Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

Imagine Mr Acting Deputy President, that you have just been appointed chief executive of one of Australia’s largest companies. The chief financial officer comes to you and says, ‘Chief Executive, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that you have just been appointed chief executive. Congratulations. The bad news is that your predecessor has left you a basket case. Your predecessor fibbed to the market, fibbed to the shareholders and failed to practise full and continuous disclosure. So, Mr Chief Executive, we have an operating loss of $12 billion and the company has a debt of $96 billion. There’s no plan to retire the debt and there are losses forecast as far as the eye can see.’