Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Consumer confidence and business confidence in this country have collapsed. Businesses are reporting plummeting sales. Households fear for their future. At such times Australians look to their leaders to make the tough decisions. At such times Australians look to their Prime Minister to get it right. They expect their Prime Minister to call on the very best expertise available. But what happened on 12 October? On 12 October this year the Prime Minister and his government’s economic team made a decision to give an unlimited guarantee to one part of the financial system with little or no idea of how it could cause massive disruption to the rest of the financial system. This disruption is now occurring in finance companies, in mortgage funds, in cash management trusts, in debenture-issuing institutions, in residential mortgage backed securities and with regard to short-term money market instruments. There is disruption in the financial markets.

The current crisis is not playing out on the set of The Hollowmen and it is not a re-run of an episode from Yes, Minister. We have a crisis affecting the nation, affecting small business, affecting farmers, affecting retirees and affecting every household in the country. Yet this Prime Minister on 12 October failed this nation. He failed to pick up the phone and consult the Reserve Bank, APRA or ASIC on possibly the most important decision he will make in his term as Prime Minister. Why would a responsible Prime Minister not speak directly to those organisations? Why would he not pick up the phone? What excuse could he give? Did he do it because he feared that his decision was flawed? Perhaps he feared he would miss the news cycle, so he had to cut them out of the loop in order to get to the news cycle. Perhaps he feared they would not tell him what he wanted to hear. We can only speculate on why our Prime Minister did not consult the very best advice before making that decision. He was negligent, he was reckless, he was irresponsible and the institutions who fell outside the guarantee are now paying the price. His super is safe, but the savings of many retirees hang in the balance because of the Prime Minister’s hasty ‘Hollowmen’ fix, a simple political fix.

On 12 October we had a grievous error by this Prime Minister, and now we endure the cover-up. In question time in this House we saw the Prime Minister ducking, weaving and avoiding the questions asked on behalf of the people of Australia. We saw Dr Henry in estimates today failing to give answers rightfully asked by the Senate. We also had the confirmation by the Treasurer in question time today that there would be a new deposits tax, a new scheme to tax banks and depositors. But in estimates today Dr Henry was quite clearly unaware of that tax. He had no idea of the policy on the run that was formulated between two and 3.30 in the House today. If ever there was an example of policy on the run, that was it. Will this policy on the run take account of the needs of retirees? Will this policy on the run take account of the needs of those institutions that are currently outside the guarantee regime?

I looked at a report in the Telegraph today that was quite interesting. It said that 63 per cent of people are concerned or very concerned about the economic outlook, 44 per cent fear for their job security, almost half believe they are doing worse than a year ago, two-thirds believe New South Wales will fare worse than the rest of Australia, 42 per cent plan to put away spare cash towards debt because of their fears for the future and 25 per cent of Australians do not think the Prime Minister is doing enough. But 100 per cent of Australians want to have truth from this Prime Minister, and 100 per cent want the Prime Minister to level with the Australian people as he promised. The Prime Minister has been covering up his lack of consultation on this matter and he should be ashamed.

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