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

Just to follow up on that issue of consumer sentiment and bearing in mind the remarks that the minister has just made, and leaving aside the issues of interest rates, leaving aside the US subprime crisis and the credit crunch resulting from that, what factors specifically does he believe the federal government has control over which have led to this 28 percentage point drop? Does he believe that there is nothing that the federal government has done which would have undermined consumer confidence to the extent that it has fallen over that quarter, whichever period he wants to look at? If he wants to deal with the period of 1 January to 31 March that is fine. Putting aside those factors, does he accept any responsibility at all, and what are the factors that the federal government itself directly has responsibility for that has undermined that confidence of consumers?

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