Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no disagreement about the need for a fiscal stimulus package, no matter how hard you on the other side have worked to confect any disagreement, as observers have noted today. It is important to have something that is swift and substantial, forward loaded and also targeting the weaker areas of the economy. The question today is why it was so slow in coming. We have had domestic signals showing a slowdown for months. You have had ample opportunity to act. What has become obvious in the last six to nine months is that we have had a leader of the government so concerned about earning the mantle of being a responsible economic manager that he has been prepared to traduce seniors, carers and pensioners for six months. There was a budget back in May, and the cue was not taken.

As I add a postscript to today’s matter of public importance, I think it is timely to go through a chronology of how slow this Prime Minister was to act and react. We became very used to those overseas trips—I think there were 12 or 13 jaunts overseas. They did not give him any forewarning of this. The most frightening image of all was of the Treasurer at his G20 meeting last week wandering through the New York Stock Exchange. It was like shopping centre video of a lost child. No-one wanted to talk to him; no-one wanted to look at him; he did not know where to go. He was looking for a focus group or perhaps an economic adviser to give him a cue on what to say next.

Let us go through the chronology, because if we are going to have global warming as the greatest moral hazard of our generation, as it has been referred to before, we also have an obesity epidemic, a binge-drinking epidemic and all of these other great challenges. Goodness me! You have been crying wolf for nine months and along comes a real one. Is it any surprise that the Australian people are asking a few questions? ‘What do you know?’ ‘What are the figures you base it on?’ ‘Simply provide us some of the economic data.’ It has not been forthcoming, and we are right to ask why. That is a fairly simple question. You spent your whole time confecting moral crises on the other side. ‘By golly,’ Australians think, ‘you’re an unlucky lot in government, aren’t you?’ Here you have a real crisis. It blindsides you despite all of the Prime Minister’s trips overseas and all this great advice which he will not offer to us today.

There was a budget and a budget response in May. There was an opportunity to take some pressure off those who needed it most. There was an opportunity to target some assistance to those who need it most. It was passed up. Then, two days later in the budget response, a $30 a week rise for pensioners was lampooned by the government. All of a sudden, it makes complete sense now, just months later. What came in September was an observation by the Prime Minister that conditions were softer and we were facing tougher economic times. That was only four weeks ago. When it finally looked like interest rates were going to come down and you had a Leader of the Opposition who proposed that it should be more than 25 basis points, wasn’t that reckless! Weren’t you on the other side of this chamber all aghast when someone actually suggested they might reduce interest rates by more than 25 basis points! You lot over in government were trepidatious and nervous. You did not know where to go next. You looked on—

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