Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Having listened to that contribution, I am sure that those listening in will be assured that not all dinosaurs are extinct. Indeed, we had a good old socialist style rant from Senator Carr in relation to this matter.

Let us get back to the very beginning in relation to what happened in about October 2007. We as a coalition said to the Australian people that an economic tsunami was coming our way. We predicted what would happen.

What did Labor do? They scoffed. They laughed. They said, ‘These nasty neoliberals are trying to scare you into voting Liberal. There are nothing but blue skies ahead and Kevin Rudd will make it even better.’ That is what they said and we were pilloried. Interestingly, Senator Carr says that the government’s policy is now to go for growth. Guess whose slogan that was at the last election? It was John Howard’s, which was condemned by Labor and Mr Rudd on the basis—and I remember Kevin Rudd thundering during his campaign speech—that ‘this reckless spending must stop’! All we were doing was spending a bit of the surplus, but that was ‘reckless spending’. Here are Labor now, 13 or 15 months later, not only wiping out the totality of the surplus but putting Australia $200 billion into hock.