Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is amazing, isn’t it? The coalition has the temerity to come in here and put up this proposition, and Senator Ludwig chided them in a very restrained manner about the method by which it was brought to the chamber. The normal procedure—for all of the time that I have been in this place—for the generation of general business is for the opposition to have the wit to place a notice of motion on the Notice Paper that they can ask be made general business. What did we see this morning? Not one motion on the Notice Paper with which general business could be generated. So what have we seen? Around question time the proposition that is being debated now was circulated in the chamber. Frankly, if that is a measure of the effectiveness of the former government, is it any wonder that we find ourselves in this difficult economic situation, which Senator McGauran just blithely suggests does not exist? Senator McGauran is a bit like the shadow Treasurer: he does not think there is a problem. Yet the Reserve Bank has been saying we have capacity constraints. We have problems in the economy that have been generating inflation. We have the highest inflation rate in 16 years. We have productivity at zero—the lowest in 15 years.