Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I understand that Senator Macdonald may be nervous about the extraordinary decision taken today by the opposition to oppose the government’s Nation Building and Jobs Plan. I think it is an extraordinary day in Australian politics. In the middle of a global financial crisis, when all economies are under enormous pressure, where the IMF has revised downward its projections for the economies on at least three occasions in recent months, where it is predicting that we will have negative growth if we do not act decisively now, the government have taken strong and decisive action to try and protect jobs, boost the economy and assist families. In taking that action, we followed the advice of all the international economic organisations and have mirrored action taken in all the Western economies around the world to try and protect their economies from the worst impacts of the global financial crisis. When the government take important, decisive action, what do the opposition do? They say: ‘We’re going to vote against it and we’re going to attempt to block your attempts to bolster the economy and protect Australian jobs.’ They want to stop us protecting Australian jobs. That is the extraordinary position we are in today.