Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and it refers to an answer he gave to the Leader of the Opposition a little earlier in relation to the $10 billion cash splash before Christmas. The Prime Minister in that answer said:

I would ask honourable members to reflect on where retail sales around the world went in the December quarter last year.

If you have collapsing sales, as you had in America, Britain and elsewhere in the retail sector, the huge impact on employment in those economies has already been seen.

I refer the Prime Minister to the Office for National Statistics out of the UK. It says:

Retail sales volume in the three months November to January rose by 1.5 per cent compared with the previous three months.

I ask the Prime Minister to explain the modelling which was the basis for spending $10 billion of Australian taxpayers’ cash before Christmas.

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