Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is six months since the Prime Minister stood 150 metres from this place in a press conference and promised Australia new politics, and condemned his predecessor because he said he could not tell an economic story for this country. Well, Australians are still waiting for a genuine economic story. If the answer to the nation's problems that this Prime Minister thinks he has the solution to is marching Australians off Australian flagged ships and replacing them with foreign workers, and replacing Australian flagged ships with a flag of a foreign nation, then this Prime Minister has got a big surprise coming his way when he pulls the bell and we have a double dissolution election. Australians will answer him with a big no.

We have a Treasurer who invites every senior economics writer to the National Press Club, promising a big thing only to have nothing to announce. Is it any wonder there is nothing to announce, because they have no policies, no economic story. We have an industry minister that cannot find his way to the biggest steelworks in this country. We have the poor old National Party on the other side who, in a few months time, are going to have to stick their hand up for more cuts to education, more cuts to public hospitals, more cuts to all of the essential services, and the Australian people will hold them accountable.