Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

That is right, no leadership. There was no leadership today because the shadow Treasurer was again sent out. But what did he do? He went out and gave a press conference saying, ‘Unemployment was not the principal objective of the opposition’s economic policy.’ That is all very clear. It is very clear that the only jobs they care about are theirs. They do not care about the jobs of the Australian people and they do not care about the businesses in Australia that depend upon having employed workers walking through the door.

We did see the other clanger, which the Prime Minister referred to before. It was a classic. On Sky, yesterday afternoon with David Spears he advanced his left-wing conspiracy theory about the behaviour of the G20. The reason the G20 is supporting coordinated global action is that they are all dominated by the centre-left. All of these countries sitting around the table are dominated by the centre-left. When the Prime Minister and I go to the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in a couple of weeks time, we will look forward to the European caucus at the G20 with Merkel, Sarkozy and Berlusconi all sitting around singing the Internationale and all getting carried away with the occasion. This shadow Treasurer will go to any lengths to distort any fact to misrepresent anything in the economy because the only job he cares about is his.

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