Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

We yet again have a range of false assertions in a question, including the last point in relation to the carbon price. It is quite extraordinary, isn't it, that we see people who used to come into this place arguing for a carbon price, who used to be sensible when it came to economic policy, now going down the populist route that Mr Abbott is taking. This is on a day when the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has described the surplus as an extravagant promise. Senator Abetz today, as part of the opposition walking away from the surplus, described the surplus as an extravagant promise. How embarrassing. That just shows the extent to which the sensible economic thinkers on that side—there is at least one and he is sitting on the back bench—have lost all ability to influence coalition policy.