On reflecting on Mr Swan’s Sunday economic epistle (the Economic Note) I am very concerned about where his pipeline is leading and I’m certain that our Nation does not want to be stuck in his plumbing, said Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate.
“The pipeline has a blockage of the $57.6 billion deficit and the foreshadowed $300 billion debt but Mr Swan tells us that his pipeline has jobs flowing through it. Stages one and two were the direct payments to households and the boom gates, ceiling insulation and school hall bonanza. The budget is stage 3 but if Mr Swan wants the economy to surge ahead and to deliver the infrastructure needed to help the Nation he is still failing to grasp the nettle of the true economic reality we are in.
“A decisive cut in recurring expenditure was not evident in the budget. As unpalatable as it is to many a removal of a tier of government, being states, would offer the capacity of a $30 billion saving a year as elucidated in a thesis by Dr Mark Drummond.
“I understand people are dismissive of the idea but the unfortunate ramification of servicing debt is that if you don’t manage debt, debt will manage you and then this decision and many others on top of it will be made by forces outside our Nation’s control. So if you want to be decisive, be decisive at the earliest stage where you can control the debt.
“It has become apparent that the budget infrastructure spend is not so much a plan as a wish that relies on private investments and super funds and nebulous, in some cases non-existent, start-up dates for projects. The reason there is this restriction in capacity to be definitive is because the Rudd Labor Government’s excessive debt has restricted the capacity of the Nation to borrow funds on top of the hundreds of billions we’re already committed to.
“It has all happened so quickly and the trajectory is definitely the fault of the current financial managers, the Rudd Labor Government.
“There has to be a range of savings measures and towards this I support the Cisco TelePresence system. In the whole scheme of things it is a minor measure but it is something the Nationals have discussed, back to my maiden speech. The common sense way to save more money would be for it to have the capacity to go beyond capital cities and to regional hubs.
“It doesn’t make much sense to go on a plane from St George to Brisbane to participate in a teleconference if that could have been done in St George.
“If I can do the majority of my banking over the internet and my tax over the internet then I can do a large proportion of my parliamentary duties over the internet. The National Party is not scared of the technology. Other people for other reasons have a desire for people to continue to congregate in Canberra as much as we do, especially in regards to committee work.
“The Labor Government’s only remedy for our current financial predicament is to say that our situation is not as bad as other countries, such as the United States. This is the analogy of the two people who moments apart fall off the 40th floor and the one who is careering past the 30th floor is spruiking his aviation skills of flight to the one going past the 10th. It is all going to end at the same destination where the differentiation between the two will be indiscernible.
“Hard financial decisions never make the client happy but they keep them financially alive. Ambivalence, ignorance and nostalgia continue the Nation on a pipeline to the eventual economic calamity of the deep ocean outfall where none of us wish to swim.”