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

A heavy lifter. That brings us to Senator Joyce. Senator Joyce has had more to say about the sovereign debt of the United States than the whole economic team has had to say about the Australian economy. I wonder whether Senator Joyce might repeat those remarks next week. I guess we will see. In the bizarre economic universe in which those opposite live, nothing is too bizarre for them. This is what Senator Joyce said on the doors this morning referring to stimulus. He said, ‘They’re spending money on something that doesn’t provide an outcome; there is no outcome from stimulus.’ What is an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent? Breadwinners are continuing to take a pay check home so that they can sit at their kitchen table and pay the bills.

These things are not important to those opposite. There are all of the small businesses that were able to keep their doors open: small businesses in Longman and right around this country that are there today because this government had the courage, working with the community, to put in place policies which supported small business and supported employment. But they are not important to those opposite. If they could so comprehensively misjudge a global recession, they most certainly cannot be trusted to deal with a global recovery. What we have seen is how reckless they are. The final word on this came from the former Treasurer, Peter Costello. He says that they have trashed their economic credibility. Their silence in this House every day for the last six months demonstrates that.

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