Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say to the member for Groom that one of the reasons it is important to have facts in the debate about the RSPT is so that misinformation does not create unnecessary uncertainty in the Australian economy. The Minister for Finance and Deregulation has just gone through one example after another of how the existing campaign by the MCA fundamentally misleads in so many aspects of this tax debate—the reason, therefore, why the government has brought forward an advertising campaign on this question to settle the facts in the minds of the Australian public.

Those opposite trade constantly in fear, they trade constantly in misrepresentation—not just in relation to an RSPT; they have done it in practically every other area of public policy as well. That is because the Leader of the Opposition has no positive plan of his own, only fear and loathing in relation to anything positive that we plan or propose for the future. One after another, whether it is a proposal in relation to the economy, whether it is a proposal in relation to how we invest in skills or infrastructure, whether it is a proposal for climate change or whether it is a proposal in relation to an RSPT, what the Leader of the Opposition does is say: ‘(1) I have no policy; (2) you should be very frightened of that policy.’ That is his standard stock in trade. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: he needs to get real with the Australian public and level with them about his own actual policies.

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