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

I did not say that at all. I did not make a statement of that kind with respect to public servants. In fact, the statement I made was with respect to the work ethic of the former government, actually asking the question of why it is that the Rudd government is setting a very strong agenda. The answer is very simple, and that is that there is an awful lot to do. The thrust of my comments yesterday related to the former government and that, if there were public servants struggling with additional work under the new government, the reason is that the former government did not do very much. My predecessor sat around and watched the cows come home. In the last four budgets, there were not any savings at all—no savings in the last four budgets. What was the Minister for Finance doing in the former government? Where were the savings? There is just one example. The Rudd government have a big, nation-building, reforming agenda. We are committed to working hard. We have a lot of things to do. The former government did very little and that is what my comments on Insiders were directed to.

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