Mr BEAZLEY (Leader of the Opposition) (4:07 PM) —Everybody who listened to this fellow, the Minister for Finance and Administration, knows that for 10 minutes he had nothing more to say on this motion. I will tell you something, Mr Speaker. I will tell you what I did about Centenary House: I put a royal commission onto Centenary House. There is no royal commission on you and advertising—not $36 million over 15 years but $20 million a month ripped off the Australian taxpayer. There is no royal commission on that. There is no royal commission on the advertising that we saw on the GST, those chains ads, and all of the other stuff that has gone into the $200 million plus on that. There is no royal commission on that. There is no royal commission into the Greenfields contributions to the Liberal Party. There is no royal commission on that. There is no royal commission referenced to the $700,000 received from HIH by the Liberal Party while they sat on recommendations for proper supervision powers for APRA when the royal commission was set up on that—no reference to the conduct of ministers and no reference to the $700,000 received by the Liberal Party. There is no royal commission on that.

But we did put a royal commission in on Centenary House, under Justice Morling, a well-respected judge and a commissioner under you, a person appointed by you. Shall I tell you what the findings of Judge Morling were in the royal commission put in place? The findings were these:

Elsewhere in the findings of the royal commission into the Centenary House arrangement, the independent royal commissioner, whose services as a royal commissioner have been used by the other side, said:

No matter what might now be argued about the justification of the lease, the royal commissioner found that on the basis of comparison with other agreements, other arrangements, being discussed and being arrived at at the time by the Australian government. So we are entitled to ask the question in these circumstances as to why this is occurring. I am going to move an amendment to turn the censure motion into a motion dealing with the lies that were told about the GST. But before I get on to moving that amendment, as Mr Fahey, the Minister for Finance and Administration, went on I began to detect a different motive involved in all of this. At first I thought this was an attempt to embarrass the Labor Party—absurd, given that we had put a royal commission in on ourselves. I now believe—and the tip-off came about 10 to 15 minutes into his speech—that this is actually an attempt to intimidate the Auditor-General. This is saying to the Auditor-General, `Listen, your predecessor struck a mug's bargain here.' This is pique for several reasons: firstly, pique from a minister on whom the Auditor-General has found $1 billion worth of waste on IT.

Mr BEAZLEY —You have not had to answer questions in this place on these matters.

Mr BEAZLEY —You have been found wanting in your administration by the Auditor-General to the tune of $1 billion.

Mr BEAZLEY —More immediately, what provoked this pathetic minister for finance was a report that we see here today produced by the Auditor-General about the Public Service wasting $100 million a year on office space. This is not something that governments like to hear from auditors-general.

Mr BEAZLEY —We listened to you in silence. You just maintain your silence while your record is dealt with. Okay, sport, maintain your silence. You were dealt with with complete courtesy, and you can operate on the same basis. You are attempting to intimidate the Auditor-General for further reasons. There are reports yet to come, and one of those reports is going to be on the Australian sales group, and I would not mind betting that that will be coming out perhaps a bit closer to that September date that the finance minister was speaking about. In just the same way that the government have mulled the Public Service in this country, destroyed and discredited it, what they are now doing is the ultimate in the parliamentary process, and that is intimidating the Auditor-General of this country.

The government know there was a royal commission. They know the royal commissioner found that the leasing arrangement was fine. As far as practice was concerned, everything was above board. They know that. So the question arises: why do they want to drag the Auditor-General across the table in this set of circumstances? This is their blind, but it is more sinister than that. It is one thing for oppositions to complain about the behaviour of auditors-general, but when governments are firing warning shots across the bow of the Auditor-General you know that it is time to scream for their protection.

Mr Crean —It's a cover-up.

Mr BEAZLEY —You know what is under way is a massive and substantial cover-up. In this case the cover-up is tainted with additional concerns for revenge. We all lamented it—and we still do, and we will not pursue it because we are concerned about the health implications of it—but were it not for the fact that you were, unfortunately, detained earlier this year, for the first half of this year we would have been discussing the Auditor-General's report on IT outsourcing, your direct responsibility. The Auditor-General found incompetence worth billions, hundreds of millions, of dollars in costs to the taxpayer—a complete shambles. That is the only significant policy that this minister has been responsible for in five years in office.

And he moled it comprehensively, just as he moled the State Bank sale in New South Wales in which he claimed $540 million value to the New South Wales taxpayer but did not tell them in the fine print so beloved of the Liberal Party that they had also taken over debts associated with the State Bank which meant that the real net value was not $540 million but somewhere between $200 million and $270 million. He also builds on that magnificent record in IT outsourcing, which has savaged the Commonwealth taxpayer to the tune of $1 billion, the railway air link from Central to Mascot—not supposed to cost the taxpayer one red cent but which cost them $750 million.

So what are we up to now? Let us add them all together. We have $750 million on the railway, we have $250 million in relation to the bank, we have $1 billion on IT and now, apparently, we have $100 million a year on office space. That makes $2.1 billion from the minister for finance in incompetent public administration and on value for money. No wonder he wants to intimidate the Auditor-General. No wonder he wants to ignore the fact that a royal commission by an independent royal commissioner found, regarding the agreement that was ticked off by the then Auditor-General through the Australian Property Group with the Australian Labor Party at the time it was negotiated:

You do not have to take the government's blackguarding of the Labor Party. You do not have to take any alleged self-interested defence by the Labor Party of itself. Just go to the royal commissioner and have a look at what the royal commissioner had to say about it, and then understand why this is being done to the Auditor-General. Understand what is at stake here: a government that makes an art form of abuse of the Public Service, that evades accountability at every point and that is guilty not of $36 million over 15 years, which is your allegation, but of $20 million a month of public funds— corruption on a massive scale in this country of $20 million a month—going to government advertising basically devoted to the Liberal Party.

You are deserving of censure. I have spent most of my 15 minutes actually talking about the issue that is before us—which is more than I can say for the Minister for Finance and Administration, who spent approximately two minutes stating the case and, after that, another 13 minutes reiterating, `Please explain, Leader of the Opposition, what you are doing.' I have done his motion the courtesy of a lengthier discussion than he himself managed to do, but I am entitled to do a few things on my own part and so I move:

(1) everyone will be better off;

(2) no small business will go to the wall;

(3) the Tax Act will be smaller;

(4) there will be more jobs and less unemployment;

(5) the black economy will disappear;

(6) the GST will not be a tax on a tax;

(7) all over-60s will get $1,000;

(8) pensioners will get a 4% increase, without clawback;

(9) health and education will be GST-free;

(10) the Australian dollar will be worth more;

(11) nothing will go up by the full 10%; and

(12) petrol prices will not increase.

As every Australian now knows, you can tell it to the marines on all of that. Every Australian now knows they were lied to repeatedly. They were lied to at the outset on the never, ever promise. They were lied to on each one of those promises made to them. They are not better off and the Australian economy is not better off. This economy was growing under Labor at four per cent per annum. The growth rate has been halved, and the best that is expected of the economy is to return to the growth rate that was put in place by Labor before this government came into office. That is the best that can be expected of the GST for the economy—that Australian business, Australian consumers and Australian workers will struggle over the hump and resume a level of growth that they experienced before they had the handicap of a ball and chain tied around their ankles, the ball and chain of the goods and services tax.

But the government is Churchillian to one extent. Churchill used to say that, in wartime, truth has to be surrounded by a smokescreen of lies. The essential truth here was that the government intended to put in place a tax to shift the tax burden to pensioners and ordinary Australian families. That was the truth. The smokescreen of lies started with a promise that it would never, ever be done to them and was followed by every piece of obfuscation that I have pointed out in the amendment that I have moved to this pathetic censure motion.

We will have a chance to vote on the government's lies. We will also have a chance, although the numbers in this parliament will determine the outcome, to draw attention to the blind being drawn across their dispute with the Auditor-General for his virulent findings on the competence of this government. But know this: there is a sinister attempt going on here to intimidate the Auditor-General, both on what he has produced on the government's management of property now and, more importantly, on what he is going to produce in the next few weeks on the sales of government properties. Don't be fooled. This is butcher's hook, big time. We have had a royal commission into our particular activities. The time has come for a royal commission on yours.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER —I am waiting for an opportunity to take action under the general warning, and there have been a number of them. Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Crean —I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.