Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I fear that my intervention yesterday has moved the member for O’Connor back into the main chamber, and for that I apologise to the House. That was most certainly not my intention.

Events are being reshaped by the global credit crisis. We have seen some of the world’s leading financial institutions face either the end of their business or a landscape of dramatic change. We have seen the US government invest $700 billion in mortgage related assets for these companies in a buy-up plan. We have seen financial regulators around the world move to address the problem of short selling, which would increase volatility in financial markets in this very difficult period. And we have seen central banks around the world move to address the liquidity crisis and to inject more liquidity into financial markets.

In these uncertain times around the globe, the last thing we can afford in this country is uncertainty around the delivery of the government’s budget. The budget was designed for the times. It was designed with a surplus to give us the buffer we need in difficult circumstances. The fact that it was so designed and provides such a buffer is endorsed by the IMF in its recent report, which stated that prudent fiscal policies and flexible exchange rates provide Australia with ‘important buffers against any substantial weakening in the external environment’. In these uncertain global economic times we need budget certainty, and that is why the actions of the Liberal Party in the Senate are so damaging. They would be damaging in ordinary times. They would be economic vandalism in ordinary times. But in these times of uncertainty they are the height of irresponsibility.

We understand that the Senate plays a role as a house of review, where they look at and scrutinise legislation. That is the proper role of the Senate and we understand that. But what is happening in the Senate, courtesy of the Liberal Party, is not that proper role of review; it is obstruction pure and simple, designed to take $6.2 billion out of the budget surplus and to create uncertainty in these uncertain times.

I say to the newly elected Leader of the Opposition that he has an opportunity to create a break with the past. Instead of endorsing the irresponsibility adopted by the Liberal Party immediately after the May budget, he has an opportunity to actually engage in a responsible economic strategy and to make sure the budget can be delivered. We continue to call upon him to do so. He can prove that he is not an economic vandal by responding to those calls.

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