Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that compliment. From whence it came and why I will never know. No government has come to power with such an inheritance: a strong economy and government finances in order. The government today knows what it received: absolutely no debt. It is one of the few governments in the world—you could count them on one hand—with no debt. With a surplus budget, a near-full employment rate and a goal of full employment left to it by the previous government, no government has come to power with a greater inheritance of finances that are in order; yet within six months it has all been squandered. It has all been squandered on the basis of the leadership and how they have run the government and made their budgetary decisions—how they have come to the absurdities of the commissions and the committees of inquiry that they have set up. This is a government internally in chaos.

It is a disappointment that, for all the rhetoric and promises that they entered government with—they lifted the hopes of the Australian people—they have crashed. It has not come through in the polls as yet, as we know, but they are hurtling to earth. They will crash to earth. They cannot sustain this sort of leadership, this sort of disappointment. We already see it in the 15-year lows in the consumer confidence index. The business confidence index has slumped, and future investment possibilities have slumped. This is a government that, within six months, is in chaos. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.