Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Members might recall that the opposition leader convened a shadow cabinet meeting to which he invited the media, and he described the shadow cabinet—that is, the coalition shadow cabinet—as ‘a government in waiting’. If you are a government in waiting, then there is an obligation on you as an alternative government to develop alternative policies. But what have we heard from the Leader of the Opposition in respect of alternative policies? Nothing but three-word slogans. Remember he took to the elections, and has been saying ever since: ‘Stop the boats. Stop the waste. Stop the taxes.’ Never mind that his policy of stopping the boats involves Admiral Abbott sitting at Kirribilli overlooking Sydney Harbour, taking phone calls from north-western Australia and deciding which boats are going to be towed back out to sea. That is a policy: stop the boats! That is their policy.

He says, ‘We’re going to stop the waste.’ That is very interesting, isn’t it! They are going to stop the waste, but they go to the election with an $11 billion gaping black hole. How is that stopping the waste? Then the costings were released. I remember the fantastic media performance from the shadow finance minister and the shadow Treasurer, who could barely be in the same room at the same time so much do they despise each other. The shadow Treasurer revealed later that he had seen the costings—how long before? Two weeks? Two days? Five minutes! Five minutes before the press conference was actually held—out of his own mouth. He then said, hand on heart, ‘These costings all add up.’ It required the intervention of the Independents to insist that those costings be subjected to Treasury and Finance costings, truly independent costings, and it was Treasury and Finance who identified an $11 billion black hole. So much for the slogans.

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