Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

It is like Groundhog Day! I must have followed the member for Lindsay, the Assistant Treasurer, on at least five or six occasions this year where we gave the government the opportunity to defend their economic performance, their economic policies and the structure and the strategy of their budget. We have given them an opportunity on so many occasions and, on every occasion I have had the opportunity to follow the Assistant Treasurer, I will say one thing for him: I think he has been very consistent. He is consistent in his inability to defend this government's economic performance. All we ever hear is a litany of personal attacks. We get a litany of make-ups about things that he thinks we will do, that we would do or that he would like us to do. What we saw again today was another symbol of the incompetence that this economy has had to endure for three years under this Prime Minister and for six years under the two prime ministers on the Labor side.

This debate is about the adverse impacts of the government's economic policies on confidence and the budget. The Assistant Treasurer did not spend one minute—not even 30 seconds—defending their performance. It was another pathetic performance. It was ill-informed, he made no points, he made personal attacks and it demonstrated once again the division, the bile, the poison and the disarray on the other side. That is why the economy is in its current form and why there is no confidence in the community. It is why the government bragged about saving rates being at 10 per cent today. The reason that saving rates are at 10 per cent is that people are scared to spend any money or to make any investment. They are paying off their mortgages as fast as they can; they are paying off the plastic. They are being spooked into saving. And today the Treasurer stands over there and claims a victory by claiming that he has helped Australians save more money. He has spooked them into it. He has them so frightened about their job prospects and the prospects of a reliable income that they are saving as they never have before. This is the disarray we see over there. They see the disarray.

This government are a government beholden to the Greens one day, the Independents the next day and the union movement the day after, and occasionally they try to get in something of their own volition. No wonder people are spooked. No wonder investors have put money back into the bottom drawer. They are not investing, because there is no confidence. They have seen this government heading in a whole series of different directions every day for years now. That is why this government's economic policies have produced the lack of confidence that we are seeing.

It is quite ironic that for nearly 2½ years now we have been hearing the same defence from this government. We have heard it from the Treasurer in particular and we heard it again today. The government say that they have the big calls right. How often do we hear this—that they have the big calls right? People might be waking up at 2.30 in the morning worrying about their job prospects and how they are going to pay the mortgage and all the rest of it, but the government have the big calls right! What are these so-called big calls? What are the things you would look back on over this term of office that you would say are big calls? The ones that they take great pride in are, firstly, the stimulus—the $87 billion of stimulus money—and, secondly, the fact that for years they have lectured us about the fact that they were going to deliver a surplus. These were the big calls: a stimulus and a surplus. Let me say to my colleagues and to those in the gallery: the stimulus is not something to be proud of. The stimulus did not save jobs in this country. The stimulus has been at the root of the massive debt that we now have. It is at the root of the lack of confidence in this economy. It is at the root of the structural deficits that we are confronting as an economy. It is at the root of the waste from the mining boom over the last few years. Here we are blessed like no other developed country with the opportunities we have from China. We never hear the other side talk about China. You would think that over the last few years with the highest terms of trade—

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