Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

To be fair to the Assistant Treasurer—the colt from Kooyong—he is also getting rid of five acts from the Treasury portfolio, all of which are spent and redundant. When I was in the Salisbury town centre the other day, a would-be small businessman came up to me and said, 'Nick, I would have started a small business if it wasn't for the International Monetary Agreements Act 1959. That's standing in my way.'

We know they have repealed the Prime Minister; it is a sore point, so I will not labour it that much. But if only we could repeal the effects and policies of this Prime Minister. I have seen them in my own electorate, because they turned their backs on a billion dollars of investment from the United States of America in the car industry. They just turned their backs on it. We know the consequence of it: 50,000 jobs. And many people are saying that this will be the cause of recession-like conditions in my state and in the state of Victoria.

We know that submarines featured so strongly in the failure of this Prime Minister. If only we could repeal his commitments to the Japanese prime minister, perhaps they are one of the things that will be repealed. According to The Advertiser, the member for Sturt is going to be the defence minister. And, of course, the member for Melbourne Ports reminded me that on Thursday so many of the current frontbench—and this is a farce, when we have people sitting here who are ministers—

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