Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

They didn't see a sledgehammer. The Treasurer is very quick to trot out Treasury advice when it suits him. He's very quick to trot out advice which is actually from his own office when it suits him, but where he's got Treasury advice which contradicts him, he sits on it. Not only does he not release it; the government resists ferociously the FOI requirement and sits on it. It took two years to get that out of FOI. I give credit to the ABC for getting an FOI from the Treasury, eventually, released in January. The Treasurer still hasn't dealt with it, still hasn't provided commentary on it, still hasn't answered the questions about why he misled the Australian people, contrary to the advice he had. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was saying was not true. Instead, he engaged in the scare campaign.

The Australian people can look at both sides of politics and say, 'Well, maybe we don't endorse every single policy element of the Australian Labor Party,' and they're entitled to make that judgement, 'but the Labor Party has a very comprehensive housing affordability plan and the Liberal and National parties do not.' They do not care about housing affordability. They believe in a scare campaign. Their believe that their priority is to scare people about the impact of Labor's policies. We believe our priority is to put first home buyers on a more level playing field. On that basis, we do not oppose this legislation in the House, but we call on the government to do so much more.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.

See this speech in context