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

I do withdraw, Speaker. But this trash talking of the Australian economy from the Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer , the shadow minister over there and the rest of the backbench should stop. It should stop because it is deeply, deeply irresponsible and it does not reflect the underlying strength of the Australian economy.

But they go out and do it day in, day out. They talk down the economy. They go out there and exaggerate debt; they go out there and try to cause all sorts of challenges and to take up and use all of the worst rhetoric you could possibly pass on in the face of those sorts of outcomes which everyone on this side of the House is very, very proud of. For Australia to have achieved one million jobs in an environment where jobs have been lost in their millions across the United States and right across Europe, this is something that everyone on this side of the House is extremely proud of. But you get this deeply irresponsible approach from those opposite.

And why do they talk down our economy? They talk down our economy, because they use that as the Trojan Horse to justify the savage cuts to the bone that they are planning to put into our economy. But they will not tell the Australian people about what they intend to do. We had the Leader of the Opposition the other day talking about the need for paying for cuts but we have not heard any of the detail. We had the shadow Treasurer the other day refusing to say that they would put out costed policies. All of that is code for vicious cuts to the bone, the types of which have been put in place by Campbell Newman in Queensland, because they too, like Campbell Newman, have got a commission on cuts planned.

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