Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The challenge is to ensure that businesses can continue to function. Across my electorate, we could have fallen in the trap. We could have removed the diesel fuel rebate. We could have not invested in roads. But instead we have chosen to keep the diesel fuel rebate, which is a recognition of agricultural productivity, and we have also chosen to invest in roads.

I hark back to a great cartoon series that I used to watch when I was a child, and that was The Simpsons. One time, Homer Simpson ran for mayor. Homer Simpson ran for mayor by saying, 'Can't somebody else do it?' As I said at the start, we would love to turn up to this place and give away money, but what defines us as a government compared to the previous government is that we are prepared to make the difficult choices. When Homer Simpson ran for mayor with his slogan of 'Can't somebody else do it?' that very much reflects the budget-in-reply speech that we saw from Bill Shorten, talking about us being mean, talking about us being harsh. But what he essentially was saying was, 'Can't somebody else do it?' And that is us. We have been handed the hard task of running the country and deciding what the hard decisions are.

There have been a lot of lies out there and a lot of discussion out there in the public discourse. Winston Churchill once said, 'A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.'

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