Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

It is very important to pass these budget measures in full, to provide a buffer against global turmoil, to ensure the Reserve Bank has room to move. What those opposite want to forget about is the 12 interest rate rises on the trot—10 of them under them. That is what has put Australian families under tremendous financial pressure. Their 10 interest rate rises in a row are slowing the Australian economy, and they will not admit to that. This is happening at a time of great global uncertainty, and the one thing this nation needs in these circumstances is a strong surplus—a strong surplus to give the Reserve Bank room to move so it can take pressure off interest rates to get those financial pressures off Australian families. And what are we getting from those opposite? They are going to vandalise the surplus at this stage to the tune of possibly $6 billion.

Now I have heard it all from the Leader of the Opposition. He had this to say on Sunday. He said he was not in the business of ‘writing blank cheques’ and he was not into ‘knee-jerk responses’. The farce over their response to all these budget measures has gone on for weeks but now we know where they stand. They stand with the alcohol industry against doing something against teenage binge drinking. They stand with the luxury car industry. They do not stand with this side of the House, which wants to put downward pressure on interest rates for working families. Now we find they are going to defend the indefensible: they are going to continue with a huge tax break for one particular oil company at the expense of the Australian people.

I do not really know anymore who takes the decisions over on their side of the House. You have got the Leader of the Opposition, one of the three stooges, who can’t do his job; you have got the member for Wentworth, who can’t get the job; and of course you have got the member for Higgins, who hasn’t got the courage to take the job.

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