Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me clear it up for the senator. It is a very communistic approach. My remarks can be shared, equally, amongst you all. If one of you wants to take a bigger load than the others you just put your hand up and let me know. The fact of the matter is, it offends me when I come in here and hear members of the Australian Labor Party talk about the economy.

If only the arrow were black and went up instead of red and going down. You would be heroes. You took a balanced budget left by Prime Minister Howard that had $60 billion in reserve and zero debt. That is a statement you will never hear again in your lifetime, Senator Katter—through you, Madam Acting Deputy President—even if you live to be 115. You left a debt of $300 billion behind. You borrowed three hundred thousand million dollars and frittered it away. You want to talk about middle-income Australians losing out, but all they got out of your government—some of them, not all of them—was some pink batts up in the ceiling. They got nothing else whatsoever.

For you to come in here and tell us how to run an economy—you wouldn't have a clue! None of you have ever employed anyone, except when you got the payroll out of some consolidated revenue of someone else's money, like a trade union movement. That is the only time you have ever employed anyone. You have never lain awake—