Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister explain to Australians with a home loan how they can have faith in a Treasurer who when asked important questions about the economy dismisses them as a ‘pop quiz’ and then confesses that ‘sometimes I will have the details on hand and sometimes I will not’?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. When I think of working families in Australia dealing with mortgage rate pressure, they have one thing and one thing only in mind: 11 consecutive interest rate rises in a row as a response to the economic policy settings put in place by those opposite. Working families across Australia are struggling to make ends meet. They have been dealing with the mortgage pressures which they have been confronted with—11 increases in a row—on the back of mounting inflation pressures in the economy and an inflation genie let out of the bottle by those opposite.

I would have thought that those opposite, if they were serious about dealing with the long-term economic challenges of Australia, would accept that we have an inflation problem. I do not hear any recognition from those opposite that we have one at present—none whatsoever. Six months ago the member for Higgins said, ‘It’s just fine and dandy.’ We have had the member for Wentworth saying, ‘It’s all just a fairytale.’ Is there an inflation problem? If you do not recognise that there is an inflation problem, how can we embrace a common set of policy undertakings in this place to deal with an inflation problem? For example, what do we then do when it comes to eliminating unnecessary waste and expenditure through government departments and through the razor gang exercise that we have embarked upon? Because, when it came to the waste of government funds, the growth in government outlays in the last financial year was, I am advised—

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question to the Prime Minister is, ‘Can Australians have faith in his Treasurer?’

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And what is relevant to working families is whether we have a plan to deal with inflation, a plan to deal with interest rates, a plan to deal with unnecessary government outlays—a plan of action on each of the above. For 11½ years those opposite sat there, fiddled, allowed the macro-economic policy settings of this country to become unravelled by a loose approach to fiscal policy and a nonagenda on productivity policy. When it comes to cute questions asked by those opposite, I am advised by those around the tracks that when the NAIRU question was raised by the chief of staff of the Leader of the Opposition about what to ask in parliament this week, his first response was that they were talking about the Prime Minister of India in the postwar period. You can run as many pop quizzes as you like. We will get some right; we will get some wrong—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question was about the Prime Minister’s confidence in his Treasurer. Some minutes have passed and he has not even mentioned the Treasurer.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems the House wants these points of order fully explained to them. I will rule that the Prime Minister is in order—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course you will.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Mackellar will absent herself from the House for one hour.

The member for Mackellar then left the chamber.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question posed by the honourable gentleman opposite has no logical premise to it in the first place. If there were any serious engagement of the economic debate in this nation about what we will be doing in the future on inflation, on interest rates and on cutbacks to unnecessary budget outlays, we would start to have an engagement of proper economic policy debate. I will tell you what the Treasurer of the Commonwealth has been doing in the 2½ months since we have been in office—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

sitting there in an Expenditure Review Committee of the cabinet cutting and burning the outrageous engagement—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It strikes me, the question having been asked, that now the question has well and truly been directly answered should not be an invitation for those on my left to raise their voices. They will sit there quietly.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why this House has absolute confidence in the Treasurer is because the Treasurer is engaged in day-to-day, week-to-week meetings in the Expenditure Review Committee of this government and cabinet cutting and burning the outrageous examples of waste and misallocation of public funds in which those opposite have engaged. The Deputy Prime Minister today has given you one example after another, one item of waste after another—$122 million worth of this outrageous self-indulgence in public outlays, all contributing to public demand and all therefore adding to the inflation burden in the economy. That is what the Treasurer has been doing. The Treasurer has also been engaged with me in how we advance a productivity agenda for this nation for the future, how we make sure that we engender long-term productivity growth through a human capital revolution, investing in skills and investing in infrastructure. These are the areas where this Treasurer has been engaged. The Treasurer has the absolute confidence of the House, the government and the parliament, because we are dealing with a record of mismanagement by those opposite, and they stand condemned.