Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was not even going to make any comment on the previous speaker, but I got the look! But it does provide members of parliament with the opportunity to have some wide-ranging debate and to express views on many issues that are related to the appropriation of funds. In particular, I think the area of finance and deregulation is an appropriate area to speak about. Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2008-2009 together with Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2008-2009 amounts to $3.1 billion, or about 4.1 per cent of total annual appropriations. It touches on all the key areas of the economy and matters that are so critical at a time of global financial crisis.

These are things that everyone in this parliament should be supporting, encouraging and communicating back to their electorates, as I know members of the government are. But, sadly, we see members of the opposition pretending in here that they do not support our measures. They certainly voted against our stimulus package but I am sure that at the same time that they voted against the package they secretly wanted it to get up because they want the money for their schools and for jobs in their electorates, and they want to make sure that the economy—at least I hope they do—does not collapse in the end. Perhaps it is just a bit of bravado, a bit of licence, a bit of political opportunism and political opposition for opposition’s sake that that opposition votes against such a critical and important measure to stave off the worst impacts of the global financial crisis. I hope that that is all it is. I hope that they do not actually believe that voting against the stimulus package was the right thing to do, because it was absolutely not the right thing to do.

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