Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to questions without notice asked today relating to Medibank Private and Telstra.

As much as I would love to take note of Senator Santoro’s answers, I am moved to take note of all of Senator Minchin’s answers today. Today we saw the most extravagant example of arrogance and losing touch with the community that this government has demonstrated in a long time. Senator Minchin said that it is the fault of T2 shareholders that they have not made any money. They should have sold out at $9 and if they lost any money it was all their own fault. Don’t worry that the Prime Minister told them that T2 was a great buy. Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry that they tricked up the dividend and the yield back in 1999 to sucker in as many T2 shareholders as they could. Unfortunately, innocent small shareholders like Senator Minchin’s mum and Senator Barnaby Joyce’s mum and dad bought T2 on the strength of the recommendation from the Prime Minister. Not you, though, Senator Ferguson—you are a canny investor! You knew a dog when you saw it. You stayed away from it. But we saw mums and dads in Australia—like Senator Barnaby’s mum and dad and Senator Minchin’s mum—get sucked in by the Prime Minister. He told them it was a great buy. Just today we have seen Senator Minchin asked two or three times to table that document that he circulated to all of the coalition backbench—