Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will defer to you, Mr Deputy President, and I withdraw. I did not realise that those on the other side who have inherited the Treasury benches were so thin-skinned. But let me read from those papers that more often than not support the Labor Party people and their causes. The left-leaning daily of Melbourne, the Agesometimes compared with the UK Guardiansaid about the budget:

... this is not the nutcracking budget that Peter Costello brought down in his first years as treasurer.

That was written by Malcolm Maiden. And again from Tim Colebatch of the Age:

Is it economically responsible? You bet. Visionary? Not really. Will it ... solve any of Australia’s problems? No.

What about the Australian? The Australian is a very good daily—perhaps the best daily that Australia has, nationally or state-wise. Jennifer Hewett in the Australian said that the ‘Spending slayer’ is ‘more a prodder’. Again the Australian refers to ‘Swan lite’—the latter aspect of that phrase referring to Swan light beer, not a bad beer from Western Australia—with the headline ‘Swan lite on inflation measures’. It is a good play on words. Again in the Australian Lenore Taylor writes that ‘Wayne Swan ... morphs into a Dickensian Fagin’. Again from the Australian: ‘Jobless queues to grow in hard times’. That was from David Uren, who inherited the name of a very famous Labor minister from this parliament some years ago. The Australian editorial today is entitled ‘Swan-lite effort comes up short’ and it states:

It is a ... budget that draws heavily from the work of Mr Costello and lacks courage both on reform and in deep cuts to spending.

To quote the Sydney Morning Herald:

Swan is out to curb inflation but is he creating a monster he can’t control?

And again:

Swan ... talks tough ... yet it is a budget that actually squibs the fight.

And again, the editorial headline in the Sydney Morning Herald reads: ‘A budget that is all about appearances’. It goes on to say, ‘The first surprise is that there were so few surprises.’ The ultimate paragraph in the editorial of the Sydney Morning Herald says:

Overall, the budget bears all the signs of having been put together by image makers, not economic managers. It ticks neatly every box Labor set up for itself during the election, and goes not a step further. That is why it looks complacent. Perhaps it is true that Australia has never had it so good. In his first budget, though, Mr Swan may have just made it harder for things to stay that way.

The budget actually hurts those people who have made it, people like myself, who came from very modest backgrounds. And other people who came from modest backgrounds and have made it are now being sort of segregated out. I do not like to use the term ‘Robin Hood’, but they are being robbed to give to the poor. It is all incentive to be poor these days. This is what you have stepped out on. There is not much incentive to go for it, to have a go. This is the most wonderful country, and I am afraid that the incentive is not there.

The big mistake with the budget is that profligate spending is already part of the ethos of this government. Spending is 1.1 per cent greater than it was last year, which equals hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more. How can you curb inflation if you are a big spender? The Labor governments that I have lived under in the 50 years that I have been in this party were not good in handling the till. The lesson has been learnt: keep the Labor Party away from the federal till; they are not a good combination.