Senator JOYCE (Queensland—Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (12.01 pm)—Friday the 13th is going to go down in Australian financial infamy because this is the day that Australia gets saddled with a debt that we have not got a clue how we are ever going to repay—and it is thanks to the Labor government that this is happening. Let us go through the recent history of what all this is. Family First was tricked. Family First was taken out of the deal—or they took themselves out of the deal—right from the word go. We do not believe that this is the best package. It is a terrible package. It has no efficacy, it has no outcome and its cost is immense. Senator Fielding was tricked by the Labor Party. As for the Greens, well, they sold out and were caught out—and they were caught out on film. They were caught out in this chamber when Senator Evans came down here to ask Senator Brown, one of his adjuncts, to do his dirty work. Then all of a sudden when it did not work out they had to get Senator Ludwig to correct them.
The CHAIRMAN—Senator Joyce, I think you should be very careful with what you are saying because you are implying improper motives. I think you should reflect on what you have said and be very careful. Thank you, Senator Joyce.
Senator JOYCE—Thank you, Mr Chairman. Senator Evans did come down here and he was talking to Senator Brown—it is on film. I am talking about what is there on the record for everybody to see. We know how these things work between the Labor Party and the Greens, but basically the Greens have left all the running to Senator Xenophon. For Senator Xenophon, even though I do not agree with his position, it was a political masterstroke. He has left them all in his wake. He has managed to get more than Minister Wong got from her own cabinet. It is quite incredible and I think that if there is a political award he should get it—and good luck to Senator Xenophon. He is extremely astute and adroit, far more adroit than the Greens and far more adroit than Labor’s own minister.
If there is a benefit to the Murray-Darling people because of it, good luck to them, but this has really and clearly displayed the ability for sneakiness and the arrogance of the Labor Party in this whole process. This whole process is now going to lumber Australia with a debt that we have not seen before. In my time in banking there was always one clear thing that you had to explain to get money. It was called an exit strategy. It was the exit strategy of how you would pay the money back. Unless you could display an exit strategy you did not get the money. Well, there is no exit strategy to this. I do not know what asset they had in mind that they were going to sell to try to pay back this money.
Honourable senators interjecting—
The CHAIRMAN—Order!
Senator Conroy interjecting—
The CHAIRMAN—Order! Senator Conroy, I have continually asked you to be quiet. I am sure you would like to be in the chamber for a vote later on, so I would suggest you remain silent.
Senator JOYCE—This is really going to be something that I am sure the fourth estate will pore through with great interest in exactly what was going on around this chamber, and I hope that they will hold people to account. I hope that Greens supporters realise that they were sold out yesterday and that, when push comes to shove, they are the minor party of the Labor Party and they do the Labor Party’s bidding. Good luck to Senator Xenophon because he managed to exploit that. He outread them; he outsmarted the lot of them.
Unfortunately, I do believe that where we are now is a very precarious position. It is an extremely precarious position because no-one knows. We have just two bullet points with which to try to work out how we are going to repay this money, and into the future we will have all the things that will be compromised including health and education. There is the fact that state Labor governments are completely and utterly financially destitute, and soon there will be no capacity for a federal government to bail them out. So the delivery of basic services such as in health and education are all compromised because of the excessive debt that this places on the nation. There is the fact that it will drive up interest rates—for every per cent it goes up that is $10,000 per million for every Australian with that facility; for every house facility there is $500,000 and that is $5,000 per house facility per per cent. This is the cost of a Labor government.
It is amazing to note the acceleration of the trajectory to oblivion that the Labor Party are taking us on—from being $21 billion in credit to now with the passing of a facility that allows them to put $200 billion on the nation’s credit card. Everybody can see exactly where we are going. There is the fact that they have told us they do not know how to repay the money, so we are going to be capitalising the interest and it will be heading towards—this is after your stimulus package, which is coming up—I imagine to be around $10 billion per year. This is where our nation is going. We are going there in a handbasket, thanks to Labor Party management.
We will hold you sitting opposite to account over the next couple of years. We will come back into this chamber again and again and again and ask, ‘What happened to that stimulus package?’ This stimulus package will be like the first stimulus package, which we stated right from the start would be a flop. It was a flop; there were no jobs. And from this one there is no efficacy, no outcome, but what we have is a path to perdition, a path to oblivion, delivered to us by the Labor Party.