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

But he simply does not understand the magnitude of the challenge. That is why he blunders in here, recklessly, with these propositions and then throws into the middle of that a proposal to the Prime Minister: ‘Would you sack the Treasury Secretary.’ How irresponsible! How reckless to throw that into the middle of a situation where we do actually have a global financial crisis, where what we absolutely need is confidence across the board and where the Australian people are looking for unity.

He had the gall to claim that he was looking for bipartisanship, and when we brought out our package he said he would support it. There were statements, all on the record, in the days following of bipartisan support. But they all disappeared, because it was just phoney—phoney like the rest of his approaches in this House because there are no core values. The Leader of the Opposition does not actually believe in anything other than himself. That explains his progress through the political system. It explains his attempt to join the Labor Party. It explains the fact that he led the Republican Movement and now he has become a monarchist. Can you believe that? Somebody who led the Republican Movement is now a monarchist. He has no core values, because what he is really on about is personal political power. That is all that matters to him.

But what matters to us on this side of the House is the national interest. I will tell you why the guarantee is so important. What we have seen in recent days have been very substantial interest rate cuts from a number of banks who have all cited this guarantee as a very significant influence in their decision to reduce interest rates for households and businesses and the rural sector. But of course if you are so out of touch, you just think that interest rate rises were overdramatised, as the Leader of the Opposition has said on a number of occasions. He does not actually live like ordinary people live; he does not actually understand that an interest rate rise of 25 basis points or a cut of 25 basis points or a cut of 80 basis points is really important to households and really important to business. That is because, once again, he does not understand. He does not understand how important the guarantee is to bringing down rates, to putting confidence back into the system, to getting behind Australian households, to getting behind Australian businesses.

Of course, all he can do is to walk into this House with more slippery barrister talk, nitpicking and so on, but no substantial policy. But on Sunday his alternative policy was on display on the Insiders. So he wants a cap of $100,000 on bank deposits. That leaves 40 per cent of all deposits out of the system. I could not think of anything more reckless than that. But, of course, the Leader of the Opposition thinks he knows all. He is unconcerned. He is moving on to his next nitpick somewhere, to construct his next phoney argument to somehow resuscitate himself before his colleagues. But we take these things seriously. That was demonstrated massively this morning at his press conference when he said—

See this speech in context