Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm delighted to have the opportunity to take note of the answers given earlier today in question time. Can I address some of the issues raised by Senator Ciccone. He's an extremely decent representative from the state of Victoria, and I do admire his decency and integrity; however, that doesn't excuse him for the subject matter of his last contribution to the debate. The one thing I have learnt while serving in this chamber is that when the Labor Party refers to a document you need to go to the source document and see what the author of the document actually said. This is what IMF economic counsellor Gita Gopinath said in relation to the IMF's report:

… growth continues to be weakened by rising trade barriers and growing geopolitical tensions—

not by Australian government policy but by rising trade barriers and increasing geopolitical tensions. The counsellor goes on:

We estimate that the US-China trade tensions will cumulatively reduce the level of global GDP—

not just Australian GDP, but global GDP—

by 0.8 percent by 2020.

This is a global issue, not an Australian-specific issue, but you would not know it.