Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The confidence with which the government approaches the unclaimed money bill is not matched with the confidence that we see when the Treasurer is overseas in discussions with his Chinese counterparts. We know from his comments on ABC AMthis morning that he was going into those conversations trash talking the Australian union movement and the Australian opposition. The government likes to talk about 'team Australia', but it is hardly team Australia to take your partisan games into an international conversation with our largest trading partner. That is dangerous politics and bad economics, and it signifies so much why the Australian people have lost confidence in this Treasurer and in this government. We need a government with a clear economic plan, with a vision for jobs and growth and with an understanding that the science, technology, engineering and maths jobs of the future need to be underpinned by investment in education—not by cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Labor will be supporting this bill, but we continue, as do the Australian people, to have deep reservations about the economic agenda of this government.

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