Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

Before I make a contribution to this debate, I would just like to acknowledge some of my Western Australian National Party colleagues up in the gallery here with us today. It is good to see them over here with us on the other side. Welcome to the Senate.

Mr Acting Deputy President, I have to say that Senator Moore is one of those on the other side for whom I have the greatest respect—no doubt about that at all. But I have to say that when Senator Moore was speaking I just tuned out. I think that is like what the Australian people are now doing en masse—they are just tuning out when the government are talking about money, when they are talking about the budget or when they are talking about the economy, because they know that this government simply cannot manage money. And add to that the fact that they simply do not believe anything that the government says anymore. The government cannot manage money, and everybody knows that. We see the same cycle from decades past: Labor gets in, runs up a huge debt, they eventually lose an election, the coalition comes back in and we are left with a giant debt that we have to fix, and we have to put the country's economy back to rights again.

That is not just a fanciful story. When you go back to history it has happened time and time again. It is no wonder, Senator Williams, that the Australian people simply do not believe a word the government says, not a word—