Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasurer. Thank you for the short form, Mr Deputy Speaker—very helpful. I think it is hugely relevant that the Treasurer himself does not understand the ramifications of his own actions. From day one he has been uncertain of the direction he really wants to go. He comes into this place and he reads the lines that are fed up to him by the advisers to the dispatch box, and he reads the lines that are fed to him out of Treasury—not always exactly as fed out of Treasury, but along the lines—and he thinks, ‘Mission accomplished.’ But no, you have to have an instinctive feel for how things work. Had he had an extensive career in the private sector, the Treasurer himself would understand—

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