PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS (BUDGET)

May 26, 2008

It is with some amazement that I see the member for Leichhardt is attempting to give congratulations to this budget—a budget that sets the limbo bar lower than ever. It is a budget that has disappointed Australia. I have been in this House for more than six years now, and it is the first budget I have seen that has had pensioners demonstrating in the streets. This is a budget that was specifically targeted at interest groups. You borrowed our tax cuts and you targeted interest groups. You tried to forget about the carers, but you could not knock them off. Then you tried to forget about the pensioners. They let you know, in no uncertain terms, they were not impressed by this budget.

The people of Australia are assessing your promises. A year ago we had an Australia that was self-assured and confident. Confidence was high, people were willing to go out and borrow money, they were willing to invest, and now we see a collapse in business confidence, we see a collapse in consumer confidence and, we see Australians wondering what happened when they elected this government some six months ago. They elected a government that was going to put downward pressure on fuel prices, and we have the little Assistant Treasurer over here, little Jiminy Cricket, who is the only thing that stands between them and lower petrol prices or higher petrol prices. And what do we have? We see petrol has gone up by some 17½ cents a litre since the Rudd government was elected. Is that keeping petrol prices low? Is that what Australians elected the Rudd government to do? And on grocery prices, what do we see? What kind of action do we see on grocery prices? Another inquiry! We have an increase in the cost of diesel for heavy vehicles so that it costs more to get produce to market and into the shops. We see Rudd repeatedly breaking his promises. We see higher petrol prices, we see higher grocery prices and we see higher inflation as all of these factors flow through. This is something the people of Australia are not celebrating. They are not celebrating the notion of losing funding to regional areas. They are not celebrating the fact that pensioners were ignored at the last budget, and they are certainly not celebrating FuelWatch.

Government members interjecting—

Mr Hartsuyker—I hear the members opposite saying they think Fuelwatch is a good thing. They think FuelWatch is a great thing. Fuelwatch is going to save Australia. How much are we going to save on Fuelwatch? We had the Petrol Commissioner saying we are going to save 5c a litre, we had the Assistant Treasurer saying we were going to save 2c a litre and we had the head of the ACCC saying it is not about saving money at all; it is all about transparency. All of them cannot be right. One of them has to be right, and I am not sure which one it is. Is the Assistant Treasurer right? Are we going to save 2c, Assistant Treasurer? Or are we going to save 5c? Or are we going to save nothing at all? Certainly the experience of motorists in Perth is that the price of petrol there is relatively higher than other places. They are certainly not enjoying FuelWatch.

Debate interrupted.

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