Ms BURKE (2:28 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Will the minister update the House on the benefits of recent interest rate cuts and how monetary policy and fiscal policy are working together to help Australia withstand the global financial crisis? Are these policies receiving broad support?

Mr TANNER (Minister for Finance and Deregulation) —I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. Australia is facing an enormous economic challenge emerging from the flow-on effects of the global financial crisis, and both the government and the Reserve Bank have taken strong and decisive action to strengthen growth and support households. Later on today I will be introducing the government’s legislation—

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The minister for finance will resume his seat. It would assist the proper conduct of the chamber if ministers were at least listened to and half the membership of the chamber did not speak over the ministers.

Mrs Moylan —Well, it would be nice if they said something worth listening to.

The SPEAKER —The member for Pearce is warned.

Mr TANNER —Later on today I will be introducing the government’s legislation to deliver an Economic Security Strategy of substantial one-off payments to pensioners, families, carers and, of course, first home buyers. If the member for Pearce does not find that worth listening to, then I suspect she is in a small minority. These initiatives will strengthen jobs and economic growth and they will help the government to push back against the downward pressures on our economy emerging from the international financial crisis.

Over its past three meetings the Reserve Bank has cut interest rates by 200 basis points—a full two percentage points reduction in interest rates since September. That means, on average, about $400 per month in relief on interest rates for people with mortgages around $300,000. After years of coping with ever-increasing interest rates under the former government—the government that told Australians they would keep interest rates at record lows—this is welcome relief for homebuyers in Australia.

The government guarantee of deposits and wholesale borrowing by banks has also assisted. That has been acknowledged both in the Reserve Bank’s statement on monetary policy and by the Australian CEOs of both the ANZ Bank and the NAB. They have acknowledged that has helped to put downward pressure on market interest rates as well. I note also that the Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia, Greg Gailey, wrote to the Prime Minister a few days ago on both of these matters—the Economic Security Strategy and the government’s approach to protecting our banking system—saying: ‘The BCA supported the government’s economic security initiative as timely, targeted and temporary. We support the amendments to the deposit and wholesale lending guarantees for the same reasons.’

Unfortunately, the support for the government’s strategies has not been completely universal. It has been very broad, but it has not been entirely universal. The opposition, on both occasions when these initiatives were announced, stated that it would offer them bipartisan support. But in practice the opposition has done nothing other than attack and undermine and snipe against the government’s initiatives. We saw a lot of statesmanlike posturing by the Leader of the Opposition at the time about how he would give all this bipartisan support and so forth but, unfortunately, we cannot trust what the Leader of the Opposition says—we have to watch what he does. He is a very clever politician but, unfortunately, the investment banker gene runs very strong: you spin the story, you do the deal, you take your cut and then you move on—that is the Leader of the Opposition. That is why, in a few short months in the job, he has been against cutting the fuel excise, in favour of cutting the fuel excise and then against cutting the fuel excise. He was against increasing pensions; now he is in favour of increasing pensions. He described the global financial crisis as the greatest economic crisis in our lifetimes and then he said that it was being overhyped. That is why we do not take the pious platitudes about bipartisanship all that seriously.

Last night the member for Curtin really let the mask slip, because she was on Good News Week—I am not quite sure why but she was on Good News Week: they clearly were a bit light on for talent that week—and she was asked to do a word association test. When the word ‘bipartisanship’ was put to her, her response on the spot was ‘Overrated.’ I can understand why the Deputy Leader of the Opposition would have some problem with copying something the government is doing and not giving credit for it. Given her recent experiences, I can understand why she would have some problem with that, but now today we have seen the consequences from the signal that was given on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition by the deputy leader last night. We have seen it in a coordinated, concerted attack on the Secretary of the Treasury—not a one-off, isolated instance but a coordinated, orchestrated attack on the Secretary of the Treasury by no less than three members of the Liberal Party, one of whom is a senior frontbencher—alleging manipulation of the Treasury forecasts in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, alleging that the Secretary of the Treasury is an activist and alleging that the Treasury has lost all of its credibility and that it should take a close look at itself. That last one, of course, was from the member for O’Connor.

There is one honourable, decent person on the opposition benches, and that is the member for Kooyong, who is widely respected in the community on both sides of parliament. You can see why: he understands what is going on here—he realises how appalling this is. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to immediately repudiate these attacks by his three members on the Secretary of the Treasury and to stick to his statements of 22 October when he indicated the Secretary of the Treasury was held in his highest regard.