Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is right. Senator Cash, you are dead right. The first package of $10 billion—which we supported because it was being paid for out of the surplus—we were told would create about 75,000 jobs. When we asked at the committee, ‘Show us one job that was created,’ nobody could. Out comes another package, four times as big. I have got the old calculator out. Four times 75—gee, that must be a pretty big figure of new jobs to be created. Look through the documentation—no. It says ‘support’—not create—up to 90,000 jobs. When we asked, ‘Does that include the figure 1?’ we were told, ‘Yes, it does.’ So we might be spending all this to support one job. Quite frankly, I do not think so, but a more realistic figure, rather than the very highest figure, should have been provided to us and it was not. This is so much about spin rather than substance. If you are now going to hoover out so much money from the immediate stimulus that was so vital, we on this side suspect you will no longer be supporting up to 90,000 jobs. That figure needs to be revised and this place needs to be told what the revised figure is.

Also, we in the Senate are entitled to know whether these amendments are going to delay the payments. If they do not delay the payments, as I suspect they will not, then Senator Sherry and, above all, Senator Evans, have to explain why they told the Senate that any delay or any amendments would delay the payments and that they would not be able to be made on 11 March. To coin a phrase: some of those comments made by the leader do not have the ring of truth about them in relation to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

When we are dealing with a stimulus package which is so important, we are entitled to have the government level with us, not provide us with the sort of spin that we have just heard. In relation to the spin, let me remind Senator Sherry and each one of the Labor senators opposite that you should not come out with the nonsense that you had no idea what was heading our way economically. During the last election campaign the then Treasurer, Mr Costello, warned the Australian people that an ‘economic tsunami’ was on its way. Mr Costello was pilloried by Mr Rudd and, might I say with great respect, many of our friends in the media. The allegation was made that we were trying to scare people into voting Liberal again.