Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

In fact, member for Jagajaga, in failing to support that piece of legislation what you are supporting is a situation where a home-owning couple who are at pension accessibility age can have a home of unlimited value and have liquid assets of $1.15 million and still collect a part pension. What you say by your votes in the other place is that somehow that is a fair outcome. So what you complained about is reasonable, fair expenditure restraint such as that which also allows for 170,000 pensioners to receive more money each fortnight. They are not the pensioners with large, valuable family homes or massive amounts of liquid assets. These are the things that you oppose

You oppose rational expenditure restraint and simultaneously complain that the return to surplus is not swift enough. That just does not make any sense. You are living in the 'somewhere' world, where the money will come from 'somewhere' completely unknown to you, in your grand wisdom, and certainly unknown to the public of Australia, because you have never told them. But, somehow or other, on that side of the House there is a miracle pot of money that will return the nation swiftly to surplus, without any difficult decisions around expenditure restraint. That is the pivot position that you have exhibited in the media, in the House, in matters of public importance discussions like this. With matters of public importance like this, you are putting yourself in a position which is absolutely irrational.

We can go back to that central question that was asked of Mr Miliband: did you spend too much money when you were last in government?

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