Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

this was back in April—and pushing for there to be a royal commission, who gets offered the job of party whip and at that moment, all of a sudden, not only are all the objections and all fight that was in him not enough for him to cross the floor; he is personally moving an amendment to take the call for the royal commission out of the motion.

You would think someone on that side would be allowed to believe in the policies they took to their constituents. The policy we keep hearing from those opposite—we have heard it a few times during this MPI—is a claim that you have to trust their side of politics to be getting debt down, getting the deficit down. If that is the case, why have they tripled the deficit? If that is the case, why have they added $100 billion to net debt? If your belief is that those on your side of politics are the ones who are going to get debt down then the starting point is that you do not keep making debt bigger—because when you are making debt bigger, and the deficit is tripling, that means debt is not getting less.

I know these numbers are complex and, given where the Treasurer has been at today, numbers are a really tough thing. He was asked a question today about page 5 of the explanatory memorandum of the omnibus bill. This is a bill that we were meant to support without even seeing. The reason we had to support it was that there were 21 measures in it totalling $6.5 billion. Then, in the last 48 hours, we have found out that there are not 21 measures but 24 measures and that, instead of their adding up to $6.5 billion, they now add up to $6.1 billion. But by their own numbers it does not add up even to that. I will do the addition of the numbers on page 5. When you learn maths, addition is one of the early things you are normally taught, but for the Treasurer 146 plus 92 plus 58 equals 405. You can write it down, Member for Barker, while you are at it, that is good—146 plus 92 plus 58 equals 405. You would think that if there was a portfolio on the front bench they would not give to someone who had a basic problem with addition it would be the job of Treasurer. You would think that across the different candidates who might be available, a starting point for that particular job might be someone who could add up. But what we have is a Treasurer who not only cannot do the addition required by his job he also cannot carry an economic argument in the cabinet. (Time expired)

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