Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The government is dealing with an unprecedented economic crisis consequent upon the global economic challenge, and naturally the government has sought advice. The government has sought advice from Treasury, from the IMF and from the financial regulators, and it is paying close attention to the opinions of market economists, to industry organisations and to governments of other major developed nations. Naturally in an economic crisis, Mr Speaker, you would expect that a government would pay attention to the advice, to the opinions, of people who know something about economics. Amazingly enough, this is not a universally held view—that in an economic crisis you might ask people like economists what they think about how to deal with it. In fact, the opposition believes that that is the last thing you should do—actually talk to economists. Twice yesterday the member for North Sydney said that the last people you would talk to about dealing with an economic crisis would be economists. He said on 2BL:

Economists will always go to extremes. Economists will say in downturns, ‘Spend, spend, spend.’

And then in the MPI he backed it up with:

They should not be listened to in those good times, just as surely as they should not always be the bible during bad times.

This is the guy who has just become the frontrunner for the member for Curtin’s job as shadow Treasurer. His view of economic advice is that, in order to be the Minister for Finance—and Deregulation—or indeed the Treasurer of the Commonwealth, the last thing you do is actually talk to economists, the last thing you do is seek advice from people who have got some expertise in that area. You wonder who in fact he would consult—maybe some faith-healers would be the idea, or numerologists or astrologers. I see him there in his office late at night with the lights off, with a ouija board out there, going: ‘Milton, Milton, are you there, Milton? Tell us what to do, Milton.’

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