Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

When it was put to the member for Bendigo that Mr Brumby would not only boost Labor’s economic credentials but also boost the calibre of Labor’s candidate in Bendigo, the member for Bendigo said that, if he were to become Treasurer or finance minister in a Rudd government, Mr Brumby ‘deserves to be welcomed into a seat where he is not having to constantly worry about constituents’ problems’. That is how important Mr Gibbons, the member for Bendigo, thinks constituents’ problems are. The member for Bendigo thought that Mr Brumby ought to go into the seat of Scullin and take the place of Harry Jenkins, about which Harry Jenkins had a view that he had not gone through a preselection to pass the seat of Scullin across to Mr Brumby. The one thing that neither the member for Scullin nor the member for Bendigo said was that there was no need to get a new face up here to boost Labor’s economic credentials. Nobody would consider it unimportant to have a new spokesman on the economy up here. That is why the member for Lilley should be watching his back very, very carefully.

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