Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

That is it, zero—from $49,000 to zero. And we heard from the Treasurer today talking about the unclaimed money—$550 million. The member for Oxley was yelling out, 'Where are you going to account for that?' But it was 156,000 bank accounts. It is theft. It is absolute theft.

You talk about the Labor Party and the live cattle ban. On the night of 7 June 2011, the $700 million a year live cattle trade was stopped—just like that—because of a Four Corners show on the Monday of the previous week. What an absolute disgrace. You look at the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Maribyrnong. He is shallow; he is see-through; he is superficial. The Australian public are on to that. They are absolutely on to that. He is quick to criticise but offers absolutely no alternative. His party is divided. The member for Sydney wants his job, and he only offers weak leadership.

This government are listening. We are getting on with the job. We have scrapped the carbon tax. We have scrapped the mining tax. We are building the roads of the 21st century—Warren Truss is doing a great job of that.

What have we got opposite? We have a Labor Party who do not ever actually tell us how they are ever going to fund anything. They come out all the time and they carp and whine and carry on about everything, but they never offer any financial alternative as to how they are going to pay for anything. We know what they are going to do. They are going to up taxes. They are going to reintroduce the carbon tax. They are going to do all of those things which hurt families and which hurt business. There is nobody on that side who has ever really run a fair dinkum business. We know that. We are the party of business people.

See this speech in context