Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will quote it again, because Senator O’Brien is querying it. He said:

We had this expectation that we should go on providing assistance and various other measures to millionaires ...

We can place on the record for the Senate today that Jimmy Seervai is not a millionaire. Nothing is further from the truth. I think the minister should come back into the chamber and apologise to all those small business owners and operators and those entrepreneurs who, as a result of this misinterpretation—that is the best way I can put it—from Senator Carr, have been maligned in that way.

Underneath all this, you can see that this is a government with no theme, no rationale, no narrative behind its programs and actions. Yes, it might be implementing some of its government measures but, in this case, it said before the election there was no promise to scrap this program, so in that sense it has broken an election promise as well. There is no heart in it from the government, no heart in what it is doing. There is no rationale to it and it does not, in my view, support the small business sector. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.