him by the Labor Party. Senator Cameron: They are extreme. Senator IAN MACDONALD: There was an interjection, but I could not quite catch it. It cannot have been terribly important. So that is the situation we are in. I have made my position quite clear, unlike the lobotomised zombies on the other side of the chamber, as my good friend Senator Cameron used to call his own colleagues. Remember the lobotomised zombies. It is not me calling the Labor Party that. It was Senator Cameron calling his colleagues and you, Mr Acting Deputy President, and your whip there that. I would not have called you a lobotomised zombie. But, in calling you lobotomised zombies, clearly your friend and colleague Senator Cameron did not have any regard for you. On our side of the chamber we do have debates. We are able to put forward new ideas. If you have a different idea to the leader of the party at the time, you are not automatically expelled from the Liberal Party, as you are in the Labor Party. I understand that is how the Labor Party is. But I can well understand why Senator Cameron referred to opposition senators as lobotomised zombies, because you just sit there and take whatever is given to you by the great financial intellect of people like Mr Wayne Swan, the Treasurer of the Labor regime that never once had a surplus, in spite of consistently promising that there would be one. On our side of parliament we are entitled to have a different view and we are entitled to express that view. I have said it publicly—and it comes as no surprise to my colleagues—that I think there are better ways of trying to address Labor's debt and deficit, because I do think that fuel increases impact more heavily on those outside the capital cities. These are people that do not have a tram down at the end of the street, that do not have a public bus service in the next block, that do not have suburban trains and whose schools are more than just a couple of kilometres away so parents can readily get their children there. It has an impact on these people, like the people I represent, who have to use their vehicles for everything. I know of an instance up near Georgetown were a caring mother drives her children 80 kilometres to the school. If she goes home and then to come back and picks up the child in the afternoon, that is 160 kilometres to get the child to school and another 160 kilometres to pick the child up. That is 320 kilometres in a day just to get the child to school. With respect, I am quite sure that few of my colleagues on the other side of the chamber would understand that. This is not a criticism, but it is a fact of life that most of you live in the capital cities, you represent the capital cities and you would find it difficult to believe that there are places in Australia, particularly in the north where I come from, where a parent would drive 320 kilometres each and every day just to get their child to school. In the city, you could walk the couple of blocks or quickly drive to the next suburb to drop the child off. And that is just schooling. Multiply that by going to the doctor, going to hospital, going to sporting events and going to cultural events. If you want to get to a cultural event in many parts of rural and remote Australia you have got to get on a plane and fly to Brisbane or Sydney or Melbourne—that is, unless you go to Townsville for the Festival of Chamber Music, which is held annually, and which, as I mentioned in another speech in this chamber recently, has inexplicably not been funded by the Australia Council this year. So, yet again, it seems to me, and I do not want to get paranoid about this, that sometimes these rules seem to be made by capital city people for capital city people. In relation to the Festival of Chamber Music, I will be wanting to see how much money went to cultural events in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Brisbane compared to what goes to places like Townsville. Senator Bilyk: What about Hobart. Senator IAN MACDONALD: I am not sure where you go in Hobart with regard to those sort of expenses, Senator Bilyk. I guess it depends who is on the Australia Council and just what exactly the thoughts of those on the council are. But I certainly want to find out why they are not funding the Townsville Festival of Chamber Music. But I digress. Fuel is used more in rural and regional Australia, and that does increase the cost of living. That is why I am very keen—as I certainly hope my government, in the white paper on Northern Australia that is due to come out very shortly, will be—to address the issue of the zone tax rebate It has not been amended for a number of years, and it needs to be brought up to date. And why was that introduced, back in the years immediately post the war? It was introduced to try and in some way compensate for the recognised additional costs that are incurred by people who live remote from the capital cities. Unfortunately, the high ideals of that initiative, back in the immediate postwar years, have lessened over the years when there has been no indexation. If that were to come in, you could say, as I would say, that those additional costs for using your car all the time are in fact compensated for by an increased zone tax rebate. But until that happens I will be opposing legislation that taxes unfairly those who live outside the capital cities. As I say, I do not blame Mr Hockey for this. I certainly do not blame our government for this. I blame the Labor Party because, I repeat, when Labor came to power, they had $60 billion in credit, and they had an annual surplus of some $20 billion. It did not take long for the Labor Party to squander what was in the bank and run up a debt which, if it is not addressed, will approach some $600 billion that future generations will have to pay. So I understand the dilemma that Mr Hockey is in, and I do not blame him for it. Had he asked me—and, regrettably, he did not—I could have perhaps suggested other ways that he might have been able to gain that money. I regret that it has gone to fuel, but I hope that, perhaps, with the northern Australia white paper, the government may seriously look at amending the zone tax allowance rebate to compensate for the cost not just of fuel and the impact of fuel but on all of the things that make living in areas remote from the capital cities more expensive. This has been the passion of my life. This is why I came to this federal parliament a long number of years ago. I thought we had almost got around to doing something about it in 2004, and we were heading towards that goal of trying to bring some equity and justice to those who live remote from the capital cities. I was at the time the Minister for Regional Services. We had got so far. But, after the election in 2001, I was moved to another portfolio, and the initiatives which we had had at the starting blocks, if I might say, were never consummated to the extent that I had hoped that they might have been. We are at that stage again. The Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia has been working. It has put forward a report. I know that the government is considering a white paper. The government did promise that it would have that out within 12 months of the election. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet, but I expect that that will happen in the very near future. I do not know what is going to be in the white paper, but I am hopeful that a lot of the submissions that have been made will be addressed. And a lot of those submissions deal with roads in northern Australia. They deal with water management and storage in northern Australia. They deal with health and education issues in northern Australia. I again repeat that education in non-capital-city areas does, of necessity, cost more. Most things that come into the North are transported from a southern capital, and you do not have to be an economic genius to work out that that costs more. So I think it is important, in equity and fairness—David? Senator Bushby interjecting— Senator IAN MACDONALD: Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask the Senate's forgiveness; I just had to have a short chat to the whip, but the whip has indicated that others are prepared to forgo their position so that I can finish my speech. Regrettably, Labor's petrol excise increase tax is with us. I am disappointed about that. I am opposed to it. I made it quite clear I would vote against it, had there been a vote. I will vote against it in 12 months time. I will be interested to see what the Labor Party does, in 12 months time—whether they are going to vote against it, when this excise tariff area has to be approved by parliament. It will be fascinating to see, after some of the speeches today, just where those senators who were so passionate about it today actually vote in 12 months time. It is going to be very interesting. Again: my views are clear, but I do not blame Mr Hockey; as I say, I blame the Australian Labor Party. If they had not been so completely dysfunctional in their financial management, we would be reducing the cost of excise, we would be reducing income tax and we would be reducing company tax, but we cannot do that now because Labor ran up a debt of what would approach $600 billion if it were not arrested. It is not just Labor that is at fault here. It was the Greens political party that supported Labor all the way in this reckless spending—this spending that took a bank account, if one might put it that way, of some $60 billion, which Labor inherited from the Howard government, from a $60 billion credit to a deficit approaching some $600 billion. Only the Labor Party and the Greens could do that. So, regrettably, I part company with my own party on this particular tax, but I blame the Labor Party. If it were not for the Labor Party, I would not be put in this position. And Labor should be eternally shamed. The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Macdonald. The time for the debate has expired.