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

The dam heights, according to the coalition, should be high, they should be low and they should be moving. It is a case no doubt of damned if you do, dammed if you do not. The big question here—and it is a question of the shadow finance minister—is: where will the money come from? The distressing news is that the Leader of the Opposition has appointed none other than Senator Barnaby Joyce to arrange the financing. This is the guy he dumped as the shadow finance minister because Senator Barnaby Joyce kept getting mixed up between his millions, trillions and gazillions. And now he is back designing the superannuation arrangements, raiding superannuation funds and instructing people who manage the superannuation of the working men and women of Australia to invest in uneconomic projects.

The people of Australia who invest their superannuation funds deserve and expect a decent return. They do not get that, of course; the Leader of the Opposition—himself described by the then Treasurer, Peter Costello, as economically illiterate—has now got Senator Joyce, who is also economically illiterate. This team is economically illiterate in seven languages, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Opposition members interjecting—

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