Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, that is right. I am reminded that she is a repeat offender. They are against Treasury because they do not like economists. They are out there bagging the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology because they do not like scientists. They are threatening to close down the Department of Climate Change because they do not like scientists or economists—and those are the people who work at the Department of Climate Change. And they did everything within their power to ensure that the Parliamentary Budget Office never got off the ground, because they do not want scrutiny. They do not want scrutiny because they know that if they have scrutiny it will expose a $70 billion black hole in their proposed budget. I have to say that, given the size of that black hole, the public servants at Geoscience Australia should be a bit scared! If they start exposing that black hole, they will probably want to close down Geoscience Australia as well—because anyone who disagrees with them is in peril.

While I am at it, we have seen this ridiculous display over the last fortnight where one of the duelling sections of the Liberal Party were going out to one section of the manufacturing industry and saying, 'We've got your interests at heart,' while in this chamber and in the editorial pages of the Australian we saw the member for Mayo saying that everything that we on this side of the House are trying to do to assist manufacturing is 'back to the future'. We are managing the economy in the interests of working people, and we are very proud of the contribution that we have been able to make. (Time expired)

See this speech in context