Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We've heard it all now: the Labor Party's worried about multinationals closing their doors in Australia. Well, I never thought I'd see the day when they'd send someone all the way from Perth to tell this government that the problem that we face is that multinationals are closing their doors in Australia. That's it: we had it wrong all this time. Most of this time we thought the unreconstructed economics of 'Chairman' Swan that has guided the Labor Party through the mists of time and election failure would get them through, but apparently the problem all along was multinationals closing their doors.

This message really resonates with me—and has resonated with me for a long time. But this is what we get from the Labor Party: they pre-select and elect to this parliament—through fluke, I assume, not good management—such economic thoroughbreds as the member for Fraser, Professor Leigh, and what do they do with them? They leave them languishing on the back bench as far away from the dispatch box as they can. It is ironic, because I find myself standing about as far away from the dispatch box as you can get without joining the National Party, so I'm probably in a worse position than the member for Fraser. Nonetheless, we've got plenty of experts on economics. We've got plenty of people. Our front bench is full of people who understand how the economy works, and not once have they stood up in this chamber and complained about the fact that multinationals are finding it a bit difficult in the economy at the moment. That's what we have here.

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