Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

It is a very interesting newspaper. The member for Higgins is quoted as saying:

If I was still Treasurer we’d have 10 CCTV cameras on Chapel St.

…            …            …

Before the election, I wouldn’t have had to ask Mr Rudd; I would have authorised the cheque myself.

That will be his political epitaph: ‘I just kept authorising the cheques.’

I can assure the House that the Treasurer and I will not be in the business of automatically authorising cheques. We will not be in the business of massive increases in government spending for things like government advertising, because we and the government are serious about cutting government spending and putting downward pressure on inflation and on interest rates. We are particularly serious about cutting out the outrageous misuse of taxpayers’ money on things like government advertising. The previous government spent almost half a billion dollars within the space of 16 months in a desperate attempt to secure re-election. That money could have been invested in infrastructure and in building the skills of this nation to help tackle the inflation problem that has been brewing for some time but instead it was spent in a desperate attempt to secure re-election. There is one big lesson that we can learn from all of this, and that is that you cannot trust the Liberals with public money.

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