Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw that comment. But, as the opposition have flip-flopped, for instance, over their view on the Greens bill with respect to banking regulations and when the serious issues arose around those policies, we have stayed the course on serious policy development in terms of how we will deal with banking regulation.

Unfortunately for Senator Joyce, he lost my sympathy today when he was suggesting that the government should respond to answers in question time by the approach of tossing a coin: ‘Pick an answer; you’ve at least got a 50 per cent chance of being right.’ This is someone who was shadow finance minister: ‘Pick—there’s a 50 per cent chance.’ Certainly he had difficulties in mixing up his billions and his millions, but to suggest in serious governance that we should toss a coin is really quite concerning.

But let me go back to some of the more serious matters about our fiscal strategy. At the same time as we have been quite methodical in our adherence to our fiscal rules, the fiscal stimulus is being withdrawn, contrary to the myths being projected from the other side. Far from fuelling growth, the withdrawal of the stimulus will subtract around one percentage point from growth this year, and the remaining investments are in the long-term infrastructure which is absolutely critical to building our productive economic capacity and maintaining our strong economy and economic growth. This, again, is the issue that the opposition forgets. The opposition forgets the economic circumstances we were left in after many years of underinvestment in nation building and infrastructure. But much of that strength has now been returned to the economy, and that is why we were able to ride through the global financial crisis, contrary to suggestions such as those from Senator Macdonald that it is all related to his friend Mr Costello.

We have a comprehensive strategy to build future capacity, which is the best way to contain inflationary pressures over the long term: investing in major rail and road upgrades and the NBN—yes, the NBN is about future capacity, skills and education—and, of course, cutting the company tax rate. Unlike the opposition’s policy about PPL, we are cutting the company tax rate to make businesses more competitive.

These are all the issues that, of course, Senator Payne in her comments did not go to: how critical they are and, certainly, how seriously the Gillard government takes the issues of our fiscal responsibilities and fiscal plans. As I said at the outset, we do have a strategy that will get the budget back to surplus in three years, well before any major advanced economy.

Nothing in MYEFO has changed that. Nothing that Senator Payne referred to has changed that. Nor, indeed, did she acknowledge that our plan has been endorsed once again by the IMF, the OECD, the RBA and the international credit rating agencies. Where on earth the scaremongering from the opposition—without any support or credible sustenance from serious commentators in terms of economic recovery—came from is beyond me. Whether they think that they can continue to just run these lines and say them often enough so that the punters out there will just accept them, it just will not work. (Time expired)