Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

Apparently those opposite interjecting do not appear to understand that this crisis has had a very significant impact right around the world, including in Australia. On top of that, of course, we had 10 interest rate increases in a row under the former Liberal government as a consequence of a slowing of our economy and an increase in inflation. And we are not immune to these global difficulties—the slowing of growth—but there are some actions we can take to control circumstances where we have an ability to minimise these impacts. We have a strong, well-regulated financial sector, which we are modernising in a number of areas, and I will have more to say about that in coming weeks. We have prices for our commodity exports, minerals, at generational highs, and businesses are investing in the future with confidence. But, importantly, the Labor government is focused squarely on these global challenges. One area where we can make a very significant difference and which we do control is our budget surplus. We can build up a major budget surplus—in this case $22 billion—as a buffer in these times of global turmoil. It is necessary to have a substantial buffer in these times. We have listened to Treasury, we have listened to the International Monetary Fund and we have listened to the Reserve Bank of Australia.

I can say that unlike those opposite, who seem to be focused on leadership and forthcoming book reviews that we are going to see, we have addressed the issue of the surplus in a highly responsible way: some $22 billion we want to see delivered to provide a strong buffer in these times of global uncertainty. As I said earlier, yet another example is another bank in the United States, which may not exist by the end of today: Lehman Brothers. And what is the attitude of those opposite? Well, they are totally reckless and irresponsible—fiscally reckless—trying to wreck the budget surplus of $22 billion, which is so necessary in these uncertain times. (Time expired)