Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales) (4:07 PM) —Thank goodness for the clock. His time has expired. I find it amazing that Senator Cameron is so much against companies like Rio Tinto and BHP making a profit.Monstrous profits’, he called out. Who owns them? I asked that question of an accountant, a financial adviser, a couple of days ago and he said 10 to 20 per cent of the ownership of those companies is in superannuation funds—the $1.3 trillion superannuation funds of the workers, those very people that you are supposed to represent. They are the investors, the owners of such mining» companies. But that word ‘profit’ is a dirty word over there in the Labor Party. They would much rather see businesses not make a profit. They would let everyone just go to the wall.

I will take your interjection, Senator Sherry. You want them to pay «tax», «tax» and more «tax». You want to strangle the goose that lays the golden egg. Your attitude is just to «tax more and more.

The motion today says, ‘The Senate notes the Rudd Labor government’s waste and mismanagement of taxpayer money.’ Let’s just take a look back at the history—

and Senator Cameron perhaps might even consider listening—of these great investments by the Labor government, which just happened to fail. Let’s start with Fuelwatch: $21 million. There is silence on the other side, Madam Acting Deputy President. They might as well have thrown it in the gutter. What is the result of Fuelwatch today? It is a waste of $21 million of taxpayers’ money—or borrowed money—that will have to be paid back.

The National Broadband Network has gone from $4 billion, to $7 billion, to $43 billion and is to cost about $20,000 a connection. Where is the money coming from? We can see from the $25 million report on the National Broadband Network that it is not going to return a dividend; it is not going to attract private investment. It will have to be borrowed money that sets up and establishes it.

We will move on to GroceryWatch: $13 million. This was how Mr Rudd was going to put downward pressure on grocery prices. One of his many promises prior to the 2007 election was, ‘I will put downward pressure on grocery prices.’ So he introduced GroceryWatch, at a cost of $13 million. It is just like Fuelwatch: he might as well have thrown it in the gutter. It did not do any good; it was simply a waste of money.

Of course I will talk about the school infrastructure program, Building the Education Revolution—or the ‘builders’ early retirement’ scheme, as we should refer to it. And then there are refugees. How many boats have we had so far? Mr Rudd said prior to the election of 2007, ‘I will turn the boats back.’ What a great statement. Now, in this week’s budget, we find an extra billion dollars from taxpayers—sorry, put on the credit card that future Australians will have to pay for—to control the asylum seekers and the cost of them.

I am sure Senator Humphries, who is in the chamber, will remember the 2020 Summit—1,000 minds, 1,000 bed and breakfasts and a $2 million-plus program for nine usable ideas. I suppose that is nine more than the Labor Party would have had, anyway.

Then there is the ‘batts-in batts-out’ program, the $2.6 billion stimulus package to insulate houses. This is a very serious issue. I feel so sorry for those relatives and loved ones of the four men who lost their lives. It is darn lucky that more people have not lost their lives, when more than 100 houses have burnt down. Now we see in the budget almost $1 billion to clean up the mess. Is that money well spent? It is money wasted.

And when we talk about money wasted we should talk about the $42 billion ‘cash splash 2’: $900 to most Australians—all those on less than $80,000 gross income—to stimulate the economy. I am sure China would have been very grateful for that $900 handout spent on the new televisions and electronic items that we import from there. We do not make any in Australia these days, of course—or, if we do, it would be very few. I am glad my daughter used her $900 dollars wisely to stimulate the economy. She paid off her credit card with it, which was the way she saw to stimulate the economy. She said, ‘What a waste of money.’

We will move along to further programs. The GP superclinics: $275 million. How many of those do we have in action? I think there are two—or is it three?—completed GP superclinics. Health is a major issue. The money should be spent wisely and we should get a decent return.

The Rudd government was going to reduce consultancies by $112 million. Instead, what do we have? An increase to $800 million—6,354 consultancies. There is a blowout of almost $700 million.

It gets better. There is digital TV from Senator Conroy. In 2008 he was going to slash $22 million from the cost of the changeover. The original estimate was $16 million. It is now to cost $66 million. It goes on and on and on.

Let me look again at the Building the Education Revolution. I have had some people come to me, but I will not name them because they do not want to be publicised. They are in the education department and fear the repercussions of being named. A local builder quoted $78,000 for a covered outdoor learning area, which included the footpaths, but the government contractor came along and charged $228,000 excluding the footpaths—basically, four times the price.

Dr David Gillespie, the Nationals candidate for Lyne, is still amazed that Hastings Public School at Port Macquarie had a shade project blow out from $400,000 to almost $1 million, and the education minister only intervened after the media blew the whistle. I do not know why the local member did not raise the issue.

At Manilla Central School near Tamworth in New England, up where I live, they have two demountable classrooms off the back of a truck. That is two demountables for $1.8 million! Again, it was Senator Joyce on a television program who highlighted this waste, and again the local Independent member was asleep at the wheel. Think about building a house. Three hundred thousand dollars would build you a good brick home. So for $1.8 million you could expect to build six really good brick veneer homes. What do they do? They get two demountable classrooms. That is far from equivalent to six brick veneer homes.

The education minister was in denial. She thought this program was fantastic. But now she is not sure and is spending another $14 million to find out. Senator Mason and I, through the Senate, asked the Auditor-General to address a question of value for money. But his report, released last week, did not answer any questions. No doubt we will be asking more. No doubt the inquiry in the New South Wales parliament—in the Legislative Council—will release the information about the waste in this whole Building the Education Revolution.

I will give you another example. A school in the New England area had a barbed wire fence. The top wire of the fence around the school was made of barbed wire. Along came the experts in the Building the Education Revolution and they said, ‘That fence has to come down.’ It cost $32,000 to replace it with a new fence. The cocky next door took the barbed wire off and put a plain wire on, and $900 later the job was complete. There is a saving of more than $31,000. But, to remove the barbed wire, they had said, ‘No, we’ve gotta pull the whole fence down.’ This is a very small school I might add.

I will tell you about another school in western New South Wales. We talk about spending money for value—and we might get a reaction from the other side here. I know of a school in western New South Wales that got a new classroom for around $225,000. You might say: ‘That is a great investment. Schools need classrooms.’ But this school has a student total of three. You have three students in the whole school, and they put in a new classroom! How many classrooms do you need in a school with three students?

Senator Humphries —One each!

Senator WILLIAMS —One each, it would seem. They go and build a new classroom for a school that has a total of three students. This is just outrageous.

What annoys me so much is that when I visit places like St Annes Nursing Home up in Broken Hill I find that they do not have enough money to expand their buildings to provide more facilities. They are a really good organisation, and Broken Hill has many people in that age bracket where they are needing care and will need care in the very near future. But we see a new classroom going into a school in western New South Wales that has a total school attendance of just three. So much for the neglect of our aged care and so much for the waste in this program.

Let us move on to the climate change and the ETS. Let us talk about climate change. It is ‘the greatest moral challenge of our age’, but the Prime Minister puts it off until 2013 and blames the opposition for it. The Copenhagen junket in December last year cost $1.5 million, with the Prime Minister and his entourage, and for what result? Nothing. They virtually told the Prime Minister to go away. Yet he is spending millions and millions of dollars advertising to raise awareness of climate change.

Back to the broadband issue. Labor promised broadband $4.7 billion and spent $20 million on a cancelled tender process and another $25 million on consultants to work out if it was viable. The end result is the $43 billion project. But we know who the seven per cent who miss out will be. They will be from regional areas—around one and a half million people.

What about the home insulation program? The government was warned there were problems with this program, but the Prime Minister put his hands over his ears and ordered his environment minister to roll out the program. It was payday for the crooks and conmen out there. It cost $1 billion to fix the home insulation debacle. There were 240,000 dodgy or unsafe installations, 1,500 electrified roofs, 120 house fires and four deaths. That $1 billion could have built 32 cancer clinics. It is $1 billion wasted—not of taxpayers’ money but of borrowed money—that could have built 32 cancer clinics.

And what has happened to those businesses who took the Prime Minister at his word? They ordered in the batts and put on workers and then had the rug pulled out from underneath them. Many legitimate businesses are still owed thousands of dollars by the Rudd government for work done before the program was closed on 19 February. This would have to be the biggest waste of any government program in Australia’s history, and the ‘economic conservative’ is presiding over it.

I want to go on to talk about the buyback of water. The Kahlbetzer family was paid $303 million to buy back their water licences. Two of the rivers—the Gwydir and the Lachlan—do not even run into the Murray. The Gwydir empties out into the Gwydir wetlands. In a once-in-100-years flood, the Lachlan may get to the Murrumbidgee, but it is unlikely. Then we have the Macquarie River going through Dubbo, where a licence was bought back, and it runs out into the Macquarie Marshes. But the Kahlbetzer family said, ‘You buy all or none.’ That is $303 million to let more water go down the Murray, and three of the rivers do not even run into the Murray. The wasteful spending that we are seeing in this whole program is outrageous.

When you look back at the Whitlam era, and the borrowing and waste, this government today makes the Whitlam government look conservative. The wasteful and reckless spending will cause interest rates to rise. That is a big thing about this whole program—the borrowing of money. We had a debt of—what? A couple of days ago it was $140 billion of gross debt. That will run at about $150 billion before the end of this financial year. Add another $41 billion onto that, and that is $191 billion by 30 June 2011. Add another $13 billion after that, and we are looking at about $204 billion gross debt. Even in two years time, that is $6.5 billion to pay the interest alone. Imagine what $6.5 billion could do. We realise there is a global financial crisis and we realise that you need some stimulation, but—

Senator WILLIAMS —You betcha we voted against the wasteful programs. If you had not borrowed so much money and not spent so much money, interest rates would have fallen further and stayed lower. You would have grown the economy through the private sector and not had a clayton’s growth, where the government borrows money and spends it and you call it economic growth. That is clayton’s economics. That is what it is.

Now we have had six interest rate rises in the last eight months and more to come. My home loan has gone from a start of 4.99 per cent to now almost seven per cent and I know there are a lot more to come because you are simply releasing the fiscal handbrake and the Reserve Bank will have to pull harder on the other handbrake for interest rates. Those who will suffer will be the battlers, the ordinary families paying for their homes, the people in small business, the farmers who have suffered drought—in many areas since 2002. They are the ones who will suffer most. The waste of these programs has just been humungous. (Time expired)