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

We have seen recently a fair degree of posturing from the opposition on the issue of the pension rate. It was rightly pointed out yesterday by a number of members of the government that only about 12 months ago the people undertaking this posturing actually had an opportunity to do something about this. Amazingly enough, they did not.

I want to add another point to illustrate how hollow and hypocritical these people are. Not only were they not doing anything; let us have a look at some of the things they were doing. For example, in the last 16 months of the Howard government—when the member for Bradfield was a cabinet minister, the Leader of the Opposition was a cabinet minister and the member for Higgins was Treasurer—they spent $457 million on government advertising. That would have helped a few pensioners! They spent $350 million—about three times the ordinary amount spent on industrial relations—on the infamous Work Choices. And they managed to top $4½ billion in government grants—10 times the amount they spent on government grants only five years before that. So, as well as looking at the things they did not do for pensioners less than a year ago, we should be looking at what they actually did spend the money on and why government spending was increasing at the rate of five per cent per annum, all in order to save their political hides.

Regardless of the turmoil in the opposition and regardless of who the leader is, they do not change their spots. They stand for irresponsible economic management, they stand for wasteful, short-term spending of government money and they stand for the interests of well-off Australians at the expense of working people and pensioners.

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