Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to condemn this budget. I rise to condemn those who had a hand in putting it together—and I acknowledge the Assistant Treasurer sitting idly at the bench across—and I rise to condemn all those who would view the budget as anything other than what it is: a cynic’s road into the middle. It is interesting that the motion that was put forward is not only damning but also moribund. I do not think the member for Leichhardt actually understands the motion or the budget premise on which he put it. In the Reserve Bank speech on 15 May the member for Leichhardt said:

It is a fact that the Howard government inherited an economy growing strongly in 1996; an economy built on 13 years of sustained economic reform under the stewardship of first the Hawke government and then the Keating government. Inflation was under control and productivity was on the rise.

If I may say so, I think the member for Leichhardt is on a different planet to me—perhaps he went with the probe to Mars—because for the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating government inflation averaged 5.3 per cent. That is a fact, Assistant Treasurer. In the final year of the Hawke-Keating government, inflation was 4.2 per cent. And you have the hide, you have the audacity, Member for Leichhardt, you have the blatant effrontery, to come in here and waste this House’s time with motions and speeches that say inflation was under control by the previous Labor government.

But these inadequacies do not stop there do they, Member for Leichhardt? You continued to say that ‘productivity was on the rise’ in 1996 when the Howard government took over. I would hate to burst your little productivity bubble, but let me actually refer you, Sir, to the facts. The facts are that of the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating government productivity, by which I gather you mean labour productivity although you do not specify—perhaps, Sir, because you do not understand—labour productivity averaged 2.2 per cent.

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