Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with the member opposite, it is not old; it is a recent movie. It came out in 1983 and it told the story of the first American astronauts. There is a great scene—the member at the table opposite, the member for Brand, has clearly watched it; he will know this scene—where the NASA ground control staff are waiting anxiously as John Glenn is making what is a very troubled re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. They pause and go silent as the capsule enters that phase where all radio communication breaks down. There is a long silence and they wait anxiously knowing they cannot speak to the capsule and he cannot speak back. Last week that reminded me of the Canberra press gallery. They were like the NASA ground control staff, waiting for a sound, waiting for any sound at all. The only difference was the NASA ground control staff knew how long the wait would be. They knew it would be no longer than three minutes. But the poor press gallery thought, ‘Gee, we might be here till dinner time.’

The only problem with that comparison is that the title of the movie does not sum up the federal Treasurer. He does not have the right stuff, and that is absolutely obvious. We have had the Minister for Finance and Deregulation and numerous others, some in the press gallery, try to defend the fact that the Treasurer of Australia does not know his own inflation forecasts and projections on the basis that ‘it’s just another number’. There are lots of numbers in the budget—by definition the budget is full of numbers—and the poor Treasurer cannot be expected to know them. In fact, the minister for finance’s defence last week was that the public and the press could not expect him and the Treasurer to be parrots. I have to say that I think most parrots would learn those inflation forecasts and projections faster than the Treasurer. This defence, of course, as those opposite know in their heart of hearts, is a pathetic defence—the idea that all figures are equal, that no figures are more important than any others and that somehow the price of widgets or the number of 1953 Corvettes manufactured is as important as the inflation forecast.

The sad thing, as the member for Bradfield knows, is that the Prime Minister also did not know the inflation forecasts earlier in the year. The member for Bradfield asked the Prime Minister what the budget forecasts were, and unlike the Treasurer the Prime Minister summed up pretty quickly the fact that he did not know the answer and tried to get it over with in a lot less time than 80 seconds. He then spoke for a long time. So we have the spectacle of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer lecturing the country on inflation but not knowing what the forecast is—in the case of the Prime Minister, not knowing what the forecast is in the budget; in the case of the Treasurer, not knowing what the forecast is on an indicator of vital importance when he releases the mid-year update. On this defence that it is just another number, for a Treasurer this is like forgetting your home phone number and saying that is just another number. If we are to believe this, we are to believe that, when the Treasurer arrives home in Brisbane and gets in his Comcar, he is hoping the Comcar driver knows the number of the street. You would not get a more fundamental figure for a Treasurer to know at any time, let alone at the time when, in less than two weeks time, he will have spent a year lecturing Australia about the importance of that very figure.

Of course, what that 80 seconds sums up is so much about this government. The focus is on the stunt and the announcement, but what the Australian people are starting to realise is that, if the government spent more time doing the real work than focusing on stunts, the Treasurer would know the inflation forecasts and projections. In fact, it would be impossible for him not to know them. We saw the tenor of this also with the Prime Minister, and previous speakers have pointed this out. We saw it in graphic detail just a few weeks ago, when it transpired that in the emergency Saturday cabinet meeting the Reserve Bank governor was not consulted. What did we see in the lead-up to that cabinet meeting? We saw world leaders being rung by the Prime Minister, followed by updates every day in press conferences about the latest world leader or senior economic figure he had spoken to. Phone calls could be made all around the world, press conferences could be held and then an emergency cabinet meeting could be held on a Saturday, and in the time it took him to decide to roll his sleeves down and get the cameras in he could have got the Reserve Bank governor on the phone from Sydney, but he did not. You could not, if you had a starting list of people to consult, not have the Reserve Bank governor up near the top. It is just not possible. They could have Wayne Swan on the phone from Washington or New York, but they could not have the Reserve Bank governor on the phone from Sydney. That just sums up so much about this government’s approach.

For those opposite who will speak after the member for Canberra, let me save them time in their speeches. We have said we are supporting this legislation. They will speak, we will speak, at some point the debate will end and this bill will pass this House with the support of us. Then it will go to the Senate and the same thing will happen. Perhaps the speaking notes are out of date, but we have said that repeatedly. On behalf of our constituents and the wider Australian public, we say Wayne Swan needs to do better, and we say the government needs to start focusing on the detail, stop making excuses, stop focusing on spin, stop trying to shut down discussion on matters of public importance and have a ministerial statement on the issue. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister, has spoken everywhere except in a ministerial statement in this parliament. There is almost not a square inch in this building where he has not spoken, outside the spot right in front of that dispatch box, where he should be giving a formal, considered ministerial statement. He should have done that during the last two-week sitting period. He should have done it this week. He still can do it this week, and in the meantime he should not be asking his Leader of the House to shut down debate on a matter of public importance on what they say, and we agree, is one of the biggest matters of public importance on the economic front in the last 60 or 70 years.

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