Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

people who have squandered economic opportunity like no others, except perhaps those in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory, and many local government authorities as well where Labor governs. The reality is that we need to put on the record that Labor when in government are in an economic sense nothing more than B-graders. When you look at somebody like the current Treasurer, he is laughed at not just by the banks but by the economists and by the financial markets. Now he is being laughed at by Australian families and by small business. For some of them, that is now turning into stark horror and terror, because they really are worried about where this Australian economy is headed under Wayne Swan. The first three months have certainly been a bad sign of where Labor is intending to take us.

In conclusion, the coalition supports these amendments aimed at improving the governance and accountability arrangements of bodies within the Australian government. However, history shows us that Labor has at both a federal and a state level continually avoided appropriate levels of accountability and transparency. The practice appears to be continuing under Rudd Labor. This government must immediately stop the hypocrisy and start implementing its supposed program for accountability and transparency. Labor must stop the political ranting and raving and provide some underscoring to the confidence that was once there for businesses in particular so that they can continue to make investment decisions and decisions about employing staff and we can see continued growth in the Australian economy. Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan have at the moment no idea as to where the Australian economy is headed over the next 12 months. If we see in this country a slowing of growth similar to that which we are now seeing in the United States, the current Treasurer will have no capacity and no plan to deal with that. At the moment, he is clubbing the Australian economy to a slow death. It is a political path which is dangerous, not just for Australian business but also for Australian consumers. In conclusion, the opposition supports the bill for the reasons that I have outlined.

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