Mr ADAMS (6:05 PM) —The member for Bradfield contributed greatly to the member for Cowper's speech. I know that the member for Bradfield is on greatness and I know that he is very tense about that and looking forward to taking his position where he feels he rightfully should be within this government in its dying months, as this coalition of unfair, unjust people falls out of favour with the Australian people.

The member for Cowper talked about Labor neglecting some seats. We saw the nonsense that went on at his party's conference at the weekend, with $90 million being rebadged and thrown out as some sort of regional package because the leader and the members are under a lot of pressure, but there is nothing in that $90 million. It is not going to affect or help anybody in regional Australia. It is just a rebadging, a redoing over. That is because this government is tired, it has lost its emphasis, it has lost its way. It has got no new policy concept. It is going to try and put a few new people on the front bench to try to renew itself in that way, but I do not think that is going to work; that is going to fail.

On the tax system itself, let us deal with the GST, the goods and services tax, a tax that we have to have because nearly everybody else has. The United States of America does not have a federal goods and services tax at all. Some of the states there do, but the United States, the biggest economy in the world, has no GST. A lot of things were quoted for the introduction of this tax. This tax is an unfair tax. When I think about where it has come from, it has to be from those who are going to benefit the most. I think it has come from business, the push is that way, and those on the other end are going to lose. That has been the Labor Party's position and I believe that is true. I believe the people on the downside, on the bottom end of the scale, are the ones that are going to lose. The people that do not pay any tax are not going to get any tax breaks because they have paid all the tax they are going to pay in their life. So the people on fixed incomes, the people on very modest superannuation benefits, will miss out; they will not have the same quality of life as they had before the GST or just after.

I will continue to deal with this tax because we have got ads on the GST featuring `Unchain my art'—my heart: I must say heart. I have always had that little impediment because they tried to make me pronounce my aitches in primary school. Evidently I did not do it very well, and I still do not do it very well.

I have looked at these Unchain my Heart ads and I have thought, `What is the message?' The message is that you have got to have this new tax. We are not actually telling Australia what the tax is; we are telling them that they have to have this tax. This is a selling thing—$400 million. This is not a small amount; $400 million is going to propaganda to try to recharge the government as they go towards their end. This money is a part of the propaganda paid for by the taxpayer to try to prop the government up and then they will tip all this money they have into their little tax havens—or that body from Melbourne the Liberal Party uses to put its funds in so that it does not have to go through the Electoral Commission. It is a terrible indictment of this government that they have tonnes of money and they will try to pour that money in. But that will not save this government. I can feel it within myself and I see it in the House—I see this government going down. Their ministers are tired and cannot really get on top of the issues. There are party conferences in disarray with people shouting. This coalition government have real problems.

Of course, people out there in punter land are talking about the waste of this money. They are talking about $400 million and they are saying that it is too much. You might have got away with $50 million, but $400 million? The punters are starting to say, `$400 million—you have to be joking.' They can see $400 million really doing something for roads, for infrastructure, for schools and for health. They can see where $400 million can be spent so that they gain some benefit from it. This waste of money is going to come back on you.

Dr Nelson —David Crean signed up for it, didn't he?

Mr ADAMS —He has no choice. It is taking away the taxes—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hollis) —Just ignore the interjection. The honourable member should not interject.

Mr ADAMS —Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. We know that this member is going towards greatness and has the capacity to give out much more as he builds new policy for the coalition so it can come back in 10 or 20 years time. That is probably the future for the honourable member for Bradfield in this parliament.

The community is pretty angry with this government and where it is coming from. This government has had plenty of opportunities but the problems with the GST are starting to come through from different groups. This week it is well written up in the Hobart Mercury. On Monday the Housing Industry Association was lamenting the problems it has in the building industry and the issues it faces in Hobart and it called for a moratorium on the introduction of GST in that city. It has estimated that the GST will add eight per cent, or $13,000, to a $150,000 house and land package. Of course, as the member for Bradfield would know, you can still get a reasonable house for $150,000 in Tasmania. It is a great place to live because the rates stay at a reasonable level. Our economy is just starting to emerge under the great leadership of Jim Bacon and Treasurer David Crean. This is one of the brothers Crean whose father was a great Treasurer here, and you can see the other Crean taking over the reins and going forward as well.

The contractors are hard-pressed with the GST in the housing industry in Tasmania and they really would like to see a moratorium on residential buildings and renovations so that they can get over the difficult situation where people have undertaken contracts that are not going to be fulfilled and that will run over and they will cop a GST on top of it. It is going to be a big issue.

The member for Cowper, who has now left the chamber, was saying that this is all going to be sorted out and that it will all be happy and merry, but some of these issues are not going to be merry after 1 July. Some of these issues are going to come back and haunt him. He also mentioned unemployment. I wanted to mention one thing that came up in question time today about this wonderful new system we have for getting people into employment. I mentioned a couple here the other day. One was the young person in my electorate who got a job and was working very well. He had undertaken a bond for a flat. He was living an independent life. He had a car on hire purchase. But technology caught up with him and, along with 17 of his fellow workers, he was stood down. Some of the guys with families were offered work in Hobart.

This guy had been working in Launceston and now he was basically out of a job. He was a good worker and had done well. He had a good reference from that job, but there was just no work there. He went off to pick up some benefits to get him through, but he still had three months to go before he turned 18. What was he told? `Go home to mum and dad.' That is what this government is doing out there. Here was a guy who was almost 18. I started work when I was 15 and paid my rent and lived an independent life. You are forcing people back to mum and dad. How do you think they feel about that? That is a silly policy, a stupid policy and one of the policies that has come out of your unemployment policy.

I had a young fellow in my office the other day who has to go from Launceston to Devonport. The member for Bradfield knows how far that is. They said, `Go down there for an interview on Monday.' He has a bond in Launceston on his flat. What is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to live under the bridge in Devonport? There are some silly policies and the silly Minister for Employment Services needs to be pulled into line. When it starts to get down to the detail—as it did today in question time and as I am sure it will in the future—we will start to break him open over some of his silliness and the statistics he has been pouring out as the great things that his party has done. There are a hell of a lot of employment issues out there.

A lot of effort went into the report Time running out: shaping regional Australia's future. A lot of the recommendations in there could have been picked up. Some could have been picked up in this budget. There is a great need in this country to start looking at water infrastructure. The Murray-Darling Basin is going to go through some changes and some other regions need to have some water to help this country continue to feed itself. It is going to take private money as well as government money to assist that. There are some recommendations in here on how we could go down that path and start looking at ways to establish that.

In the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts on funding community, sporting and recreation facilities we recommended that the education issue should be picked up. That was a prime example that could have helped out in voter land. There are some vocational education opportunities going on out there, but we have to put some more money into that area for regional Australia. That would have been a major initiative but we did not get that. We got this bloke, David Kemp, the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, sitting on the front bench hopelessly finished, totally burnt-out, with no concept at all of where education policy is going. I do not think he had very much input at all into this budget. In recommendation 79 of this report, the committee recommended that the Commonwealth take greater account of the contribution to regional universities and TAFE colleges because we found that disadvantages were suffered by universities with regional campuses. There is a need to deal with that issue, but there was nothing going on there in this budget.

Online centres were referred to in recommendation 48. The committee recommended that the Commonwealth government work with the states and industry to expand online access programs for industries in regional areas with a view to making them available through community access centres. This was something that could have been done for not a lot of money. But, as I said, this government failed to do anything.

I want to touch on the disgusting way this government dealt with the Kosovars in Tasmania. They were treated very badly. The Mayor of Brighton, Mr Tony Foster, went to Kosovo over the last few weeks and returned just before last weekend to Tasmania after having seen what the Kosovars, who had been in our safe haven at Brighton, have gone back to. The conditions that many of them were living under were appalling; there is nothing there. The Mercury gave him very good coverage but we are still waiting for some answers from Minister Ruddock.

I am disgusted with the attitude of Liberal Senator Abetz towards these people who came to us for help. He said that they should go and visit Rwanda, Ethiopia or other refugee places which he thinks are worse. That is not the point and we are not arguing that point. The Kosovars were asked here and they should have been given much better opportunities and should have been treated better.

This is a very poor budget for regional Australia and for Australians generally. Nothing was done that should have been done—missed major opportunities for the country. This government in its last few months will fade away to being a very poor government. There is very little initiative from its Prime Minister.

Sitting suspended from 6.22 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.