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

I thank the member for Greenway for that question. If you are going to generate jobs, if you are going to have a strong economy, you have to have a good fiscal policy. When policies are prepared and taken to the election, they should be independently analysed and independently costed. That is why we have established the Parliamentary Budget Office and that is why I have put to the House today some further refinements of that—to ensure that the farce that occurred at the end of the year before last, after the last election, where those opposite had an $11 billion hole in their budget bottom line, can be revealed by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

We have seen the need for this in the last 24 hours. We certainly have. A Hollywood scriptwriter could not come up with a better script than what we have seen from the shadow Treasurer over the past few days. First, they were against making the baby bonus more sustainable. First of all they were against it. Then they were for it. All the articles were put out there—they were going to vote for this measure, for savings, to make it more sustainable. And what happened then? The shadow Treasurer got rolled by the member for Menzies. But then it gets worse. The Leader of the Opposition goes out today to give us the latest instalment and he cannot tell us what they are going to do if they are elected. He cannot tell us any of that. What that demonstrates is that those on that side of the House do have a secret agenda. (Time expired)

Mr Hockey interjecting—

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