Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. Here they go again, attacking the Treasury and attacking Treasury officials. We have seen it for weeks and weeks and weeks. They go out there and attack Treasury officials because that is going to be their smokescreen for their failure to put forward any detailed, costed policy for the future. Now when the Secretary of the Treasury went out last week, he ripped away the last remaining fig leaf from the shadow Treasurer and made it very clear that the forecasts that are in the budget are the forecasts of our professional advisers, the same people who advised those opposite when they were in government. And this question is simply at piece with their continued attack on the professionalism of the Treasury because they have never forgiven the Department of the Treasury and the department of finance for blowing the whistle on their $11 billion hole after the last election. All that this is about is sour grapes, but it is something much more than that—

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