Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

And now his big complaint is not that they got it wrong and not that they got pinged for it; it is that they did not give him mates' rates; he had to pay top dollar to get those bodgie forecasts during the last election campaign!

Then we have the person who I understand is the shadow minister to my portfolio. I must say this is just a theory, because I have seen no evidence that he is engaged in infrastructure and transport whatsoever. But this is what he had to say:

We identified $50 billion worth of savings prior to the last election. A lot of those are not available at this time.

So he has said that they are trying to book the savings and then that they are not available. They are completely all over the shop when it comes to these issues. That is why this week they have been like a broken record. They are like a band who have run out of hits. What we saw yesterday was that they sat around in the morning and they said, 'Are there any new ideas?' 'No,' they said—their favourite word—'No, no, no.' So they went back to a greatest hits collection. We had carbon pricing, we had boats and we had dirt. Today they went to a different strategy. Today, after their caucus meeting—where they had divisions about wheat, divisions about water, divisions about all of their strategies—they decided, 'We'll just go for the mud bucket straight up.' So they went for the mud bucket in question 1. That did not work. They went for smear in question 2. That did not work, so they just got right down there in the gutter, right up-front. They just have not got the message that the Australian people see this bloke as destructively negative, with nothing to say about the future of this country. There was not a single question this week about the Asian century white paper—not a question. It is absolutely extraordinary. And now they have the hide to say— (Time expired)

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