Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler is absolutely right: if the people of New South Wales vote out Mike Baird on Saturday, Tony Abbott will be gone by Monday. I suspect there are 39 members of the backbench on the other side who are thinking that they could convince their colleagues in New South Wales to do the deal and save the country from perhaps the most chaotic leader it has ever had in Tony Abbott. Not only does this government dump every promise it has made; it has actually dumped almost every conservative value. There is nothing it will not dump to save its own skin. There is nothing it will not dump to satisfy an unhappy backbencher or an unhappy constituent.

We have Tony Abbott, the man of 'surplus, surplus, surplus' before the election, now openly saying that a debt to GDP ratio of 50 to 60 per cent is 'a pretty good result'. It seems the only value they will not dump is the selling of assets. We have a Treasurer trying to encourage his state colleagues—first Campbell Newman and now Mike Baird—to sell assets that belong to the people of their respective states and that actually generate a return, a dividend, to the people of those states. This is extraordinary. We have Mike Baird dancing to Tony Abbott's tune and planning to sell the extraordinary assets which belong the people of New South Wales. It seems there is no value they will not dump—except this one: sell the assets, sell off the farm, sell off what we own.

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