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

Thank you, Mr Deputy President, I accept your admonishment. What we are seeing from those opposite today is that they do not want to accept that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister are at war. They do not want to accept that we have a petulant Treasurer and a finance minister who makes Jim Cairns look like he is an economic conservative. The government are incapable of stopping the Prime Minister from spending money like a drunken sailor in the lead-up to this election, and Australian families are going to suffer. The Reserve Bank report in the last few days should stand as a condemnation of the economic record of this government. It should stand as a condemnation of how the Treasurer is more interested in talking about how he can get his own home.

Did you read the article and then listen to the Treasurer yesterday? He agreed there was something to the British practice of providing a separate residence for the Treasurer. In England they have No. 10 Downing Street for the Prime Minister and No. 11 for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think there is a lot in that. I tend to agree with Senator Minchin that there is no way that John Howard, the Prime Minister of this country, is going to let Peter Costello move in next door. He will not even let him in the grounds of the Lodge, so he is certainly not going to build him a house next door. The Treasurer is out of touch when he says that the public would complain about the cost but it would be a good investment for the country. Fair dinkum! He has lost the plot. Australian working families are suffering because of the ninth increase in interest rates— (Time expired)