Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, before I start can I commend you on that wonderful tie that you are wearing and its nice maroon colour. And coming from country Queensland I want to point out a mortal sin that was committed by the previous speaker. He misquoted Johnny Cash—and that is reprehensible!

This matter of public importance is all about looking at government spending, especially in the face of events unfolding in Europe. We have heard from the member for North Sydney, the member for Goldstein and the member for Dawson. It is always easy to find fault with some obscure and esoteric component of a multimillion-dollar budget. But when you are talking about a trillion-dollar budget it really is just smoke and mirrors to trot out one small amount as an example of what this government is doing wrong.

It is funny that I am the third speaker today to quote from the Australian. I hate to do this, but I too am going to quote from that well-known socialist and ALP stooge David Uren. In the first paragraph of his article in today's Australian he says:

The Australian economy is tipped to beat Labor's current budget targets—and grow at one of the fastest rates in the OECD

A government member: The member for Goldstein did not quote that, did he?

No, he did not. In fact, I could not find in this article the bit that the member for Goldstein quoted. But I will go back with a fine toothcomb to find it. Uren said:

The Paris-based OECD last night endorsed Labor's "ambitious" plan to return the budget to surplus. And it said that despite the "fragile" state of the international economy, Australia could expect to continue reaping the benefits of the mining boom …

Then he gives other quotes that provide the correct economic context for Australia. It is a shame that the other speakers who quoted from the Australian were not prepared to quote from that part. I was actually a bit misled by the MPI raised by the member for North Sydney; I thought he was only going to talk about the events unfolding in Europe. But he did not refer to that at all in his presentation, and nor did the member for Goldstein.

Times are tough, we do know that. I have another quote, which I printed off from the Brisbane Times, just to balance the fact that I am quoting from the Australian. It states:

The stocks have shed another $15 billion, bringing losses to May to about $100 billion.

These are serious, important, tough economic times throughout the world. We have got the dollar going down below 98c. In fact, apart from the yen, all currencies are falling against the US dollar—that is simply a part of the global shift. So these are very tough times. But I was interested to see comments from the World Bank—which are in contrast to the member for North Sydney's motion—saying countries could further loosen monetary and fiscal policies. I quote:

Fiscal measures to support consumption, such as targeted tax cuts, social welfare spending and other social expenditures, should be viewed as the first priority.

That is the recommendation of the World Bank. Thankfully, we do have a little bit of room to manoeuvre—but not to do some of the fanciful wish list things that the member for Dawson listed in his speech. Flood-proofing and paralleling the Bruce Highway from Coolangatta to Cairns was not in their budget announcements. In fact, there were not many monetary measures mentioned in either the budget in reply speech by the Leader of the Opposition or in the member for North Sydney's response at the National Press Club. They really are drifting into magic pudding economics. Just five days ago, Mr Abbott reaffirmed their commitment that there will be lower taxes, less government spending and lower interest rates under the opposition. The stuff that they are able to commit to is just magical! He is able to commit to all of this, as well as scrapping the MRRT and the carbon tax, while still meeting the same emissions targets that this side of the House will meet!

The member for Dawson seems to be a bit of a sceptic about harmful pollution.

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