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

Where were they? They were with high-income earners; that is where they were. When Mal Brough took a proposal to the cabinet room to do something about the base rate of the pension, did they agree? No, they most certainly did not agree.

Now the member for Wentworth, who has no past, sits over there and pretends that he had nothing to do with it. But, of course, he was sitting around the cabinet table at that stage. Plan C over here was around the cabinet table with plan B, who is still up the back. Plan B is still operational—45 votes to 41. Eighty-six votes for Work Choices and high interest rates—that is what happened in the Liberal party room today. Now they want to make it worse—they want to raid the surplus again. They think you can block a surplus and spend it at the same time. They think that there is a magic pudding. What they are trying to do in the Senate is knock off $6 billion from the surplus, and in his press conference today the new Leader of the Opposition locked himself into spending another $20 billion. This is the same behaviour that gave us high inflation and high interest rates. It is about time that we had some responsibility from those on the other side of the House. The member for Wentworth is smiling. He is up there orchestrating and supporting in the Senate vandalism of the budget on important measures like alcopops. Of course, the member for Wentworth has no great affiliation with those sorts of everyday goods—he thinks alcopops is the noise that is made when he uncorks the Moet!

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