Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (17:36): The subject of today's matter of public importance is this government's failure to appropriately manage the nation's economy. Boy, how much evidence do we have of that? On the night that Wayne Swan brought down last year's budget a few of us, including the members for Kooyong, Macarthur and Durack, went out the back and we shook our heads—how could the Treasurer say he was going to bring down a surplus budget? At that time, the consensus of opinion was that in this budget there would be a $20 billion to $25 billion deficit. We just plucked that figure out of the air, but how close we were to the real mark of $19.4 billion. The Treasurer had a growth rate in last year's budget of 3.5 per cent. You do not have to be Einstein to go and talk to people who have jobs, who have small businesses or who have big businesses, or to those people who are in the mining industry or who are exporting into Asia—China, Japan, Korea and Indonesia. You just had to talk to them and they would have told you that things were not too good. Since 13 months ago, things have only got worse. What is more, the Treasurer in his wisdom still maintained, until November 2012, that he was on track—everything was rosy in the House, everything was rosy in the government, everything was rosy in the country. In December he changed his mind—'It might be hard to reach the surplus; we might get there but we might not.' Come April, in an outlandish statement he said, 'Bad news—we might have a deficit of about $7 billion.' That was for all of one week. The next week the Prime Minister herself said, 'No Wayne, you are wrong—it is going to be $12 billion.' Holy mackerel, Senator Penny Wong trumped them all with a $17 billion estimate. And she wasn't right! So much for forward projections. They cannot get their projections right for a week's time, so how can they get them right for four years or until 2019? How can they possibly get it right? It is amazing. In the meantime there have been 30 new taxes brought on by this Labor government and 22,000 new regulations that small business and big business have to interpret and put up with. It is unbelievable. It was supposed to be one in, one out. There were approximately 200 out. Their notion is power at any cost: 'Keep us in government at any cost. Too bad about our grandkids. Too bad about our kids. Let them pay the debt off.' What a great philosophy to have! They are not thinking ahead at all. They are thinking to the next election, and I hope they can work the odds that the bookmakers are offering at the moment. Our Treasurer talks about a $1.5 trillion economy, but that is mainly tied up in superannuation funds. And who puts the money in the superannuation funds? The Australian people, not the Australian government. So that is his trickery. He compares us with Greece, Italy, Cyprus, my old country of Ireland, Spain and Portugal but does not mention anything about our Asian neighbours China, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, who are doing very well, with growth rates around five to eight per cent in all those countries. Mr Christensen: They haven't got a carbon tax. Mr O'DOWD: Yes, they have not got a carbon tax in those countries, and some of their emissions are coming down also. Our credit card level went from $75 billion to $200 billion to $250 billion, and now she is raring up towards $300 billion. On the forward estimates, it is going to end up at nearly $400 billion. So where do we go? The member for Oxley said, 'We'd like to be here for another 20 years.' At this rate, there would not be many Australians left, that is for sure. We would all have to be overseas looking for work. Since 2007 electricity costs have gone up by 93 per cent, water and sewerage costs 63 per cent, utilities 79 per cent, gas 61 per cent, insurance 45 per cent, education 38 per cent, health services 40 per cent and rents 30 per cent. We talk about a low interest rate of 2.75 per cent, but I know a guy in my electorate who went to a bank yesterday for a loan for a small business and was quoted an interest rate of 14 per cent. So the 2.75 per cent is the cash rate but in reality, if you want to try and borrow money, do not expect 2.75 per cent. In fact, do not expect 4.75 per cent; expect a lot more. If this country needs to kick-start our economy, there are a lot of things that we can do. This is what you do not do: there is an immigration budget blow-out of $6.6 billion and an NBN blow-out of $44.1 billion, and nearly $70 million has been spent on advertising the carbon tax, including $100,000 on three fake kitchens for the carbon tax ads. They could not just pick an ordinary kitchen. No, they had to go and build three kitchens for $100,000. A hundred million dollars was spent on compensation for the live export fiasco. A hundred and fifty million a year is being spent on spin doctors to sell Labor's policies. Wait for this: the knifing of Kevin Rudd cost $1.3 million in staff redundancy packages. Unbelievable! Furthermore, $10 million was donated to the trade unions in the last year's budget. The failed Malaysian solution cost $5 million. The list goes on and on and on. I have a lot more to say, but I should read out this unprompted email I received today from an Emerald businessman: Now about the IR laws Government need to know this company Western Gateway Motel— that is his motel— has chosen to close the restaurants on Sunday nights and all public holidays because of the high cost of employment with penalty rates [that no other country in the world pays] in these economic times. It's very noticeable when you get backpackers offering to work for no penalty rates just to get a job and they can't understand if they sign a piece of paper with that offer, if accepted, and the company got caught, the person responsible could go to jail with a heavy fine. … … … It's alright for Shorten to say that he wants Australians to be the best paid in the world, lets hope there is a job at the end of it. We are competing against America at $17.00 per hour. The Rudd government has definitely failed to appropriately manage this economy. There are several more examples I do not have time to go into—with 30 seconds left on the clock. Needless to say, we have to get our country going: our mining industry is in a state of flux, our manufacturing industry is in a state of flux, our cement industry is in a state of flux and our dairy industry in Queensland is nearly gone. We need to get in and give them the incentives they need. Cut the red tape and cut it quick. Bring on September 14 as quickly as possible, because people are out there suffering and they need help. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Murphy ): The discussion on this MPI has concluded.