Leader of the Opposition Address to the LNP Conference, Queensland

17/07/10

E&OE

To Warren Truss, the Leader of the National Party, to Julie Bishop, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, to John-Paul Langbroek, the State Leader of the Liberal National Party, to Bruce McIver, to my Parliamentary colleagues, to my friends here in Brisbane in the Liberal National Party and to the people of Australia I say, “we are ready to govern!”

And I’m so pleased to be here in Brisbane today on what will be day one of the 2010 federal election campaign because the people of Queensland know all about dud Labor Governments. You know them only too well and you know the style. First, they waste money and they maladminister programmes. Then, they stand up, normally after getting out of a fish tank, apologising and accepting responsibility for cleaning up their own mess. Then, when it all gets too hard they change the leader, but they don’t change the policies and they don’t change their ways. They change their leader and the problems get worse because the problem is not the leader, the problem is Labor and the people of Queensland have been conned before. They have been conned at the State level and now they are about to see a Government try to con them at the federal level but they won’t be conned again, they won’t be conned again. The people of Queensland won’t be conned by a Prime Minister who is now running to the polls before she has established her credentials to lead our nation.

Now, three weeks ago, ladies and gentlemen, Labor’s union and factional warlords executed a Prime Minister. They executed the elected Prime Minister of this country because they said the Government had lost its way. Well, I say they should have changed their ways and kept their leader because the last three weeks has been the most chaotic period in the whole time of the Rudd/Gillard Labor Government. There’s been the mining tax fix based on a succession of lies. There’s been the boat people fix that got lost somewhere in the Timor Sea and there’s been the economic credibility fix that was hijacked by Kevin Rudd courtesy of questions from Laurie Oaks at the Press Club just the other day. In fact, what we have seen from this Labor Government has been a seamless transition from incompetence to incompetence, from bungling to bungling, from failure to consult and abuse of due process, to abuse of due process and failure to consult.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a bad Government and it deserves to lose. There’s been the broken promises, the Fuel Watch and the Grocery Watch which never happened. There was the 260 child care centres that somehow shrank to just 20. There was the 35 GP super clinics which shrunk to about five. There’s the 147 boats that Kevin Rudd promised to turn back, but which have arrived since the Rudd/Gillard Government fiddled with border protection policies that worked. There’s the claim to be an economic conservative Government while presiding over the greatest spending spree in Australia’s history, turning a $20 billion surplus into a $57 billion deficit and turning $60 billion in net assets into $90 billion in net debt, that’s almost $5,000 for every Australian man, woman and child, all hanging around our necks because of the Rudd/Gillard Government.

Ladies and gentlemen, we know how hard it is to make a dollar in the hard scrabble market place and the last thing that any Government should do is trifle with the money that’s entrusted to them by the Australian taxpayer, but haven’t this mob been world champions at wasting money. They spent $2.4 billion installing pink batts and what did they achieve? 1,000 electrified roofs, 190 house fires and tragically four deaths. That is what this Government achieved. They’ve spent $16 billion giving halls to schools that wanted gymnasiums and gymnasiums to schools that wanted halls and every day there are new examples of rip-off after rip-off. Just yesterday the school in New South Wales where more than a quarter of a million dollars has been spent building a toilet block for just 16 students. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s just not good enough and finally in the most glaring example, the most glaring illustration of the fact that they are not fit to govern, they clobbered the economy by a great big new tax on our most successful industry, threatening to kill the golden goose which has been doing so much for Australia. It’s no way to run a country. It’s no way to run a Government. This Government does not get the economy but what could we expect from a Government where none of its members or almost none of its members have actually ever worked in the real economy. But, this Government doesn’t just fail to get the economy, it doesn’t get democracy either. It thinks that it’s alright for a Prime Minister elected by the people to be slaughtered by the factions at the first dip in the opinion polls. Back on Friday the 18th of June, in a televised debate with me, Julia Gillard guaranteed that Kevin Rudd would serve a full second term as Prime Minister. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we all know what happened. She didn’t give him another week, let alone another term and now, ladies and gentlemen, she can’t guarantee that she will serve a full term if elected because she can’t guarantee that the factions will let her. It’s no way to run a Government and it’s no way to run the country.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I can’t promise that an incoming Coalition government will be perfect but I can promise that it will respect the taxpayers’ dollar. I can promise that it will trust bureaucrats less and it will trust the people more. We have identified $47 billion in cuts to get the debt and the deficit under control because if the Government is out there borrowing $100 million a day that’s $100 million that is not available to take the pressure off small business and to take the pressure off home buyers and the best thing that government could do to help the people of Australia right now is take the pressure off interest rates, those interest rates which are causing so many ordinary families, every day Australians to suffer cost of living pressure and mortgage stress.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will respect the taxpayers’ dollar and we will trust the Australian people. We will give our great service delivery institutions, our public hospitals and our public schools, local boards and local school councils with real power to choose their leaders and to determine their own budgets. It will not be a panacea but it is the best way to give local people more say over the institutions which are vital to their lives and to their communities.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in a democracy, “trust the people” is the most important commandment of all. It is the most important commandment of all and I want to say something now about an issue which I know has been troubling many in our Party and been troubling many of our supporters right around the country for the best part of three years. Politicians might not always like the people’s verdict but they have to respect it and learn from it and I want to say that I have learnt a very great deal from the outcome of the 2007 election and from watching what has happened over the last three years. If there was one policy on which the Coalition lost the last election, it was workplace relations because in trying to extend unfair dismissal protections to businesses with 100 workers and in temporarily abolishing the “no disadvantage” test, the Coalition exceeded its mandate. I regret to say that we broke faith with the “Howard battlers” who had been the foundation of our earlier success.

Now, I want you to know that I believe in workplace freedom but never at the expense of fairness. I am a conviction politician but never in defiance of the electorate. I have well and truly absorbed the lessons of the past and on workplace relations policy I understand that the Coalition has to re-establish trust. Words won’t re-establish trust. Trust will only be restored by demonstrating, over time, that the Coalition again has the steady hands in which people’s job security and pay and conditions can once more safely rest.

So, I give you this commitment. An incoming Coalition government will seek to make Labor’s individual flexibility agreements more flexible and seek to reduce the burdens on small business but we will do so within the existing legislation. The existing legislation is far from perfect but it deserves a fair go.

I haven’t just made this decision alone, ladies and gentlemen. Yesterday afternoon the Shadow Cabinet backed my recommendation that an incoming Coalition government would not seek to change the Fair Work Act at least for the three years of the next term of Parliament. We will also retain Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman. Very importantly, ladies and gentlemen, we will keep the Australian Building and Construction Commission under its existing legislation because it is a strong “cop on the beat” and has helped to end years of lawlessness on commercial construction sites.

We’ve had a lot of change over quite a short period of time. There were the 1993 changes, there were the 1996 changes, there were the 2005 changes and now, most recently, the Fair Work Act, the fourth big change to workplace law in just 15 years and I say, as a conservative, that the new legislation should be judged by how it operates in practice rather than by how it conforms to expectations. My suspicion is that it will make it harder for business to employ people and harder for people to earn more but it’s important not to leap to premature conclusions. That’s what Labor does, it leaps to premature conclusions, it follows ideology not common sense and look at the trouble which that produces.

So, the Coalition will carefully monitor how the Fair Work legislation operates over the next three years, in consultation with workplace organisations and with the public. If any changes are needed, we will seek a mandate for them at the 2013 election. In the meantime, we’ll work within the existing legislation and with the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia, to ensure that the current Act delivers the best possible outcomes.

As I said, I have reflected deeply on this for many, many months and I have concluded that sometimes it’s better to see what problems develop and to deal with them then rather than to try to anticipate them now and to solve them in advance. Workers and businesses will soon enough know what works and what doesn’t with the current legislation which is only now starting to come into full operation and it’s only after possible improvements have been fully considered by the people affected and by the electorate at large at a subsequent election that the Coalition might consider making any change.

And let me say this to you, an incoming Coalition will have quite enough reform to be getting on with: tackling Labor’s debt and deficit; introducing a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme; introducing an element of people power into the running of schools and hospitals; improving the environment and establishing a Green Army; and re-examining the Henry proposals for personal tax cuts and welfare reform. We don’t need yet another fight over workplace changes. Work Choices is dead. I’ve said that before but, today, before the Queensland Liberal National Party, I’ve not just buried the body but I’ve cremated it too.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to hear a lot over the next few weeks from the Prime Minister who will say that this election is all about trust and I suggest to you that a Coalition team, including seven former Cabinet ministers and 15 former ministers in an effective Government, is more likely to provide the stable and prudent government that Australia needs now than a Labor Party which cannot say who would be the Finance Minister, cannot say who would be the Defence Minister and cannot say who would be the Foreign Minister should it be returned and I pose this question, “why would the public trust Labor to deliver on its 2010 promises when it has so comprehensively reneged on its 2007 promises?” And I pose this simple question, “why should the public trust Julia Gillard when Kevin Rudd couldn’t?”

The Prime Minister will say that it’s all about risk and I tell you what the real risk is. The real risk is that a bad Government might get the second chance it doesn’t deserve and that Australia can’t afford. That is the real risk we face.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me say this also, as the father of three daughters I am thrilled that we have now had a female Prime Minister but it’s competence, not gender, which is the test of fitness for high office and changing the face at the top has not changed the nature of this Government. It is a thoroughly incompetent Government which does not deserve to be re-elected.

We’ll hear a lot over the next few weeks from the Prime Minister who says that this election is all about “moving forward”. Labor politicians cannot open their mouths without uttering the phrase “moving forward”. It is the latest focus group tested and market researched phrase and it will be to this election what working families was to the last one. But, let me say this to you, people suffering mortgage stress and people suffering cost of living pressure, they don’t feel they’re moving forward, they don’t feel they’re moving forward at all. They feel that Australia will move forward when Labor moves out, that’s what they feel.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the battle lines are well and truly drawn and in a couple of hours the contest will be on. As a Liberal, I support lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom. As a conservative, I support a fair go for families and respect for the values which have stood the test of time and, as an Australian, I support policies that work and which do not trifle with the future of this great country.

Ladies and gentlemen, I love our country. I love our country. It is the best country on Earth but it can be better because the Government is letting us down. I believe that Australia will be at its best when all of our people can be at their best and that is what the next Coalition government will seek to achieve. I have a clear message for the Australian people. It’s such a clear message that I know one person has heard it and heard it very clearly because it’s the same message that Warren Truss gave you about 20 minutes ago. If you want to stop the boats, you have to change the government. If you want to repay the debt, you’ve got to change the government. If you want to stop the new taxes, you’ve got to change the government and if you want to see a competent team in Canberra, you’ve got to change the government. It really is as simple as that.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the next five weeks will be the supreme challenge of my life. They will be the supreme test of my team, they will be a great test for all of us but I know we can do it. I know we are ready to govern, I know we are ready to give Australia the good government that a great people deserve.

Thank you so much for your support today. I really appreciate all that you’re doing. I am so thrilled and buoyed by the reception that I’ve had here in Queensland and I want to congratulate each and every one of you for the commitment, for the ideals and for the hard work that you are bringing to this great campaign upon which we are now engaged.