Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Go back and check Senator Bushby's statements on the record. So there was no global financial crisis according to them. When you look at their analysis—and I use the word loosely; I use the word 'loosely' about anything Senator Cormann says—you cannot find any talk of the global financial crisis. They say, 'We went from a surplus to deficit,' as if nothing had happened in the global economy, as if banks were not collapsing all around the world, as if governments were not propping up banks around the world, as if multimillions of workers were not losing their jobs around the world, as if industry had continued to invest as they had been investing prior to 2008, as if investment in the global economy had not dried up. In 2008 the Lehman Brothers and the global financial crisis were not in the lexicon of the coalition. They try and wipe it out, as if it had never happened.

That is why I was so surprised to see some recognition from the coalition that there was something happening globally and that there was a problem that governments around the world had to deal with. By the way, welcome to the real world; you have actually got there! There are problems out there, problems that governments all around the world have been trying to deal with and issues that you have been trying to pretend are not there.

Senator Fifield's motion says there are these 'storm clouds on the global horizon'. Well, big storm clouds have been around for a long time, and they are not on the horizon; they have been here since 2008. The Labor government have been dealing with them in a way that every other government around the world wishes they could have dealt with them—with speed, efficiency and effectiveness, and in a timely, targeted and temporary manner. That is what we did during the global financial crisis. We also underpinned 210,000 jobs in this economy. And what did the coalition say at the time? They said, 'We should just wait and see.' And who were they echoing? They were echoing former US President Herbert Hoover, who basically said 'do nothing' on the advice of the Hayekian economists of the time. 'Do nothing. The market will fix this if you just let the market take the time to resolve this. Government should stay out of it and everything will be okay.' Everybody knows that was a nonsense. Everybody knows there had to be Keynesian stimulus to bring economies back to some kind of normality. Everybody knows that that was what had to happen. Yet the coalition were arguing that we should just 'wait and see' what happened. If we had waited to see what happened, 210,000 jobs would have been lost; communities, workers and families around this country would have been devastated; government debt would have been far greater than it is now; and this economy would have been struggling to recover. Instead, we are the envy of the world. We are an economy with a AAA rating, something the Howard government could never get across all of the rating agencies. We are a government that put in place, as I said, in a timely, targeted and temporary manner, initiatives to keep this country running.

Those opposite then go on to say, 'How dare you lift the debt ceiling to $300 billion?' I am always amused when Senator Joyce gets up to talk about debt, because he was the shadow finance minister who probably lasted the shortest period of any shadow finance minister in history. I am glad Senator Sinodinos nods and agrees with me.