Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to all questions without notice asked today.

It is amazing that we have the most failed finance minister in our nation's history now sitting in this chamber. I want to go through Minister Wong's record. On 10 July 2010, it was suggested that the deficit for 2011-12 was going to be $10.4 billion. Then, in the MYEFO of November 2010, it went to $12.3 billion. Then in May 2011 it went to $22.6 billion. The December MYEFO had it at $37.1 billion. We are going to get the truth soon. When I was at uni, we had to give discount factors to the statements of certain of our colleagues. Any time that they said something, we had to give a 20 per cent discount factor to it. Some of them used to really stretch the truth. There was one bloke called Angus—I will not give his last name—who we used to call '97.3', because that is what you had to discount anything that he said by. But this minister is '400 per cent'. Everything she says has a 400 per cent acceleration factor. They are out the back door. Everything that they say is about 400 per cent wrong. It is a farce. I do not know why we use up oxygen to listen to them.

She came in here today and lauded the economic credentials of a government that has given us the biggest deficits. Every time that they say something, there is only one thing that you can be sure of: you can be sure that it is wrong; you can be sure that it will be worse. We are currently $233 billion in gross debt. We are nearly $17 billion away from bouncing our cheques. And that has all happened under the guidance and tutelage of Senator Wong. Senator Wong: Miss '400 per cent out the back door', who cannot get anything right.

Then there is the raft of complete and utter misleading statements that they make. Misleading statement No. 1: the mining tax will pay for the superannuation increases. No, that is incorrect; that is a mistruth. That is something that even Pinocchio would be proud of. That is an incredible statement, because it will not. Mr and Mrs Smith, Mr and Mrs Jones, and Mr and Mrs Small Business across our nation will pay for the superannuation increase. They will pay for it out of their wallets and if they cannot afford it they will reduce the amount that they are spending on salaries and they will reduce employment. And this has been done under the guidance and tutelage of this minister, who is now leaving the chamber because she does not really care.

Then there is misconception No. 2.