Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure he will not deny it. He said that the Howard years were a golden era in terms of economic management. The opposition have engaged in a collective delusion that everything was going along just fine and dandy, that Australian working families had never been better off and that if they had been re-elected on 24 November consumer confidence would have continued to increase. There are a few inconvenient facts for those opposite. The consumer index in relation to confidence started to fall in May 2007, from 123.9 points to 110. That did not happen on 25 November but in May 2007. So the fall had begun under the previous government.

Was it all their fault? No. Oil was going up, petrol was going up and there was starting to be some international economic turbulence—not anything like what we have considered over the last few months.

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