Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In March 2008 the Leader of the Opposition gave, I think, his most memorable quote. Words fail me. I wish he had said this a few more times since then, because, as we have seen again today, the opposition leader is not short on opening his mouth. The pity is that we cannot harness what comes out of his mouth, because I am sure if we could we would send the first hot-air balloon to the moon. Let's look at today's MPI, where he has been preaching about listening, learning and changing. Let's talk about changing. Over here, we saw, on your side, that you had done nothing when it came to opening access to overseas markets—absolutely nothing. If anything, it went the other way. What did we do when we came in? We changed that: free trade agreements with South Korea, Japan and China in the space of 12 months. That is real change. That is a change compared with those opposite, who sat on their hands doing nothing, to provide a future for this nation, a future in a globalised world, a future when our exports need to access markets at the most competitive rate possible. And it is our goods and our services that need to access these markets in a globally competitive way, because, if they do not, we are shackling our economy. And just remember: in six years, you did nothing, yet we have brought about real change in this area.

And then there is listening, and sadly you have failed to listen on that side. That is why you want to bring back the carbon tax, before there is any type of international agreement in this area, once again hurting our competitiveness. And you do not care. You sit there and you are happy for us to become an average country. You do not have a vision for where we want to be as a nation. You have no vision. All you want to look after are your own particular interest groups. Yet what do we want to do? We want to make sure that every industry, every family, every worker has a future in this country.

And let's have a look at another area which Mr Blowhard, the Leader of the Opposition, has been rambling on about—Mr Blowhard—and it goes to living within our means. What are you proposing in order to deal with the fact that we are spending $100 million more each day? What are you proposing for us to deal with this? Absolutely nothing; some three-word slogan, 'go for growth'. But seriously, we are robbing future generations unless we deal with this—$100 million each day; we are spending more than we are earning. Yet you sit over there, oblivious to this fact, offering not one solution to this problem. It is about time you all collectively had a good, hard look at yourselves—have a look at the real leadership required to take this nation forward, because you are offering absolutely nothing. Don't come in here and lecture us on listening, learning and delivering, because in government you failed on this, and in opposition you are failing again. We have a vision, we have a plan for this nation's future. Let us get on and deliver it.

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