Mr CREAN (3:36 PM) —I just make the observation again at the beginning of this matter of public importance: as the Treasurer was actually challenging Labor to ask him questions in this parliament, why will he not attend to defend MPIs? Why will he not entertain the debate about his botched economic management and the continuing deceit through his complicity in the GST? In an earlier debate on the government's handling of the GST, the Leader of the Opposition referred to the Prime Minister, whenever he was in difficulty, as having `the cunning plan', like Baldrick from Blackadder. Today, I think we have begun nailing who Baldrick is: he is the Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia. There he is, slotted by the Prime Minister for having put out speaking notes that were supposed to be the cunning plan for this government to get its beer excise up by blackmailing motorists in this country and saying, `Unless you pass beer, you don't get your petrol tax.' There he was with this cunning plan. Instead of a Treasurer getting on with the job that he has been tasked with—such as cracking down on tax cheats and not going weak at the knees when he has an agreement with the Labor Party on business taxation—there he is out there hatching these cunning plans.

With a smirk that would put Blackadder to shame, we have him with his latest effort, his latest cunning plan, to link the beer excise to petrol excise. In the process, he has compounded the Prime Minister's deceit on beer; he has magnified it 10 times over as blackmail. Imagine the conversation that is going on here. You have the Prime Minister in the bunker. He has already backflipped on the BAS, he has already backflipped on petrol, he has been forced back into roll-back but is not wanting to admit it—all the result of earlier cunning plans by this Treasurer—and you have the Prime Minister being confronted with another plan, this time in relation to beer.

I went through some of the scripts of Blackadder, and the following could well have been the first response the Prime Minister gave to Baldrick as he came through the door in the form of the nation's Treasurer. The Prime Minister would have said, `Baldrick, you wouldn't recognise a cunning plan if it painted itself purple, danced on a harpsichord and sang "Cunning plans are here again".' But the Treasurer said, `Have faith; we may have mucked up with the other ones, Prime Minister, but have faith because I have got another cunning plan for you.' To which Peter Reith, sitting there in the audience, may have played the role of Edmund, also in Blackadder, and said to the Prime Minister, `I wouldn't get overexcited, sir; I have a horrid suspicion that Baldrick's plan would be the stupidest thing you ever heard since Lord Nelson's favourite famous signal at the Battle of the Nile: "England knows Lady Hamilton a virgin; poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I am wrong".' That would have been the advice of Peter Reith to the Prime Minister as Baldrick was coming in with his latest cunning plan.

But let us understand what this plan was, because it is revealed in speaking notes that were faxed to government members, a copy of which was leaked to us. We suspect that, just as there are people on the back bench over there who wanted the government to do the right thing on petrol that we were urging them to do, there are others over there hatching their little cunning plans. They are leaking to us; they are giving us the information that the government is trying to prime its loyal backbench to go into the trenches on to defend the beer-GST deceit.

What was the note in the speaking notes about the significance of tying beer with petrol in the one bill? It was this on page 2 of the speaking notes: `If the Senate does not pass these bills, then consumers could be denied the benefit of petrol and diesel excise reductions.' That was the gun at the head; that was the reason for linking these two measures in the one bill. There was no reason why they had to link the two measures in the one bill, because the proposals themselves, in an earlier form in the parliament, had come in separately. So why are they linked together? Because the cunning plan that the Treasurer has wreaked is to say, `We won't give them the petrol cut that you backflipped on, Prime Minister, unless they tap the mat on beer.'

But why should people who have been deceived in relation to petrol also tap the mat when they have been deceived in relation to beer? What was the extent of that deceit on beer? It was the Prime Minister himself saying that the price of ordinary beer would go up by only 1.9 per cent as a result of the GST. Since the GST, it has gone up by over 10 per cent, and the Prime Minister likes to tell you that he was not talking about draught beer. Go and try to tell any drinker in the country that draught beer is not ordinary beer, because that is the logic of the Prime Minister's position.

We therefore have another GST deceit, now masked in blackmail, perpetrated by a Treasurer who will not come into this House and defend it, who will not even make an appearance in the debate on the bills that are being passed to put it through and who will not appear in the debate on matters of public importance when his stewardship, his management of the economy, is under challenge. And well it should be under challenge, because this was the Treasurer that smirked his way through saying that the GST was going to be good for the economy. I will tell you what the GST did for the economy: it ended a run of 9½ years of successive economic growth at around four per cent, half of it under Labor's administration and half under theirs. What brought it to an end? The GST—just as it brought to an end that claim by the Prime Minister that everyone except tax cheats would be better off as a result of the GST. Yesterday in question time he moved away from that commitment. He is now simply saying that the average Australian will be better off under the GST. It is another backdown, presumably under their cunning strategy of trying to wriggle their way out of all of the so-called promises that they made in relation to the GST.

This is a government in shambles, a government that cannot take a decision, a government that is like a rabbit caught in headlights that does not know where to go. It is a government that, when it is forced to do something, has to turn to what Labor is proposing to do—the BAS simplification, the petrol adjustments, the roll-back initiatives that it wants to decry on one hand but readily embrace whenever it gets itself into trouble. Yesterday we had a shocking performance by the government in question time. If it were possible to be any worse, we saw it today. Today was an absolute shambles; yesterday was a dead shocker.

Yesterday was the day that the shadow minister for foreign affairs tagged as `Bad Name Day' for the government in the parliament. We had the Prime Minister urging us to take careful note of what the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank had said in his speech overseas, that we should take careful note of every word, and then referring to him as Stewart Grenville, not Stephen Grenville. He was called to attention four times but still could not pick it up—one bad name.

Then we had the Minister for Small Business, sitting at the table, trying to formulate this great argument about former ACTU presidents in this place and he could not even name the last one. He called her Jenny Craig and then got up in his defence and said, `It was a Freudian slip: I was referring to Jennie George.' How long have you been dreaming about her, Minister? That is what I would like to know. If it was a Freudian slip, just what are these dreams that you have been having? And, if they are about ACTU presidents, I hope you are not dreaming about me, my friend.

To complete the `Bad Name Day', the shadow minister for communications asked the Deputy Prime Minister and champion of regional Australia to name the people that, under their legislation, are required to sit as representatives of the rural community on the Telstra board, and he did not know. This is the champion of regional Australia, the minister for regional services, and he cannot even name them. But we got the answers today, didn't we?

Who is representing regional Australia? There is Sam Chisholm—Farmer Sam—and John Ralph. That is because Senator Alston says that the requirement is satisfied simply because he has a large farm. We know he has a large farm: we saw him sitting at it when he was advertising the merits of tax reform. You remember when he did the Business Council of Australia ads, talking people into the reason we had to embrace the GST, sitting there with the rolling hills in the background and saying, `This country's been good to me and now I'm going to tell you what's good for you—it is called a GST.' They took those ads off the air quick smart when they realised how out of touch the message was that this government believes that this is a person who satisfies their criteria. Bob Mansfield—no wonder this government is so out of touch. This is a government that only ever talks to the top end of town and has no regard at all for what the small end of town is on about; it would not have a clue. Whenever it comes to defending its position, who does it resort to for support and advice? The top end of town. No wonder they are not listening. No wonder they were laughing today at you, Minister, at the small business forum, a forum that you were supposed to attend while I was addressing it about Labor's alternative. I do not think you even came in.

Mr Ian Macfarlane —I was there.

Mr CREAN —If you had been there, you should not have got up and answered that stupid question earlier in question time, because at the forum you would have seen what Labor's answer was in terms of roll-back. You would have seen the commitment to simplification, a commitment and a consultation process that I can tell you the small business community want to engage us in. They do not believe that the member for Wills's inquiry is a waste of time. You just wait for the people who are lining up to make the submissions. Before you denigrate the inquiry, just look at how successful our inquiry on petrol was. This was the one that forced your backflip. This was the one that forced you to embrace a backflip on petrol. We look forward to more backflips by you on business activity statements.

Then, today, the other minister was sitting at the table. What a pathetic response it was in terms of dairy farmers. There are dairy farmers all around this country, particularly in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, who are not just hurting; they are desperate. And this government will not lift a finger for them. This government says, `What was Labor's role?' I will tell you what Labor's role was, because I happened to be primary industries minister through the second dairy industry plan. We saw the first one introduced by John Kerin, with sensible restructurings. They were commitments in which the government actually made a contribution and did not stick its hand into dairy farmer payouts and pocket it as tax.

Your dairy industry strategy is nothing more than a disguised tax on milk. You said you were not going to put a GST on it; but you have slugged the consumer with a levy to fund the restructuring of an industry. As well, having imposed it on consumers, the payouts that farmers get—and they have not been getting many of them quickly—are now being pocketed by you in tax. You have contributed nothing. The consumers are paying a huge cost, the dairy farmers are paying with their livelihoods and you are pocketing the money. This is typical of you as a government. You simply want to take and never give. You are a government that does not know how to listen, a government that is committed to the top end of town, a government that does not deserve to hold office and a government whose deceit will continue to be exposed. That is why we want the splitting of the bills in terms of petrol and in terms of beer—to demonstrate that the blackmail does not work. If the Prime Minister backs down today, complete the backdown and split the bills. (Time expired)