Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The first one was when the Prime Minister said that I had described what he called the ‘interbank lending guarantee’ as bad policy. I assume he refers to the wholesale term funding guarantee. That is not correct. As I stated in a personal explanation on 16 June 2009:

… the Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding Appropriation Bill … was brought into the House on 25 November by the government—

this was 25 November last year—

following a call for it from the opposition on 17 November in which I pledged bipartisan support. It was expressly supported by all the opposition speakers and carried without dissent on 25 November 2008, as noted on page 11,335 of the House of Representatives Hansard.

The Prime Minister has misled the House on that matter, as the Treasurer did back in June.

The second matter relates to a speech I gave at the National Press Club on 6 May. The minister for infrastructure said that in that speech I had claimed that the government’s stimulus program did not deliver one job and gave the example of jobs created in building railways and roads. His statement is not correct. I said in that speech that the $23 billion in cash splashes had not delivered one job and in fact I complained that so much was spent on cash splashes and relatively little on real economic infrastructure such as roads.

See this speech in context