Ms JULIE BISHOP (Curtin—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (16:30): Every benchmark of a bad government was set by the Rudd government. Members will recall GroceryWatch and Fuelwatch and pink batts—the list goes on. Now every one of those bad government benchmarks has been exceeded by the Gillard government in 12 months. People will recall that the current Prime Minister was part of the so-called gang of four in the Rudd government—she was one of Prime Minister Rudd's trusted lieutenants and she was the Deputy Prime Minister. So every failing of the Rudd government can be laid at the door of this Prime Minister. And, now, she has her own litany of failures and failings that make this one of the most incompetent governments in the history of Australia. The Prime Minister has taken incompetence to a new low. After 12 months the Australian people are less confident, they are more concerned and they are understandably confused about the direction Australia is heading under this government. Recently a survey was undertaken by JWS Research asking Australian people to nominate the best governments in the last 30 years and 96 per cent of the people surveyed named any government but the Gillard government. That means that four per cent of those surveyed gave the Gillard government a tick—even fewer people than think Elvis Presley is still alive. Twelve months ago, on fundamental injustice day, Deputy Prime Minister Gillard betrayed her leader—the man that she said she would support, the leader to whom she pledged loyalty. Twelve months on from fundamental injustice day, you know how badly this government is travelling when the Labor Party starts leaking its own research against its leader. This is what happened to Prime Minister Rudd—they started leaking against him, to undermine his standing. It is happening again with Prime Minister Gillard. Today, on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, an article by Peter Hartcher states: After a year as Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has failed to establish any sort of positive relationship with the Australian people, according to the Labor Party's own research. Gillard is seen as cold and untrustworthy, still haunted by the way she took the job by deposing the man to whom she had endlessly pledged loyalty, Kevin Rudd. By overthrowing Rudd, she created an emotional starting point for public assessment. This was compounded by her broken promise—'there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'—to entrench a dominant image of dishonesty. The Prime Minister said that she had to depose Kevin Rudd because the government had lost its way—the government of which she was Deputy Prime Minister; the government of which she was part of the gang of four. But she said it had lost its way, that it had gone off track. With her characteristic arrogance, she said she had to take control. She named three issues—first, the mining tax. You might recall that when the gang of four first announced the resource super profits tax, so little did the then Deputy Prime Minister understand mining companies that she claimed that domestic mining companies paid an effective company tax rate of 17 per cent and overseas companies paid 13 per cent. She said that was not a fair share, and that was why they were moving to introduce the resource super profits tax. She said the reason for the super profits tax was that mining companies were paying 13 per cent and 15 per cent tax, and then she said: These are the cold, hard facts—the truth. That was a lie. That was not true. This Prime Minister has form. In fact, Australian Taxation Office statistics show that mining companies pay effectively 30 per cent and 41 per cent when royalties are included, and overseas multinationals pay something like 42 per cent or 43 per cent. So the reason she gave for the mining tax was in fact a lie. Then she did a deal with three of the 3,000 mining companies. But, having done the deal, she then tried to renege on it and say that they would not get the royalties set off against the mining tax. She tried to renege on a deal she did with the people in order to take over from Prime Minister Rudd. Then there is sovereign risk— Government members interjecting— Ms JULIE BISHOP: Members are interjecting asking about the mining tax. On page 13 of today's Australian Financial Review we see 'Big miner prefers Africa to Australia'. The article says that the government's mining tax: … has made Australia a more unpredictable investment destination for coal producers than African countries like Mozambique … The head of Brazilian miner Vale said: Australia is becoming harder because you cannot predict what will happen. In Africa I know what the challenges are … The article goes on: He said an unpredictable investment environment in Australia was the 'main risk' … He cited the minerals resource rent tax and the carbon tax. Who would have thought that sovereign risk and Australia could be said in the same sentence? Under this government sovereign risk is mentioned all the time. The second issue that the Prime Minister said she had to fix was asylum seekers. The disastrous policy embraced by the Rudd government which has seen the people smugglers back in business was in fact designed by this Prime Minister when she was the opposition spokesperson on border protection and immigration. The Rudd government embraced her policy and we have seen an explosion in the people-smuggling trade. She said she was going to fix this explosion in the people-smuggling trade by having a detention centre in East Timor. Problem: she had not told the East Timorese government about it. Then, when the controversy broke out, she tried to say that she did not mean East Timor after all. She did mean East Timor! No wonder Laurie Oakes called her 'silly and slippery and slimy and shifty'. He summed her up all right. Do you recall that we could not have the detention centre—paid for by the Australian taxpayers—reopened because Nauru was not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees? This Prime Minister takes the Australian people for mugs. What does she announce? An asylum seeker swap with Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees. What a great deal—a five-to-one asylum seeker swap—from the so-called great negotiator. What a deal for Australia! The Malaysian deal, like the East Timor deal, reminds me of Monty Python's parrot—'not dead; just resting'. This Prime Minister could not negotiate a deal with countries in our region because she has shown such arrogance towards them. The third issue was climate change. Her promise to the Australian people was that a lasting community consensus would be obtained. What did she do? She trashed that immediately. She promised a citizens assembly, and, because it was such a ridiculous idea and she was so embarrassed by it, she ran away from it and made out that she had not announced it at all. In her election policy—and this will ring in the ears of the Australian people for decades to come; this statement has defined this Prime Minister—she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' That has made her one of the most untrustworthy people in Australian public life. She has no mandate to introduce a carbon tax. She has shown no respect for the Australian people in relation to it. Now we have another debacle in the live cattle trade. By panicking, overreacting and putting in place a total ban, she has managed to offend Indonesia, one of our closest neighbours; she has managed to put the livelihoods of cattle families in the north of Australia at risk; and she has managed to damage one of Australia's most significant exports. What about the NBN? It is a $50 billion government monopoly that will not give taxpayers value for money. Consumers will not get cheaper broadband and we will not get the benefits of competition between technologies or competition between telecommunications companies. What about her signature policy, Building the Education Revolution? There have been billions of dollars wasted—sheer incompetence—building canteens that you cannot even fit a pie warmer into. Then there is the state of the budget. The Labor Party inherited zero government debt. The Rudd government ran it up. The Gillard government have taken government debt to over $100 billion. As for the surplus, they have never delivered a surplus and they will not deliver a surplus. Over four budgets, the cumulative deficit is $150 billion. This government is defined by panic, indecision, incompetence and untrustworthiness. No wonder the Prime Minister has imposed a gag order on the ministers, when ministers say things like: "Kevin's polling wasn't as bad as Julia's is right now and I think a lot of Australians still love him. They probably think he was hard done by. Let's face it, we could do worse and we are." (Time expired)