Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Well, they are wrong. The fact of the matter is—

Opposition members interjecting—

Be calm, okay? I know you are excited on the first day. This is your best day in opposition, trust me. In February of this year, when there was quite obviously a dispute between the member for Lilley and the Governor of the Reserve Bank, I raised concern about the level of funding in the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund. That is the fund available for the Reserve Bank to offset the risk of certain investments that it may have. Of course, the risk may increase according to movement in the Australian dollar and movement in interest rates. Traditionally the Reserve Bank Reserve Fund has never been below 10 per cent of the assets at risk. In periods of volatility, following the GFC, you would not want it below 10 per cent. In fact, the Reserve Bank had been very up-front about it. In 2009-10 the Labor Party took a special dividend out of the Reserve Bank of $5.2 billion. Every year prior to that it had been around $1 billion to $1½ billion, but in 2009-10 they took out a dividend of over $5 billion.

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