Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. New NATSEM modelling shows that a single-income working family on $65,000, with two children at school, will be more than $6,000 a year worse off by 2017. So why did the Prime Minister promise before the budget, and I quote, 'We're not going to repair our budget this year at the expense of the family budget'?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am prepared to say the question, because I am intrigued by this debate about NATSEM modelling—intrigued by it. I thought to myself: 'Well, this is interesting; NATSEM have done this modelling that was commissioned and paid for by the Labor Party.' It was in all the papers. It was commissioned and paid for by the Labor Party. Naturally enough, with a genuine bout of curiosity, I sought out this NATSEM modelling. I rang a few journalists and said, 'Where is this NATSEM modelling? And I will send someone over to your office to pick up that weighty document.' I would have gone from one end of the country to the other in search of this Labor-Party-funded NATSEM modelling! Do you know what we found? Two pages—two whole pages that were going to bring down the 2015 budget!

Then I thought to myself, 'Hang on; there are some spelling errors in these two pages. There are grammatical errors in the two pages.' So what did we do? We went to the properties of the document—this NATSEM modelling document that all the media bought, that everyone says is going to bring down the 2015 budget. I said, 'Where did this NATSEM modelling document come from?' The properties indicate the author is Mr Ryan Liddell, Bill Shorten's office. 'Chris from Waramanga'—you remember 'Chris from Waramanga'! But hang on: it gets better. Because I have an inquisitive mind, I asked myself, 'Who is this Ryan Liddell?' It turns out that he was Wayne Swan's old press secretary! Watch out, Chris; Swanny's back!