Senator O'SULLIVAN (Queensland) (16:38): I rise to speak on the matter of public importance. It is always good to come in here and clear the sinuses, to get a lecture from the Australian Labor Party on how to manage the economy of this country. These are people, almost to the last person—these shop stewards and trade union delegates—who made their way into this place not on merit, not on demonstrating their knowledge of how to run a business or how to make a contribution to an economy but, rather, they were just like marbles with numbers on them coming out the end of a garden hose. 'Who's next?' they say when a vacancy comes up. Honestly, if you put your hand in your pocket and found a 10-pound note you would have someone else's pants on because you have devoted your life, you have created a skills base, where you wait for real people to develop economies and businesses. You stand there, almost at the gate of the factory, waiting to prey upon them. You do not want the employers to have any advantage. You represent a trade union movement that, quite corruptly, goes and gets commissions, most of it for the benefit of the trade union. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Reynolds ): Senator O'Neill, on a point of order. Senator O'Neill: Madam Acting Deputy President, I am not sure whether the senator was referring to you. I doubt he would have been referring to any particular person sitting on this side; nonetheless, he should refer his remarks through the chair. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Sullivan, I would remind you to make all your comments through the chair. Senator O'SULLIVAN: Let me clear it up for the senator. It is a very communistic approach. My remarks can be shared, equally, amongst you all. If one of you wants to take a bigger load than the others you just put your hand up and let me know. The fact of the matter is, it offends me when I come in here and hear members of the Australian Labor Party talk about the economy. If only the arrow were black and went up instead of red and going down. You would be heroes. You took a balanced budget left by Prime Minister Howard that had $60 billion in reserve and zero debt. That is a statement you will never hear again in your lifetime, Senator Katter—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—even if you live to be 115. You left a debt of $300 billion behind. You borrowed three hundred thousand million dollars and frittered it away. You want to talk about middle-income Australians losing out, but all they got out of your government—some of them, not all of them—was some pink batts up in the ceiling. They got nothing else whatsoever. For you to come in here and tell us how to run an economy—you wouldn't have a clue! None of you have ever employed anyone, except when you got the payroll out of some consolidated revenue of someone else's money, like a trade union movement. That is the only time you have ever employed anyone. You have never lain awake— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Neill, do you have a point of order? Senator O'Neill: Yes. The honourable senator continues to ignore the reality that he should be making his comments to the chair. I would like to make it a debating point but I will not. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I thank you for that, Senator O'Neill. Senator O'Sullivan, I would remind you to make your remarks through the chair. Senator O'SULLIVAN: Madam Acting Deputy President, you know when you're on the money when every minute or so one of them bobs up with some nonsense sort of an interjection to stop you getting your flow on. Through you, Madam Acting Deputy President, there is not one of these people here who has ever lain at home at night worrying about their business mortgage, worrying about how they are going to employ someone. This is reflected in their economic management skills. They have not even had the basic experience of small business to know things like tax cuts. Those tax cuts that will go to these businesses—I think it is under $10 million—are going to be reinvested. Every cent of that will be reinvested by employing more people or giving better employment services to those who are already employed, giving them confidence that their jobs are going to continue because their bosses are productive. The only way governments can create revenue is to borrow more money, increase taxes and charges or reduce services. There is no other pathway. The only way out of this Labor quagmire that you left us, this $300 billion debt, is for business men and women out there to hit their straps and generate incomes, creating good profits on which to pay their fair share of taxation. That is the only way out of this quagmire—creating businesses that will employ more people. Let me talk about some of the imposts on businesses. Let me tell you about the impact the Labor Party still has today. They send out these gorillas, knuckles dragging on the floor, to corruptly stand over businesses to take money. Some of them spend it on prostitutes and boats for themselves, others put extensions on their own homes. These are trade union delegates, these are the mates of the Australian Labor Party, these are the people who fund this political franchise, over here, of nearly $200 million. You know that, don't you, Senator Williams? You only mentioned it a bit earlier. It was $198 million, I think. You were a student of it. You have taken $198 million off these corrupt individuals in this organised crime unit so that you can continue to come here and protect them—not only to protect them but to create an environment where they can continue to attack— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Neill, do you have another point of order? Senator O'Neill: It will not surprise you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that I need to make the same point of order. I do draw your attention to the rather outrageous claims that the senator is now making and attributing to people here. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: There are two issues there. The second issue is a debating point. I have been listening very carefully to Senator O'Sullivan. You were a bit slow to your feet, and I did let it go, because I took it as a rhetorical question to another senator, rather than a direct issue. So there is no point of order. Senator O'SULLIVAN: Let me be more specific. The CFMEU, which I think is accepted by everybody to be an organised criminal outfit, with 114 of them before the courts for serious criminal offences in relation to— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Neill, another point of order? Senator O'Neill: That is an outrageous accusation to make to an entire organisation. It is one thing to correctly describe people who have broken the law and are before the law, but that is just way too far. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I will take that again as a debating point. Senator O'Neill: The senator should take care with— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator O'Sullivan, I will just remind you to take care with your language, but that was a debating point, not a point of order. Senator O'SULLIVAN: I compliment Senator O'Neill. She is definitely earning her donations from the trade union movement today. Where does that money come from? You have to understand that a large part of that, as disclosed by the commission, has come from industry. It has come from businesses. It has been corruptly obtained. We have heard of these secret commissions. This is money that would otherwise be spent by that company in the operation of its enterprise, in the employment of people and in the provision of services. But no. So what happens? Do you on the other side understand what trickle-down economics is? I doubt that you do, but here is what happens. Those are cost outlays that those companies have to meet, despite the fact that it is a corrupt payment. Where does it go? You want to talk about housing affordability? I will tell you what it does. It trickles down onto the job site. It trickles all the way down onto the job site, because these enterprises still want to make a profit for themselves. They still want to remain viable. So you have got this trade union movement up one end, ripping the heart out of industry—some estimates suggest that the productivity losses are in double digits, that the additional costs, particularly in commercial construction, are in double digits. That is money that would remain in the cycle. When you make a profit in business—and fortunately I know a thing or two about that—you reinvest it in yourself. You start off with five employees. When you are more profitable, you grow your business. Most people, at least, grow their business; they are ambitious to grow their business. You employ 10 people. You employ 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 people. Every cost that you have impacts on the viability of your business and impacts on your ability to employ people. So every red cent stolen or corruptly taken by the trade union movement, particularly in the construction industry, particularly the CFMEU—one of your biggest donors and a donor of our friends over there; they are sitting quietly but perhaps that might knock them out of their slumber and they might have something to say—is money that comes directly out of industry and commerce in this country. That is why, to the extent that there is any impact on low- and middle-income Australians, it is because it has been ripped out by these inefficiencies created by the trade union movement. Senator Ketter: What a joke! Senator O'SULLIVAN: No. Through you, Madam Acting Deputy President: I saw you get up, Senator Ketter, trying to name places. You did not even pronounce some of them properly, because—let us get down to the facts now—every Labor senator in Queensland is based in Brisbane or the Gold Coast. That is where they are. They have never seen a kangaroo. They have never dodged a kangaroo. They are nowhere to be seen in the bush. There is a reason for that: there are no votes for them up in the bush. I can tell you that now. What we have got is— Senator McAllister interjecting— Senator O'SULLIVAN: No. These are the impacts. What you are trying to do is impact on businesses—in my case, out in provincial Queensland, in the bush. We saw you last week. I have got to tell you I found it incredible to sit over here and look at the Australian Labor Party sit over there and vote with their coalition partner, the Greens, to try and bring jobs in the black coal industry to an end. These are your workers. These are the people that you built the Australian Labor Party on—coalminers. There are 14,000 jobs already gone in Central Queensland, in the Bowen and Surat basins, and you sat over there to bring that to an end. There are thousands of businesses, Senator Ketter, that will not remember you for your kind words today as you talked about the impacts in those communities and tried to blame them on the government. They will remember you for your vote a week ago, when you voted to get rid of their remaining jobs in the black coal industry. That is what they will remember you for. And, just in case they nod off and forget, I will be there to remind them at every single opportunity. The Australian Labor Party as we currently know it is no longer the Labor Party of the sixties and the seventies or indeed before that, since their formation. You are no longer the party of the workers. To come in here and talk about the economy in the form that you have demonstrates to them that you are ignorant of economic issues. You made this problem. You created this problem that we have in the current environment. My story is the NDIS. I think that all governments should be ashamed of themselves for not having introduced a national disability insurance scheme 40, 50 or 60 years ago. It should have been enshrined in the Constitution almost. And I give full credit to the Australian Labor Party for leading the way in relation to the introduction of that. That is something that you can be very proud of. But you know what? You forgot to leave any money in the piggy bank. You forgot to leave one cent in there to fund it in the forward estimates, and you have done that before. Keating did that. He took us to 19 per cent. Gough Whitlam spent like a drunken sailor. This is your history. This is your legacy on the question of the economy. So, if I seem a bit testy, it is because for you to get up and start to lecture us on what low- and middle-income Australians have, because of some economic decision of this government, is a little bit rich. These people have been better off under coalition governments forever. They rely on us to come in and fix the debt. Well, we are having to struggle this time, because you did not just leave a debt. You left the piggy banks, and, when we lined them up and gave them a rattle, what did we hear, Senator Williams? We heard nothing, because they were empty. I got excited at first; I thought they might have been full of banknotes and so not make any noise. But no. We pulled the plug out, put the old looking glass up there under the belly of the pig, and it was fully empty—just like your ability to conduct and manage an economy. You are an empty vessel. I will not be lectured by you in this place. I will not be lectured by you about what we need to do to the economy. I will not have you tell us that low- and middle-income Australians are worse off under this government, after you left a massive, massive Bankcard debt that we cannot crawl over. Senator McAllister interjecting— Senator O'SULLIVAN: No, it is good to see you come alive. I will bet you this: in every contribution that the Labor Party makes today, I bet they will not acknowledge the fact that they left a $300 billion debt, Senator Williams. I will bet you a carton of anything you drink, and there will be a carton for you too if you get up and tell the truth—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—and let Australians know what they already know: what a terrible state you left the financial affairs of this country in. I will give you a carton of beer, or a carton of something else; you might be a soft drinker. Senator Williams interjecting— Senator O'SULLIVAN: Sorry? Senator Williams: Mine is Guinness. Senator O'SULLIVAN: There we go—Guinness. We will get you some Guinness. I want to close simply by saying it is a bit rich and hypocritical. You people: if you have a couple of minutes, pop round to my office, and I will give you some 101 on economic management.