Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (15:24): We heard before a very remarkable speech from Senator Penny Wong. It was remarkable for two reasons. First of all, it was remarkable that, on the most solemn parliamentary occasion there can be, a motion from the opposition of confidence in the government's handling of a key issue of public policy— Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting— Senator BRANDIS: Senator Collins, it may have escaped you, but the House of Representatives is not in session today. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Brandis, please resume your seat. On my right, Senator Collins and others. Senator Brandis, you have the call. Senator BRANDIS: Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I was simply, through you, pointing out to Senator Collins that the Senate is a coequal chamber with the House of Representatives and happens to be the only chamber in the Australian parliament in session today. It was a remarkable speech by Senator Penny Wong because, on this very important parliamentary occasion, it was the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, not the Leader of the Government in the Senate, who responded on behalf of and in defence of the government to a motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition in this place, Senator Abetz. One might imagine that after his blundering, inarticulate, uneducated, incompetent effort in answering questions directed to him, in particular by my colleague Senator Sinodinos, that Senator Stephen Conroy was feeling a little sheepish. Nevertheless, on a motion of this kind it ought to be the Leader of the Government who defends the government, not the deputy. Be that as it may, the other remarkable thing about Senator Penny Wong's speech today is that the subject of Senator Abetz's motion—that is, the mining tax—was barely mentioned by her. In 20 belligerent minutes, in 20 minutes of relentless negativity, there was barely a mention of the MRRT, the subject of the motion, because Senator Penny Wong, I suspect, is smart enough to know that she cannot defend the indefensible. She might be smart enough to be unable to defend the indefensible but Senator Penny Wong has not been smart enough as finance minister to be able to deliver a budget surplus. We sat through question time after question time over the last year with Senator Penny Wong as finance minister. Not a day went by in question time throughout 2012 when Senator Penny Wong did not refer to 'the budget surplus' as if a surplus budget were locked in stone. In fact, humiliatingly, just before Christmas the Treasurer had to admit, as the opposition had said all along last year, that there would be no budget surplus in 2012-13 and there would be just another historically large deficit. In fact, if the electoral fates cast their judgement on this government on 14 September, or perhaps sooner, and the government were to go out of office later this year, it will be the first Australian government in living memory never, never to have produced a budget surplus. That, Senator Wong and Senator Conroy, will be your legacy. We know that the previous government, the government of Mr John Howard and Mr Peter Costello, made budget surpluses the norm. It was the totem of their fiscal discipline. In the 12 budgets that Mr Peter Costello brought down, 10 of the 12 were surplus budgets. We know that in the previous period— Senator Thorp interjecting— Senator BRANDIS: Senator Thorp, I know you do not sit right at the top of the Labor Party tree, but the attitude you display by your interjection sums up the mindset of this government perfectly. As I said, the last government of Australia, the government of Mr John Howard and Mr Peter Costello, delivered 12 budgets and 10 of those 12 budgets were surplus budgets. I see my friend Senator Fifield nodding with satisfaction as I say that, because Senator Fifield, of course, was one of Mr Costello's senior advisers who can take some share of the credit for producing that magnificent outcome which put Australia in the best financial position in the world at the time of the change of government in 2007. I do not want to be unfair to my Labor Party colleagues, because there have been previous Labor governments that have produced budget surpluses, too. In the previous period of Labor government, during the Hawke and Keating governments, there were several years in which the budget was in surplus. It was a Labor government and so in most years the budget was in deficit, of course, but in several of those 13 years the budget was in surplus. In the previous period, the government of Mr Malcolm Fraser, the budget returned to surplus. It might surprise you, Mr Deputy President, to learn that during the period of the government of Mr Gough Whitlam, who produced three budgets, in two of those years the budget was in surplus—the national debt went through the roof, of course, because of borrowing, Senator Ronaldson, but nevertheless in two of the three years of the Whitlam Labor government the budget was in surplus. Of course, in the 23 glorious golden years of coalition government, which preceded the government of Gough Whitlam, the budget was in surplus. It might surprise you, Mr Deputy President, to learn that in the last year of the wartime Labor government, the government of Mr Curtin and Mr Chifley, the budget returned to surplus in 1949. In the prewar government of the United Australia Party, under Joseph Lyons and Robert Menzies, the budget was routinely in surplus, but then one gets to the government of Joseph Scullin and that was the last time—mercifully it was only in office for three years; the government was elected in 1929—that an Australian government went out of office having never produced a budget surplus. Mr Deputy President, you would have to have been born in 1908 to have voted for the last Australian government never to produce a budget surplus. But that, Senator Penny Wong, is your legacy. Not only is it a hopeless legacy in historical terms but it is a hopeless legacy by your own definition of your own competence, because it was your leader, Senator Penny Wong, who said that 'the test of a government's capacity to manage the budget is the test of its competence'. That is what Julia Gillard said. Senator Wong: She is the Prime Minister. Senator BRANDIS: I am sorry, Ms Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister—Ms Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister, said 'the test of a government's capacity to manage the budget is the test of its competence'. And Mr Wayne Swan, who sits at the heart of the government's economics brains trust and whom I have known since we were university students in the 1970s—he had no brains then and his intellect has not grown in the years since—said: 'Come hell or high water, we will be returning to surplus.' These are the fiscal geniuses who went naked to negotiate the mining tax that produced no revenue. It produced many other things by the way, Mr Deputy President. It produced a prime ministerial scalp, because you will recall that it was on the basis of the mining tax that Ms Julia Gillard—in conspiracy with Mr Wayne Swan and in violation of her repeated and solemn and emphatic assurances of support and loyalty to Mr Kevin Rudd—tapped him on the shoulder in the dead of night on 23 June 2010, a day of infamy in Australian politics, and removed the elected, sitting prime minister. The mining tax did produce that historic result, but revenue, it produced nary a dollar. After resisting for weeks any attempt at accountability to parliament for the revenue collected by the mining tax, eventually the Treasurer relented, and the pathetic, limpid figure of $126 million turned out to be the entirety of the revenue collected by this mining tax in this financial year. Just think about it, Mr Deputy President, originally the budget projection for the revenue from the mining tax was $3.7 billion. The revenue projection was revised downward by almost half so that it became a revenue projection of $2 billion—from $3.7 billion to $2 billion to $126 million. And Senator Conroy says, 'Well, the iron ore price has been very volatile. It's gone up and down.' Yes, it has, Senator Conroy. It has gone up. The price of iron ore has gone up by $30 a tonne. The Secretary of Treasury, Dr Martin Parkinson, himself admitted to Senate estimates under questioning from Senator Sinodinos that the fault was not in the international price of minerals; the fault was a design flaw in the heart of the tax. Let me say that again, because we heard no answer from Senator Wong put up because Senator Conroy could no longer cope. Senator Conroy, in his answer to Senator Sinodinos's question today, said, 'Well, the reason the mining tax has collected a negligible amount of revenue is because of the volatility of international mineral prices.' But Dr Martin Parkinson, the head of Treasury, told Senator Sinodinos in estimates that that was not the reason. Dr Martin Parkinson said the mining tax did not collect the projected revenue because of design flaws in the tax. That brings us to the obvious question: who designed the tax? Who were the fiscal geniuses who were responsible for designing this tax, the fiscal architects of this tax that was such a terrific tax that it provided a political excuse to assassinate an elected Prime Minister but barely collected a dollar for consolidated revenue? We know who they were: Ms Julia Gillard and Mr Wayne Swan. They went to the negotiating table with Mr Marius Kloppers, Mr Tom Albanese from Rio Tinto and the CEO of Xstrata, and between the five of them they designed a tax. Mr Deputy President, who do you think were the smartest people in the room that day when it came to designing the mining tax? Do you think that perhaps Mr Marius Kloppers, who until recently ran the biggest mining company in the world, was the smartest person in the room? Do you think that Mr Tom Albanese, who until recently ran Rio Tinto—Australia’s biggest single taxpayer, by the way—was the dummy in the room? Senator Fifield: No! Senator BRANDIS: No, Senator Fifield, perhaps not. Or do you think the CEO of Xstrata was the dummy in the room—who had no idea what they were talking about when it came to minerals taxation? I suspect not. I do not want to be cynical; I do not want to be sarcastic or scathing, but I suspect not. I suspect the two people in that room who least knew what they were doing were Ms Julia Gillard, whose entire life experience before coming into this place had been as a dodgy trade union lawyer, and Mr Wayne Swan, who, as I said, I have known for 35 years. He was a dope then and he is a dope still. They came out of that room and Julia Gillard was smiling— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Brandis, please refer to the Prime Minister using her honorific. I also suggest that it would be better if the other comments you made a moment ago were withdrawn. Senator BRANDIS: If you so rule, Mr Deputy President. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: That would assist the chamber. Thank you, Senator Brandis. Senator BRANDIS: Who do you think came out of that room with a Cheshire cat smile? Senator Thorp: Oh, do tell us! Senator BRANDIS: I am going to tell you, Senator Thorp. Senator Thorp over there from the Labor Party brains trust thinks that whether the budget is in surplus or in deficit is a matter of complete irrelevance. I am going to tell you, Senator Thorp. Ms Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister, came out with a Cheshire cat smile because she knew that, whatever the hit to the revenue, she had got past a political difficulty for herself. She had got past a short-term political difficulty for the government. Mr Wayne Swan is a person of such intellectual depth that I suspect he had no idea what was going on. But the three people who I feel very certain had the biggest Cheshire cat smiles on their faces that night were the CEO of BHP Billiton, the CEO of Rio Tinto and the CEO of Xstrata, because they knew they had found negotiating partners who were, shall we say, a walk in the park. So who is going to suffer from this? Who is going to sufferer from the hubris, the incompetence, the ignorance of the senior ministers who negotiated this mining tax? The bottom line of the budget is going to suffer. Senator Conroy said before in his answer, 'Well, if you want to see the effect of the mining tax collections, it is in the budget bottom line.' Senator Conroy, you are right. That is the one thing you got right: it sure is in the budget bottom line, because the budget has gone from a projected surplus to a projected deficit approaching $20 billion and heading south. So, for five years out of five, we will have, on your government’s watch, a deficit budget. I do not want to be mean-spirited, but I have to say that I have never seen—and the Australian people have never seen—a more fiscally, economically incompetent bunch of ministers than the ministers in the Rudd government and, most particularly, in the Gillard government. And there has been nobody more incompetent, nobody less equal to the task, than the Treasurer, Mr Wayne Swan—the genius who negotiated this brilliant mining tax! If this government does go to electoral oblivion later this year—and that is by no means for sure; we go into this election as the underdog—it will be remembered as the only Australian government, in the memory of the oldest person living in Australia today, never, ever to have produced a budget surplus. That will be your legacy. That will be the badge you will wear from hereon, down the pages of Australian history for all the years and decades into the future. It was on your watch; you were the ministers who never, ever in the life of the oldest living Australian, managed to produce a budget surplus. Yet it was your Prime Minister who said, 'The capacity to manage the budget is the ultimate test of a government’s competence.' Opposition members: Hear, hear! An incident having occurred in the gallery— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order in the gallery! It is inappropriate to applaud.