George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Watt, that is a very disappointing question, I am bound to say. Senator Watt, I do not know what it is about you Labor Party people; you cannot get above the idea of playing politics rather than engaging in policy. As I said to your colleague Senator Gallagher, give us a debate about public policy, because nobody is pretending there are not hard issues for this country.

You raised four issues, and every one of them was a falsehood—every single one of them. There is no proposal to raise the GST. The only proposal to raise the GST came from the Premier of South Australia, Mr Weatherill, and the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Baird. So that was wrong. You said that there was a proposal for state taxes. That was wrong. You said that there was a proposal to eliminate aid to public schools. That was wrong. You said that the government was not prosecuting its superannuation changes, and that was wrong too. Every single particular that you gave, Senator Watt, in criticism of the Turnbull government was wrong. Maybe that is the answer to why the Labor Party does not want to engage in an honest debate about public policy—because you cannot even address the issues without engaging in either mistaken or deliberate falsehoods. Senator Watt, as a result of the Turnbull government's economic leadership, Australia now has a growth rate of 3.3 per cent—one of the highest rates of growth in the world. It is a rate of growth higher than that of any G7 nation.

Senator Wong interjecting—