Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

All right. The Treasurer then went on to attack me for signing an open letter to invite the President of Venezuela to Australia. Well, I have to set the Treasurer straight. I never signed such a letter. I can only presume he got the information from the internet, which is the only place where I am listed as having signed such a letter—a mistake for which I have received an apology from the network which runs the site.

This gives us an insight into the attention to detail paid by the Treasurer and, indeed, by this government. With staff at his fingertips, what did the Treasurer do? He googled his question time research. But did he check his facts? No. Did he get a signed copy of the letter? No. Did he contact anyone involved with the network sponsoring the letter? No. He simply relied on the internet.

Does it concern anyone else that the Treasurer solely relies on the internet for his research? It may come as a shock and a surprise to the Treasurer, but the internet does not always carry the truth. It may astound the Treasurer that the internet is often used to mislead and convey information which is patently untrue. In this particular instance, the addition of my name to this petition was as result of a genuine mix-up by the organisation concerned, rather than a direct attempt to deceive the public. Nevertheless, the information was wrong and there is no excuse for the lack of research on the part of the Treasurer. Even the slightest attempt of investigation—a simple phone call or an email by the Treasurer or his myriad of staff—would have revealed this to be the case.

This is a man with his hands on the economic levers of our country. Does he google his Treasury projections? It is not surprising then that we see a pattern emerging—one where the government does little, if any, research or background work. We need to look no further than the Prime Minister’s $10 billion water package cobbled together at the last minute, and it did not even go before cabinet.

Was this incompetence or short-term political opportunism? I think it was probably a mixture of both. The opportunism shows in the blatantly obvious: the Treasurer has now resorted to googling South American leaders five minutes before question time. No wonder—given how the electorate is starting to feel, recognising an arrogant and lethargic government for what they are.

As I said before, the Treasurer attacked the President of Venezuela for his commentary on George W Bush. Hugo Chavez has certainly used language that I would not use and language that I do not endorse, and I acknowledge that his attacks are often strident and over the top. But what I found galling is yet another example of this government’s arrogance. The Treasurer attacks Hugo Chavez for his strident and inflammatory commentary and in the same breath calls him a dictator. With the President of Venezuela being democratically elected, it strikes me as hypocritical, insincere, two-faced and duplicitous that the Treasurer would resort to exactly the type of behaviour that he attacks others for doing.