Page 3023 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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Ms Gallagher: We’re doing a cliche tally.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Gallagher!
MR HANSON: Well, at least I come up with refreshingly new ones. I am not just stuck in the rut of “opposition for opposition’s sake”. I hope that I can provide fresh and new cliches and not just the same ones all the time.
Mr Barr: How about you practise this one: “Liberals are bad for Canberra”.
MR HANSON: Really? How about this one: “Liberals are good economic managers”. I think that is a good cliche.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson!
Mr Barr: There’s no evidence to support that, though.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, can you resume your seat for a minute. Will you stop the clock, please. Mr Hanson, could you address your remarks through the chair, please.
MR HANSON: Certainly, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was being distracted by those pesky members opposite.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you stop being distracted, if you possibly could.
MR HANSON: I will try and address my comments through you. They are very distracting.
So where are the six Labor budgets that they obviously prepared when they were in opposition? I hope that the Treasurer, or indeed Mr Stanhope, could table those by the close of business—the budget papers that they prepared when they were in opposition. That is basically the job that they are asking us to do. It is plainly ridiculous. I will quote from Mr Stanhope in terms of what oppositions do:
Governments must be scrutinised. They must be accountable. That is the role of oppositions, and it is a role that is particularly necessary as governments become lazy, arrogant, aloof and accident prone.
I must confess, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have read that one before. That is starting to become a little bit repetitious; nonetheless it is a goodie.
What we have seen from the government, and what we have seen from the interjections, is a line of attack as their best form of defence. It is their singular form of debate in this chamber, it would seem, and externally—and we have seen that recently in terms of the attack on the Auditor-General. What we see here, though, is really a lack of a plan that will get us out of budget deficits. They say that these are short-term, temporary deficits.
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