Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. I am not sure that the shadow Treasurer is in a position to be lecturing people about fiscal consolidation given the $11 billion black hole the Liberal Party was responsible for in its election costings. What was most remarkable about that $11 billion black hole is that the shadow Treasurer thought it was okay for him, as shadow Treasurer, to say, ‘I never really had a look at the costings.’ That was his excuse—as revealed in the newspaper. It should have been a story on page 1 that a journalist should have won a Walkley award for. It is the revelation of this year that the man who wanted to be Treasurer of this country did not even study his party’s costings during the election campaign and allowed an $11 billion black hole to be produced under his very nose. So we will not be lectured on fiscal consolidation from an $11 billion black hole man.

Secondly, amnesia has broken out in a truly worrying way in the opposition today. It reminds me of a section of the book One hundred years of solitude and the curse of collective amnesia. Those opposite are forgetting everything. The shadow Treasurer has apparently forgotten that under the Howard government of which he was a member we saw interest rate rise after interest rate rise. What was most worrying about that of course was that it was the complete reverse of what the Liberal Party had taken to the election and promised Australians. They stood next to slogans that said, ‘Keeping interest rates at record lows,’ and then they got into government and Australians felt the pressure of interest rate rise after interest rate rise. What is amazing about the shadow Treasurer’s approach to economic management is that at each critical decision-making point over the last three years he has misread the situation. He misread the global financial crisis. He misread the need for economic stimulus. Now he is misreading what the government is doing on fiscal consolidation.

As we go about the task of fiscal consolidation, which is not easy—and building on the fact that we have delivered $80 billion in savings over the budgets that the government have produced—we are thwarted every step of the way by the opposition, who consistently stop savings measures without any regard to the costings in the budget. That is the history of the shadow Treasurer’s performance.

See this speech in context