Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It must have been my mistake not to have heard Senator Cameron clearly and carefully when he said that Mr Costello was a bad Treasurer. This was the Treasurer, as I recall, who actually repaid ninety-six thousand million dollars of Labor debt from the last Keating government. It was in fact a cost of some $6 billion per annum of interest that was able to go straight back into the Australian economy, into what is called the bottom line. And of course that is what drove the Australian economy in the years of the Howard-Costello government.

In fact, if I recall correctly, I think when Labor came into government there was something like $25 billion sitting in a cash account. There was no debt and there clearly was no deficit. If there are two reasons that this incompetent Labor government ever got through the global financial crisis, they were the legacy of the Howard-Costello govern­ment and of course the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Mr Stevens, who was able to undo all of the damage that Treasurer Swan was endeavouring to wreak upon this country.

As I look at this report, it says 'government advertising and accountability'. Needless to say, it is an oxymoron when you use the terms 'government' and 'account­ability' with this current government. Let me explain why. I think the first committee in which I participated when I came into this place was on the Gillard memorial halls, variously referred to as the Building the Education Revolution.