Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (16:14): Given it is Thursday afternoon, and it has been a long week in this place, I thought I would start with a little joke just to liven things up a little bit. Yes, I know that I could just say that the joke is the other side, but this joke is a little more informative than that, and it also tells a little tale about the subject that we are discussing today. It is a joke that a Scottish friend of mine loves to tell about when he was a kid. His mother would give him a pound and he would go down to the local milk bar and he would be able to get some milk, some bread, some boiled lollies, the newspaper, some bacon, some eggs and a couple of other things that took his fancy. He says that he felt sorry for the kids of today, because when they are given a pound to go down to the milk bar the only things they could get now are some bread and some milk, because CCTV cameras have been introduced. I have got some laughter from this side of the House—not much I must say!—and I am very pleased to see that the member for Dunkley has raised a smile. I think there was a chuckle from the gallery, but not much more than a chuckle. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): The member for Wannon will address the MPI before the chamber. Mr TEHAN: I am getting to that, Mr Deputy Speaker. The thing about the discussion today is that the CCTV cameras have caught up with the government. We saw that with the budget. Here we had the Treasurer promising, over 300 times, that there would be a budget surplus. The Prime Minister, I think, had done it on numerous occasions as well—maybe over 100—yet what we saw in the budget was the CCTV cameras catching up with this government. We saw, once again, we were going to get a budget deficit that was going to add to the five largest budget deficits in Australia's history. We saw that net debt was spiralling past $150 billion. Gross debt was $300 billion. The CCTV cameras caught up with the government when it came to the budget, and we have seen it again today. The World Competitiveness Yearbook has come out, and we have seen what it has had to say. The competitiveness result for Australia is the worst in the last 17 years. What has produced this?—21,000 new regulations and 39 new or increased taxes. What have people had to say about this? If you read Paul Kelly today—the honourable member sitting next to me, the member for Berowra, has pointed this out to me—you will see that even Labor's own economists are coming out to criticise this government. Ross Garnaut warns that tolerating a business-as-usual policy now means the decline in average living standards will be large and the lift in unemployment will be persistent and large. That is what Labor's own economist has to say on this. Mr Billson: Even Stephen Koukoulas could not ignore that. Mr TEHAN: No, I do not think even The Kook could ignore that. Let's have a look at what ACCI has had to say: Business is once again asked to bear the brunt of fiscal ill-discipline. A $200 million increased tax burden next year will add to business costs and erode Australia's productive capacity. These are measures that collectively make the country less competitive. Yet are those on the other side of the House taking any notice? No, they are not. Let's look at the examples. Let's look at the mining tax. The government, and the Treasurer in particular, had five goes at the mining tax. And what was the result?—a complete disaster. And how did the Treasurer explain this? I think it is worth reminding the House. Remember that he had five goes at trying to get this tax right. He said: We brought a super profits tax in at precisely the time the super profits disappeared. Mr Ruddock: You would have to be smart to do that! Mr TEHAN: You would have to be very smart to do that! Not only did he do that, he then made sure that the government spent money based on the fact that he thought the tax was going to raise revenue. Today in question time I think we heard the quote to end all quotes, from the Treasurer. He accused us, on this side—and our policies—of stealing from the future. The Treasurer who inherited a budget in surplus with no net debt, who has now delivered us a budget which has a structural deficit which will reach over $16 billion in the coming years and who has presided over net debt reaching over $150 billion and gross debt of over $300 billion, had the audacity to accuse us on this side of stealing from the future. That is the quote to end all quotes from this Treasurer. His incompetency knows no bounds; we now have the final proof of that. This government has done nothing for the future of this country, and we on our side—if the Australian people have faith and confidence in us and vote us into power on 14 September—are going to have an enormous job to repair the finances of this country. I was pleased to hear the shadow Treasurer today talk on this MPI, because he will be the one who will have to turn the finances of this nation around, and he will need the support not only of all of us in this place but of the Australian people. The mess that this government has produced is considerable. The realisation of that fact is coming not only from businesspeople but also from economists from the Labor side of government. I say to the shadow Treasurer: we will all be behind you if the Australian people place their faith in us. We know that the carbon tax has to go. We know that the mining tax has to go. We know that both regulation green tape and red tape need to be stripped out of the Australian business community. We know that we have to get the Australian economy growing. We know that we have to get employment in this country growing. We know that you will not be able to deliver a budget like the Treasurer did this year which says, 'It is a budget for employment growth,' yet when you look at the figures unemployment will go up. We know that you will not be able to say that you have produced a budget for growth when you look at the details of the budget and find that economic growth will actually decline. We know that you are going to have to be honest with the Australian people. We know that you are going to have to restore the finances of this country to where they were prior to 2007. We have full confidence that you will be able to do that. You can have full confidence that all those on this side will support you in what you need to do. The only way we are going to turn the finances of this country around is to get Australia growing again, to get our cost base down, to get our businesses employing people, to get consumer confidence back and to get business confidence back. That is how we are going to grow this country and that is how we are going to make sure that we remain internationally competitive in a globalised world. We understand the importance of a globalised world and the fact that you have to keep your costs down if you are going to compete. Businesses now not only need to export; they have to be able to compete with imports. They are the facts of a globalised world. That is why we have to become competitive again. The Gillard government has failed us on that account, but I have full confidence that a coalition government if elected will not fail the Australian people on this.