Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. If the Minister for Finance and Administration reads page 1.5, table 2 of his own Budget Paper No. 1, he will see that productivity is zero. Doesn’t the same budget paper forecast declining productivity for Australia beyond 2007-08—after your industrial relations reforms? How can it be a budget for the future if the government’s own forecasts show productivity going backwards? Read page 1.5 of your own budget paper. Doesn’t this highlight that the government has squandered the once-in-a-generation $300 billion mining boom and instead has gone with a budget designed to be a clever, short-term election fix?