Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We will have to have a conversation about that at another time. In fact, Treasurer Swan went beyond the $100,000 deposit guarantee and put in an unlimited deposit guarantee and, of course, we know the rest is history. The government had the opportunity and the offer of the coalition to work cooperatively to find some of those cuts or deferrals. For example, since we have had the floods down the Murray-Darling, we could defer a $600 million payment for water buybacks, which would appear to not be necessary in this or the next financial year, and defer the Australia-Indonesia education partnership of $450 million—not to stop it, not to completely remove it, but to defer it. At a time when Indonesia was in terrible straits as a result of the tsunami, the Howard government donated $1 billion when their own Muslim brothers in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai, came up with the princely sum of $1 million to assist. This is a time when we need support and need to be able to wind back some of that $448 million.

Of course, we come to the famous automotive transformation scheme overseen by Senator Carr—Carr by name and car by nature. That was $500 million which could be either deferred or indeed cut.