Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

Those well-known socialists down at the IMF, those lefties down at the International Monetary Fund, the fellow travellers of the Labor Party, have been at it again. The IMF said they welcomed the quick implementation of targeted fiscal stimulus. They said:

The stimulus provides a sizeable boost to domestic demand in 2009 and 2010 that will cushion the impact of the global recession.

The IMF also noted and welcomed the fact that Australia is one of very few countries that have a plan to get back to surplus. If you do not care what the IMF said then you would think the government stimulus is unnecessary. But, in their heart of hearts, those opposite know that the stimulus is necessary. They know that the stimulus has worked and they hate it. We have gone sitting day after sitting day with no questions from that side of the House on the state of the economy because they hate good news. That is why we have not had an MPI on the state of the economy for a very long time.

First we had the smear campaign defaming the name of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of this country—which the opposition like to forget—and now we have the fear campaign on debt and tax. The shadow Treasurer, the member for North Sydney, thought it would be amusing to attack the name of Ross Gittins, the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. Sometimes Mr Gittins supports this side of the House and sometimes he supports that side of the House. The member for North Sydney said: ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll criticise him for wearing sandshoes and I’ll say he’s not a credible economic commentator.’ I wonder why he said that. Perhaps it is because the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald has belled the cat on the opposition’s strategy. Perhaps it is because, in a couple of very telling articles, he has explained more eloquently than I could the hypocrisy, the lack of substance and the political opportunism of the members for Wentworth and North Sydney. This is what Mr Gittins said about the member for Wentworth’s approach:

He is exaggerating the size of the debt, misrepresenting the cause of the debt, exaggerating the difficulty we’ll have re-paying it, misrepresenting its effect on our prospects and pretending we’ll end up with little to show for it.

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Turnbull gives the impression the debt will be solely the product of Rudd’s decisions to spend money but, in truth, about half of it would have occurred in any event, being the consequence of the fall-off in tax collections and increase in dole payments caused by the recession.

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This is alarmist nonsense which seeks to exploit the public …

That is the view of that well-known journal of socialism the Sydney Morning Herald. So what we have is the belling of the cat on this scare campaign by the opposition. The scare campaign has been brought to new heights in question time today and yesterday and in the MPI today. They have moved on. They have decided a scare campaign on debt and deficit is not enough, that exaggerating the level of debt is not enough. They are saying we have a mountain of unsustainable debt. In fact, in 2013-14, when the average debt level around the world will be over 80 per cent of GDP, our debt level will be under 14 per cent of GDP. But that is not enough for the opposition. Now they want to move on to a scare campaign about tax. Now they are going to move on to what they do best. They are going to run a scare campaign, from opposition, about tax.

The member for North Sydney had the temerity, the hide, the gall, the front, to come into the chamber, stand at the dispatch box and lecture us on tax reform when for two days he has been orchestrating a scare campaign about tax reform, about the Henry review of taxation. The member for North Sydney has more front than Anthony Hordern’s, as we say in Sydney. We cannot have a proper and sensible debate about the future of the tax system in Australia because he is more interested in making cheap political points.

The opposition can play their silly little political games. The opposition can follow the advice of the member for Higgins and capitalise on the opportunity for cheap political opportunism caused by the global financial crisis. The opposition can do that and the Australian people will cast their judgment, as they have been doing. The opposition can build their straw men and they can play their games of political opportunism. We on the other hand will engage in leadership to get us through this crisis. We on the other hand will be looking to minimise the human impact of the greatest recession the world has seen in 75 years.

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