Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to correct the record as to when I believe the Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law, Senator Sherry, seriously misrepresented me when we were discussing the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Economic Security Strategy) Bill 2008 and the two related appropriation bills. Senator Sherry claimed that in my address prior to his I was saying that the government were throwing money at pensioners in a derogatory way. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, as Senator Sherry would recall, if he bothers to recall, it was the coalition that kept the pressure on the government to give some sort of payment—we did set a figure—to pensioners in this time of need and crisis. Senator Sherry conveniently overlooked that and sought to seriously misrepresent me when he claimed I said that the government were throwing money away at pensioners.

The point I made in my address was this: that the package of some $10 billion-plus was never put through Treasury modelling and no analysis was brought to the parliament so that the parliament and the public could understand the government’s motivation. We know it is a stimulus package, but what is the Treasury modelling with regard to its reach, its targets and its aims? Surely the government want to know that themselves, and we have a right to know. We have a right to question, when they are spending over half of the surplus, whether they have not just written a cheque without analysing its effect. That was my point when I said—and I will look at the Hansard to see if I did indeed use the words—’throwing the money’, because the government irresponsibly, recklessly, put half the surplus out into the system without really knowing.

Any previous government—the Hawke-Keating government, the Howard government—would have and did, whenever they spent that sort of money, put it through the Treasury modelling. But this government did not. That is the point I was making. I was utterly misrepresented by Senator Sherry, conveniently for him, just to make up his argument that this side of the house in fact had no care for the pensioners, when he knows the truth, he knows we put the political pressure on the government and they—sensibly, wisely—succumbed and increased pensioner payments.

The second misrepresentation by Senator Sherry was in his rather limp defence of Mr Swan, the Treasurer. I suspect Senator Sherry has his own opinion of the abilities of the Treasurer, but nevertheless he misrepresented my comments when I said that the Treasurer had callously made that comment to those in the non-bank sector who had been affected by the bank guarantee when their funds had been frozen. The Treasurer, I believe callously, said, ‘They should just all go down to Centrelink.’ They were the people I was referring to: those that had had their accounts frozen—stunningly; it has never been known in this country before. Their property, their right, their savings, were frozen in this country. I never thought I would see the day in this country when over 200,000 people, as I believe it was, would have that happen to them.

Those people would not only be shocked but be financially hurting. All the Treasurer could say was, ‘Go down to Centrelink,’ a rather insulting comment for a situation caused purely by a government decision. This was not an effect of the global crisis; this was an error of judgement by the government. That was my point. That was the comment of the Treasurer. It is infamous, it is notorious, and it will be remembered. Senator Sherry tried to dress it up in another way—that I was making that comment with regard to the pensioners in the legislation. His whole address, quite frankly, was mischievous and deliberately riddled with misrepresentations of my point. I am glad to have the opportunity to address the matter. I hope Senator Sherry at some point, if he is listening, comes in and apologises for his utter misrepresentation.