Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (16:52): I was really interested to hear Senator Cormann quote Lenin. What did he quote from Lenin? 'A lie told often enough becomes truth.' I thought he was talking about Tony Abbott, because the lies from the coalition about climate change, government debt and the global financial crisis are repeated time and time again in an attempt to try and make them truth. But they have failed. If you want to quote Lenin, let me quote someone who did not achieve quite the international standing of Lenin—Robert Menzies. In a broadcast on 24 July 1942, when he was talking about his Liberal creed, Menzies said: Nothing could be worse for democracy than to adopt the practice of permitting knowledge to be overthrown by ignorance. Yet time and time again we see ignorance overthrowing knowledge on the opposite side. There are many in the coalition who understand the science of climate change, who understand the physics of climate change, but allow ignorance to overthrow both the science and the physics for short-term political advantage. Menzies went on to say: Fear can never be a proper or useful ingredient in those mutual relations of respect and good-will which ought to exist between the elector and the elected. We have just heard a breakdown in that goodwill from Senator Cormann. The appeal to fear in his speech is typical of the coalition. They run fear campaigns on the budget, on climate change and on the global financial crisis—they are just totally consumed with fear campaigns. They should listen to what their spiritual leader Robert Menzies said about fear never being a proper or useful ingredient in mutual relations. Senator Humphries interjecting— Senator CAMERON: As soon as you mention Robert Menzies and you start to identify what is supposedly the creed of the coalition, coalition senators get all antsy and uptight because they know exactly what Menzies was saying and they know that the Menzies creed is being destroyed, day in and day out, by the coalition under Tony Abbott. They know that there is no Liberal creed anymore. It is no wonder the coalition get all upset about being quoted the words of their spiritual leader—they are so far away from Robert Menzies, they are so far away from their spiritual leader, that they cannot sit quietly and listen to his words. They know they have rejected the creed and philosophy of Robert Menzies. In that July 1942 broadcast, Menzies went on to say: And so, as we think about it we shall find more and more how disfiguring a thing fear is in our own political and social life. We have just witnessed from Senator Cormann a supposed analysis of the Labor government's budget, an analysis based on fear. What else did Robert Menzies say back in 1942? He said: A political party must never be a party which chronically says "No." This is the man who established the philosophy of the Liberal Party and he says you should never chronically say no. What is Tony Abbott about now if not chronically saying no to every issue? Menzies continued: If it never loses sight of its own ideas, it will be positive and creative. Where are the positive aspects of the coalition? They are nowhere to be seen. Where is the creativity of the coalition? It is nowhere to be seen. The coalition is about fear and negativity. That is the creed of the coalition in this parliament—fear and negativity. Robert Menzies went on to say: In brief, Australian Liberalism must present itself as the party of action, and the party of the future. We are not the ANTI party, but the PRO party. I cannot see what the Liberal party or the coalition stand for. I know what they are against. They are against pricing carbon—when they were for it under John Howard. They are against spending government money to keep people in jobs. They are the anti party, the party that Robert Menzies said they should not be. They should not be the party of fear, he said, but they have become the party which promulgates fear, day in and day out and in every speech. Senator Cormann's speech was typical of the fear campaigns being mounted by the coalition. Listen to your spiritual leader. He was not that great but at least he had the right idea on some of these issues. You should not promulgate fear, you should not promulgate negativity—you should actually have ideas of your own. But you have lost that capacity under the leadership of Tony Abbott. And what is this motion, which I oppose, saying? It says there are 'storm clouds on the global horizon'. At last, the coalition have actually lifted up their eyes from their own bootlaces, looked around the world and decided there are problems in the global economy! They have actually done it. I was shocked when I read the resolution, because since 2008 they have been denying that there is a global financial crisis. I remember senators on the other side describing it as the 'North American crisis'— Senator Back: North Atlantic. Senator CAMERON: Go back and check Senator Bushby's statements on the record. So there was no global financial crisis according to them. When you look at their analysis—and I use the word loosely; I use the word 'loosely' about anything Senator Cormann says—you cannot find any talk of the global financial crisis. They say, 'We went from a surplus to deficit,' as if nothing had happened in the global economy, as if banks were not collapsing all around the world, as if governments were not propping up banks around the world, as if multimillions of workers were not losing their jobs around the world, as if industry had continued to invest as they had been investing prior to 2008, as if investment in the global economy had not dried up. In 2008 the Lehman Brothers and the global financial crisis were not in the lexicon of the coalition. They try and wipe it out, as if it had never happened. That is why I was so surprised to see some recognition from the coalition that there was something happening globally and that there was a problem that governments around the world had to deal with. By the way, welcome to the real world; you have actually got there! There are problems out there, problems that governments all around the world have been trying to deal with and issues that you have been trying to pretend are not there. Senator Fifield's motion says there are these 'storm clouds on the global horizon'. Well, big storm clouds have been around for a long time, and they are not on the horizon; they have been here since 2008. The Labor government have been dealing with them in a way that every other government around the world wishes they could have dealt with them—with speed, efficiency and effectiveness, and in a timely, targeted and temporary manner. That is what we did during the global financial crisis. We also underpinned 210,000 jobs in this economy. And what did the coalition say at the time? They said, 'We should just wait and see.' And who were they echoing? They were echoing former US President Herbert Hoover, who basically said 'do nothing' on the advice of the Hayekian economists of the time. 'Do nothing. The market will fix this if you just let the market take the time to resolve this. Government should stay out of it and everything will be okay.' Everybody knows that was a nonsense. Everybody knows there had to be Keynesian stimulus to bring economies back to some kind of normality. Everybody knows that that was what had to happen. Yet the coalition were arguing that we should just 'wait and see' what happened. If we had waited to see what happened, 210,000 jobs would have been lost; communities, workers and families around this country would have been devastated; government debt would have been far greater than it is now; and this economy would have been struggling to recover. Instead, we are the envy of the world. We are an economy with a AAA rating, something the Howard government could never get across all of the rating agencies. We are a government that put in place, as I said, in a timely, targeted and temporary manner, initiatives to keep this country running. Those opposite then go on to say, 'How dare you lift the debt ceiling to $300 billion?' I am always amused when Senator Joyce gets up to talk about debt, because he was the shadow finance minister who probably lasted the shortest period of any shadow finance minister in history. I am glad Senator Sinodinos nods and agrees with me. Senator Sinodinos: No, I don't. Senator CAMERON: I thought I had better have a look at what Senator Joyce was saying, because I am not an economist. I know Senator Joyce says he is an accountant—I would not trust him with the limited accounts I have!—while I am only a humble fitter and machinist. So I went back and had a look at this debt issue. The best advice I could get was from the Budget Policy Division of the Australian Treasury—not a bad place to go, Senator Sinodinos; what do you reckon? That is where you should go to get some advice. I know you were there during your time. I know John Howard went there. I do not think Peter Costello went there very often, because he was not very successful. They had an internal paper for discussion within the Treasury, and it says: Understanding debt and its historical trends is important, as the level of debt provides one measure of the strength of public finances. Levels of public sector borrowing fluctuate in line with the economic cycle and the budget position. This paper briefly describes the various measures of debt and trends in government borrowing. That is from the experts. This is the experts in Treasury talking about government debt. And what do we hear from Senator Joyce, the shortest lived shadow finance spokesman in the history of the coalition? He keeps talking about gross debt. So what do the experts say about gross debt? They say: Gross debt represents a portion of the total liability a government owes to creditors. It tells you what the main component is and says: While the gross debt measure provides information on government finances, it is only a partial indicator. You would agree, Senator Sinodinos, those are the facts—it is only a partial indicator. You could not argue against that. It goes on: Gross debt does not incorporate amounts that are owed to government by other parties. Also governments, like an individual or businesses, hold assets which can be sold to meet their financial obligations. To capture the asset side of the equation, net debt needs to be considered. It goes on: Net debt is the most commonly quoted and well-known measure of a government’s financial strength. I never heard even Peter Costello, with all his failings, foibles and weakness, talk about gross debt. I never heard John Howard talk about gross debt. I heard them talk about net debt and net debt is what all economists look at; it is what governments around the world look at; it is what the IMF looks at; it is what the OECD looks at. And the Treasury officials say: Compared with gross debt, net debt is a better measure of a government’s overall indebtedness as it also captures the amount of debt owed to the government. So when you see Senator Joyce stand up, you have to understand that he is an accountant—my view would be he is not a very good one. He is not an economist. You should rely on the experts. Then in the Treasury paper A history of public debt in Australia, by Katrina Di Marco, Mitchell Pirie and Wilson Au-Yeung—they are the ones who know what they are talking about, not Senator Joyce—they say: The case of Japan most clearly illustrates how only considering gross debt can result in a skewed interpretation of government finances. Skewed interpretations is what the coalition want the public to look at—not honesty but a skewed interpretation. They say that, if you looked at that, the gross debt measure for Japan is 173 per cent. They go on to say: Canada, which has a comparable amount of gross debt to France, Germany and the US, has a significantly lower level of net debt— So you cannot look at gross debt and Senator Joyce needs to understand this. We get told we should run the government like a business. We had better not run it like Fortescue Metals, like Twiggy Forrest, with a total debt of $5.997 billion and a total equity of $3.141 billion. What is the debt to equity ratio for Twiggy? It is 190 per cent. I know Senator Cormann is very close to Twiggy. I know Senator Cormann would do anything the mining industry tells him to do, but when he comes in here and lectures us about debt he should understand that the people he is arguing for have debt to equity ratios of 190-plus per cent. So do not lecture us about this. Senator Sinodinos was a key government adviser. What did we end with after the period of the Howard government? We had a failure of investment in this country, with less than two-thirds of profits reinvested. We had a failure of innovation, with among the lowest R&D innovation in the world. We had productivity declining, at the bottom of the OECD. We had a failure of development. We had elaborately transformed manufactures diving. We had a failure of balance. The balance was all about putting in Work Choices to try to crash workers down to increase productivity through lower wages; it does not work, Senator Sinodinos, and you were up there. And we had a failure of sustainability. Even though you were advising, and former Prime Minister John Howard was advised to do something about climate change, it never happened. The best we got was a $10 billion investment in the Murray and that was done without even going to cabinet—the ministers did not know anything about it. So do not lecture us about credibility. You have none.