Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

What we have done is move quickly to support our financial system. We introduced the $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy. We announced the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan, which was opposed by every member opposite. We have also initiated a $6.2 billion plan to help the car industry, a very important initiative. What have the opposition got as an alternative? They have no alternative. They have no plan, they have no idea, and the only jobs they talk about are those jobs inside the party room.

The member for Casey was once in this portfolio but he took a position that was not one that the now Leader of the Opposition supported, so he was pushed down the rungs. He might come back, because we know who his best friend is; we know whose apprentice he is. What the member for Casey wants is for the member for Higgins to come back so that he can get his old job as shadow minister for employment. I suggest to the member for Stirling that he should hope that the member for Higgins does not come back, because there is no doubt that the member for Casey would take the member for Stirling’s job.

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