Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, plan B is not here today. Plan B, of course, was the architect of the spendathon. It has fallen to this government to control reckless spending. It has fallen to us because the consequence of that reckless spending was upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates.

The IMF told a few home truths about this last week. In effect, the IMF said that that spendathon, that spending spree put upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. That was backed up by Treasury minute after Treasury minute after Treasury minute. Indeed, in their last budget, they had a $40-billion spendathon. Could they find any room in that budget to do something about the base rate of the age pension? No, they could not. So why has the Leader of the Opposition got this proposition here today? I will tell you why: because he is now being hunted by plan C, the member for Wentworth. It would not be here if it was not for the looming leadership challenge that is coming from the member for Wentworth. There is nothing in their proposal which is genuine. They are leaving out 2.2 million pensioners. We on this side of the House will do the responsible thing: we will put in place a set of arrangements which are economically responsible and fair because we have a 100-year history of looking after low-income earners.

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