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

It is a pleasure to speak tonight on the Labor 2013-14 Budget Savings (Measures No. 1) Bill 2014. I want to start by referring to an interview. Other members have referred to this interview during the day in debating this bill. I think it is important to start with it because it really sets the tone and the mood for the debate we are having here tonight. It was an interview that the Leader of the Opposition had with Chris Uhlmann on the ABC AM program on 17 July 2014. During the interview, they were discussing why Labor was opposing its own savings measures. I think that Chris Uhlmann was trying to get the Leader of the Opposition to explain how he had ended up in such a contradictory position. How could it be that when he was in government he put forward certain savings measures but, then, when he was in opposition, he decided to do a complete 360 turn around and oppose the very savings measures that he was putting in place. One would have thought that the Leader of the Opposition might have taken some time to consider his response to such a predicament, because on face value it seems that this was incredibly contradictory. As a matter of fact, you would be saying to yourself, 'I might look like I can't lie straight in bed if I haven't got the right response to this.' You would think he would consider this, think about it and give an answer. Yet, it is very enlightening as to how the interview went. It went along these lines. Chris Uhlmann, when talking about what the government was doing asked, 'We will get to that, but why won't you even back your own cuts?' Bill Shorten replied, 'Chris, we are the Labor Party.'

It says a lot that the savings measures that Labor is now opposing are part of a $58.6 billion black hole that the Labor Party has left for the government to try and fix—a $58.6 billion black hole that the ALP has bequeathed to the government and to the nation to try to fix. I would like to remind people about Labor's economic mismanagement and how we got to where we are. I know it is extraordinary that we could get to a situation where they are opposing the very savings measures they had tried to implement in government. It is worth remembering why we got into this predicament in the first place. The waste and mismanagement included the $29 billion blow-out of the NBN. Once again, it is hard to fathom. This is a project that was drawn up on the back of a beer coaster.

See this speech in context