Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney) (15:32): Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, and thank you for allowing us to debate this issue, because this is a very important issue which does go to the heart of good governance. You would have thought that other issues such as the debt ceiling should be properly debated in this place, but the government has closed down that debate just as it has chosen to close down any debate about the member for Dobell's one-hour, uninterrupted statement to the House. When it comes to an issue such as the government's need to rein in spending there is a simple fact that Australians need to remind themselves of each day. The Labor Party has accumulated the four largest budget deficits in Australian history, totalling $174 billion. At the same time, the Labor Party is today spending $100 billion a year more than the last year of the coalition government just 4½ years ago. One of the reasons why this is a significant number is because it was at that time that the now Treasurer, the member for Lilley, said: If the government pretend that interest rates are low then they do not have to admit that it is their policies that are putting pressure on the rates. What is putting pressure on the rates? What is partially responsible for this? It is the big spending, high taxing government. He went on to accuse the then Treasurer, the member for Higgins, Peter Costello. He said: ... the member for Higgins, a man acutely embarrassed by his record of taking the proceeds of the mining boom— Get a load of that! Acutely embarrassed about his record! spending like a drunken sailor and building nothing that lasts for the Australian people. I will tell you what we built. We built a surplus of $20 billion a year. We built a Future Fund, with $70 billion in it. We built a government that was $100 billion a year smaller in expenditure than what Labor is today. We built in an economy that had an unemployment rate with a four in front of it on a permanent basis. We built an economy with strong economic growth. We built an economy that was resilient and was able to withstand the worst of the Asian financial crisis. But when it comes to this government, which picks and chooses its measurements, I would say to you that it is the government's own spending that continues to put pressure on the economy and put pressure on the budget, because, when you set the benchmark of expenditure, you would say to yourself that what the now Treasurer, the member for Lilley, said at the time was 'a big spending government'—$100 billion a year less in expenditure; it represented, at that time, 23.1 per cent of GDP. In 2008-09, the government jumped it to 25.2, then 26 per cent, then 24.7 and then 25.1 per cent. Next year, miraculously, somehow it is going to drop to 23.5—and that is because of the money shuffle that we all know about—and then 23.7, 23.5 and 23.6 per cent. The net outcome of that is that, in no year of all the time of Labor in government, nor in the years that it promises to deliver a future budget, will it ever reach the low levels of expenditure of the last year of the Howard government, which they said was 'a big spending government'—a big spending government that was $100 billion a year smaller in expenditure that this current government. But we know why Labor should not be trusted with money, and it comes back to waste. There is a conga line of example of initiatives, from $900 cheques going to dead people and people living overseas, to pink batts going into homes and causing the homes to be burnt down, to the massively overpriced Building the Education Revolution school halls program, particularly in New South Wales. Even today we hear of new initiatives. This week we found out in Senate estimates that Senator Conroy spent $526,000 on selecting 11 ABC and SBS directors. He spent $50,000 on each directorship, on finding a director. And, in that situation, he appointed a very respectable but long-standing Labor icon, Jim Spigelman, as the chairman. So he spent $50,000 going through the parade of trying to identify directors. And then they appointed someone that they were extremely familiar with. On 14 May, Labor allocated $36 million more for carbon tax advertising—and it does not mention the carbon tax. Surely you don't need to be John Singleton to work out that if you are going to spend $36 million on an advertising program you should mention what the product is. That is kind of obvious, isn't it? We do not have to go to the 'Where do you get it?' ads—do you remember those ads in the 70s? 'Where do you get it?' Where do you get the carbon tax? From the Labor Party. Where do get the carbon tax? From Julia Gillard. Where do you get the carbon tax? You get the carbon tax in your bills. That is a pretty simple ad, and you just got it for free. You didn't have to spend $36 million. But I tell you what—what a great use of taxpayers' money: $36 million to tell people that they are advertising a carbon tax and the ad does not even mention the tax itself! But wait—there's more! The Gillard government is spending $20 million promoting the National Broadband Network, which is a now-$50-billion program that the government thinks people should know about. So, just in case you have not noticed the excavator out the front of your house, they are going to take out ads on your TV to tell you that you should be signing up to the National Broadband Network. But there is, of course, more. The one that most Australians would be most angry about is the blow-out of $1.7 billion for Australian taxpayers in the costs of managing the asylum seekers arriving on illegal boats—$1.7 billion. This is the latest blow-out. It includes a blow-out of $424 million on this year's figures and it will add a debt cost to taxpayers of an extra $1.1 million a day. So, for so long as you can see, taxpayers are going to have to pay $1.1 million a day just on the interest for the debt that has accumulated because the Labor Party does not know how to control the borders. But, of all the examples they continue to roll out, the ones that are most on people's minds are the ones where better management could deliver a better outcome. Take Labor's digital set top boxes installation program—an average of $350 per installation per box. Harvey Norman is offering them for $168, and Gerry Harvey would discount that too; he might give you five years interest free on that as well—might toss that in. The Australian reports now that the average installation cost of the set top boxes has risen to $700 a unit. You could buy the whole TV—you could probably get 52 inches for $700, couldn't you? The Australia Network tender—what a great tender that was! Labor's bungling of the Australia Network tender has cost at least $2 million. It was recommend to the government that Sky News should receive approval to continue with the Australia Network, and then there was an internal struggle—remember that?—between the then Minister for Foreign Affairs and the minister for communications, and they were swapping responsibility between departments. The net result was that compensation is now being paid to Sky News for winning the tender but not getting it. And of course there are others. The Australian Research Council is spending millions of dollars on questionable research projects, such as on climate change emotion. I will tell you, there is plenty of emotion in here about that. Here is another one: ancient economic life in Italy. Well, we are watching what is happening overseas quite carefully, and I think contemporary Italy is more interesting than ancient Rome. Other projects include: $578,792 to the University of Western Australia for a study of 'an ignored credit instrument in Florentine economic, social and religious life from 1570 to 1790'— Mr Tony Smith: It's the missing piece! Mr HOCKEY: That is! How did Niall Ferguson miss that one? There was $197,302 for 'sending and responding to messages about climate change: the role of emotion and morality', and $314,000 for a study to determine if birds are shrinking. Just ring up Inghams! Find out about their chickens. They are getting bigger and bigger. In fact, I remember the late Bing Lee saying to me that the birds at Inghams are getting too large for his freezers when he was selling the freezers at Christmas; the turkeys were too large. And they are spending $314,000 on identifying it. Hang on—there was $145,000 for a study of sleeping snails, to determine 'factors that aid life extension'! There was $210,000 to study the early history of the moon. You can imagine Tim staring out longingly from the window at the Lodge at the moon and thinking, 'You know what, Julie? We should have a good look at that. Why don't we spend $210,000 to work out what happened before Neil Armstrong got there?'—as if no-one has ever thought about it for years. If it were not taxpayers' money it would be laughable. If they were not the hard-earned dollars of so many good, diligent, committed Australians, it would be laughable. But, unfortunately, the Treasurer keeps saying: 'We're doing well; we're living within our means. Let's compare ourselves to some other countries.' Australia's general government expenditure in 2012 was 36.3 per cent of GDP. Let us compare. Switzerland was less: 34.7 per cent of GDP. New Zealand was less: 33 per cent of GDP. Hong Kong, 21.1 per cent; Korea, 21.6 per cent; Singapore, just 17.4per cent. The Treasurer is always keen to compare us to the worst. He is always keen to compare us to the nations that are in deep trouble, as if being ahead of those nations is somehow a great achievement, as if being ahead of those nations somehow lays down the foundations for future growth. But our competition is coming from our region and the Labor Party just does not get it. They mouth the words about it being the Asian century, but they do not understand that the competition for our children, and our grandchildren and beyond, is going to be in our region, in our sphere of influence. They are the people who are highly competitive. We must benchmark our nation against the best, and not the worst. That is what we must do. We must aspire to run faster than anyone else, to do better than anyone else, to put in greater effort and to be more productive and more innovative than anyone else. That is the great legacy we can leave our children, not money being spent on reviews into snails, birds drinking or the history of the moon. We need to spend money on our people—our greatest investment—to give them the opportunity to hope for a better life without the dead hand of a Labor government being laid upon their back at every moment. The great legacy of this Labor Party, apart from incompetent and, dare I say it, corrupt government, is the debt it is leaving Australians. That is the pain it is leaving the next generation of Australians. Mr Perrett: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order: it is offensive to suggest that this government is corrupt and I ask that the member for North Sydney withdraw. Mr HOCKEY: I withdraw. In that case I say to the honourable member: stop running a protection racket for the member for Dobell. Let the parliament debate the issues that go to the integrity of the parliament and let the nation get on with the job of building a better future for our children based on hope, reward and opportunity for effort.