Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What do we now have from the opposition? A raid on that surplus. I find it quite amazing that those who tout themselves as fiscal conservatives, particularly the member interjecting, who, I would say, is as dry as they come economically, can sit here and say, ‘We are economically responsible, we are fiscally responsible, we are worried about the economic future of the country, yet we have not announced a single significant policy decision to contribute to that long-term economic stability.’ And, even worse, they say, ‘We’re going to raid the budget surplus; we’re not going to cost our proposals. When we do cost them, we get them wrong,’ and then, ‘We don’t think that was heading in the right direction; we had better dump our leader and put in another new leader who we are going to portray as an economic guru.’ Does he then come in and say, ‘We were heading in the wrong direction. We now need to be responsible. We have to drop all that populist claptrap that we have been going on with. We have to drop blocking the budget in the Senate, and we have to look like we are taking the issue of costing our proposals seriously and ensure we’re not raiding the budget surplus’? No, we do not get any of that. A week down the track and we have not had a word from the new leader about how he will take action to prove that he will be an economically responsible Leader of the Opposition. We have not heard a word.

We have had a continuation of the populist appeals, the populist lines, with no fiscal responsibility behind them, and then the opposition have the hide to come in here and say: ‘We can be all things to all people. We only have to name ourselves as economically responsible, we only have to get up in an MPI and criticise the Prime Minister, make lists and not outline an economic platform for the future.’ When those on the other side want to outline—

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