Senator JOYCE (Queensland—Leader of the Nationals
in the Senate) - One outcome that we do have is that we started with a surplus in excess of $20 billion and we have now lost most of it. We are now heading towards a deficit. The Australian people are going to have to go to the marketplace to borrow the money to run a nation which was left in surplus. We will go into the most tenuous credit market in the world to borrow those funds. And think of the profligate waste of money! On 8 December money will be spent in lump sums that will appear in retail therapy, and everybody will be happy to get it. I
am not denying for one moment that people are going to be happy to get it. But a lot of it will end up in poker machines and being spent on alcohol. In some areas of our nation, 8 December will be like Guy Fawkes night, the Fourth of July and Christmas all rolled into one. Unfortunately there will be the abuse of alcohol, the abuse of gambling and the assaults and everything that get rolled into that practice. I know because I will see some of it outside my window—I live next door to a pub.

This also is part of Labor Party management. They actually lack the acumen to see the social implications of some of their policies and exactly what happens next when the big lumps of money turn up in certain bank accounts in one fell swoop. This also is a reflection of
the lack of Labor Party planning. After the money has been squandered on 8 December, the thought that the people of Australia will have to go to the market to borrow back the money I find absolutely incredible.
But it fits well with Fuelwatch. If someone said, ‘Describe the Labor government to people from another nation, another planet,’ I would say, ‘Fuelwatch. That is the Labor Party.’ That is them to a tee. They think it is a marvellous idea, but they have absolutely no conviction
whatsoever to bolster up the powers of the Fuelwatch commissioner so they could actually do something. It was all rushed, with the ridiculous situation whereby people had to work 36 hours straight towards the delivery of a program with no efficacy or modelling on what the outcome was going to be. Then there was the huge charade, the absolute rubbish of a launch, with all the earnest faces that said, ‘Look at us bringing the price of fuel down.’ That was so insincere when you actually got behind and saw that they did not do the homework. That is the issue that I hope the Australian people start connecting to. The Labor Party do not do the homework. They can spend half the nation’s
surplus without doing the modelling. I believe that if you ask them right at this moment, you would find that they still have not done it. This is the sort of management that is now running our nation. The results are so clear.

We are heading towards a deficit. We now have one of the highest inflation rates in recent history. We are now heading towards record growth in unemployment. We now have one of the lowest levels of business confidence on record. We have interest rates at their highest
levels on record. That is certainly a quantifiable and salient picture of Labor Party management. It cannot be attributed to anybody else. If they say that it is unfair, you only have to balance it up with Fuelwatch.
And the next fiasco tearing down the path towards us is GroceryWatch. You would think after you made one complete and utter botch up of a job that you would be smart enough to curtail the embarrassment and not continue down exactly the same path in another field. But, no, not only have they botched up the job, they have the arrogance to not be able to reflect on what they have done and improve the process.

Fuelwatch today will be taken off to the poolroom to be stored in the trophy cabinet where it will gather dust and be an item of ridicule. Slowly, that Labor Party trophy cabinet in the poolroom will fill up to such an extent that the people who come to visit will ask: do these people know what they are on about? This sort of banal and kitsch policy, which it is, will be seen clearly as the emblem of Labor Party government. The honeymoon is over today, ladies and gentlemen, with the purposeful burial of Fuelwatch. It will be interesting to hear the requiem that is now going to be sung by the Labor Party about the proposed benefits or losses to the Australian people for what could have been had things been different. What any person has to ask is: why
would things be any different when the planning was so completely lacking?

Mr Walker is a classic endorsement of the Fuelwatch package. He was the person in charge of it and he bolted. That is the ultimate indictment of the package. The boss was appointed with such lauding and fervour
and one of the first things he did was to run for his life because it was an absolute and utter mangy dog. This has to be seen. But, no doubt, Mr Bowen is going to come up with some other political fascinator to be
worn on his head in the near future. We will wait for that and we will treat it with the same content with which we treated Fuelwatch.