Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's like what Warren Buffett said: it's only once the tide really goes out that you can actually see who has been swimming around naked. As much as the visual pains me and pains me to share it with everybody here in the chamber today, the people swimming around naked are those opposite. We are now staring down the edge of a recession in this country because those opposite have been prioritising virtue signalling over a surplus over good economic advice. In fact, all the economic advice—good economic advice—that has come from the experts and people like us who are just trying to do the right thing by our people suggests we need stimulus spending as quickly as possible. For example, we could raise the Newstart rate, which would not only be great social justice initiative; that money, every single dollar of it, would go straight back into local economies, because Lord knows those people need it. We could do business investment incentives, an election policy that we took to the election. The Treasurer pooh-poohed it at the time, but look who's coming around to it now! We could bring forward local infrastructure spending, something that those opposite are very keen to talk about but not very keen to actually do. Thirty projects for South-East Queensland have been announced, but zero have actually started. As Wayne Swan said, 'Trusting the PM to fix the economy is like asking the person who crashed your car to come and do the repairs.'

Speaking of the former member for Lilley, over the years those opposite have had a lot to say about his stimulus package and about him saving us from the global financial crisis. I'm happy to facilitate your apologies to him now that you are staring down at this yourselves and know that a stimulus package is the best thing to do. (Time expired)