Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He has had to roll over on so many of the things that he argued for in the election campaign, like a $500,000 lifetime cap on super that they could never admit was retrospective. Let's make it easier for next time, shall we? Anything that has the year 2007 in it is retrospective. To think about dropping the big business tax cuts by splitting a policy in two must be a hard one for them to swallow. It was their centrepiece. It was their plan to produce jobs and growth at home, although we knew that 40 per cent of it was going to end up overseas.

What is more, both of these things were cited by the Prime Minister as his greatest achievements since becoming Prime Minister. In my electorate of Macquarie, we have a bit of a thing about greatest achievements. It seems members on the other side have a bit of trouble coming to grips with what a greatest achievement is. For a start, you have to be able to think of something when you are asked what your greatest achievement is. That has proven to be a challenge for some. I have another piece of advice for the Prime Minister. I know it is rather impertinent of me, having only been in this chamber for a nanosecond, but I hope he will see it as coming from a fresh set of eyes. If you do think of something that is your greatest achievement, make sure you have actually done it.

When you talk about economic leadership, you only need to look at our side—and not only at the member for Lilley, who is sitting next to me—on negative gearing. We led a debate on a policy that would change the future for a generation of young people—the ones whose parents cannot afford to buy them a home. It would give them a fairer playing field so that their future would be different and they could afford to have their own home much more easily. Now, that is economic leadership.

There has been a bit of a gap for me in being in this chamber—from being up there in the gallery to down here. But when I was here, about 30 years ago, I watched another real economic leader on our side: Paul Keating. Whether it was the J-curve, tariffs, fringe benefits tax, CPI, parity or current account deficits, he did not talk down to people, like the other side does. He talked with people about these issues. The failure of economic leadership from the government is that a real leader opens people's minds and then leads them. Clearly, this Prime Minister has no ability to do that. (Time expired)

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