2011 began with Julia Gillard’s carbon tax based on a lie and ended with the unsurprising news that the Labor Government has again announced an even bigger deficit. Lies, more debt and higher taxes – the Labor trilogy.
Earlier today, Wayne Swan announced that while the 2011-12 deficit will almost double, financial fudging will see the Labor-Greens alliance allegedly scrape together a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012-2013.
In the scope of Australia’s $1.3 trillion economy and a budget of more than $360 billion annually, a surplus of $1.5 billion is a rounding error. It is hardly the foundation of a strong, modern nation, but it is typical of Labor’s financial trickery.
Where is all the money going? Well over four short years, we have seen record spending to pay for wasteful pursuits such as over-priced school halls, the bungled home insulation program, a seat for Australia on the UN Security Council, the $43 billion National Broadband Network and of course, the disaster that is this country’s migration program, which has blown out to $1.75 billion.
And who is suffering from this gross incompetence? All of us, as the everyday cost of living continues to rise.
Last week, in the last parliamentary sitting week of the year, I spoke in the Senate of the need for a strong Parliamentary Budget Office as well as on amendments to consumer laws. In both instances, Labor has passed legislation that fails to stack up with the claims it makes.
Unfortunately, we were prevented from discussing many other significant bills when the Government and their Greens partners guillotined debate and rammed through more than a dozen bills that had never even been debated in the Senate.
On a brighter note, the final sitting week gave me a chance to reflect on 2011.
In January, I joined my Coalition colleagues Greg Hunt, Bruce Billson, Dan Tehan and Alan Tudge to help clean up after Victoria’s damaging floods.
Most of us would consider disaster recovery as a core function of Government – one that comes before optional niceties. But rather than prioritise funding to rebuild flood-ravaged regional Victoria and Queensland, the Gillard Government saw the floods as an excuse to levy another tax.
This tax concerned me, particularly because some of the flood victims, including small business owners, found themselves burdened by the levy at a time when they could least afford it.
Thanks to the Greens-Labor alliance, 2011 will go down as the year of the toxic tax.
Coalition leader Tony Abbott and I visited an independent supermarket to show our support to employees and shoppers, after the Food and Grocery Council announced the Government’s carbon tax could increase prices of staple foods by up to five per cent.
In June, Small Business Minister Nick Sherry announced bookshops were facing closure due to online competition. What nonsense! If the Government took the advice of the Productivity Commission and amended the restrictions on parallel importation, the hardworking men and women who run our country’s bookshops would not be in strife.
In July I felt obliged to stand up for Israel, the Middle East’s only real democracy. As a left rent-a-crowd terrorised shoppers and business owners in Melbourne’s CBD I spoke up both in the media and at a well-attended local rally.
The Government’s lack of respect for the regulatory process was shown when it continually exempted itself from its own rules. Labor even refused to scrutinise the regulatory burdens of the Henry Tax Review.
Senate Estimates in October proved key in exposing Government waste and mismanagement and to exposing its lack of concern for small businesses about to be saddled by the carbon tax.
November saw three sitting weeks and the address to the Parliament of US President Barack Obama. I spoke with Neil Mitchell on 3AW on a couple of occasions about Obama’s visit.
As we head into the Christmas break, I can promise you that the Coalition led by Tony Abbott will work even harder in 2012 to ensure Australia gets the government it needs and deserves.