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Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Page: 5543

Economy

Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney) (14:16): My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the fact that the economy went backwards in the first three months of this year. Treasurer, why is the government hitting Australian households and businesses with a carbon tax, a mining tax and a flood levy when we now know that a mining boom cough can lead to economic pneumonia?

Mr SWAN (Lilley—Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer) (14:16): I am simply stunned by that question from the shadow Treasurer. He refers to the contraction in the March quarter as a 'mining boom cough', when in fact we have had a contraction in the March quarter of 1.7 percentage points because of the impact of the biggest natural disaster in Australia's history. They do not accept that on that side of the House. I am completely stunned as to how out of touch they have become. There was a contraction in the March quarter of 1.2 per cent, but minus 1.7 per cent came from the natural disasters—from the floods in Queensland, from Cyclone Yasi, from the floods in northern New South Wales, from the floods in the north-west of Western Australia. And they come into this House and describe that as a mining boom cough. This is just extraordinary.

I think I can understand why they are so out of touch. We had a clue to this a few weeks ago. The Leader of the Opposition came into this House and gave a speech for 30 minutes and did not once mention the impact of the floods, Cyclone Yasi or the weather events in the north-west of Western Australia—not once in a 30-minute speech. Then we had the shadow Treasurer go to the Press Club, supposedly to deliver some alternative to the budget, and not once, in a 30-minute speech, did he mention the impact of the floods, Cyclone Yasi and other weather events. This just shows how out of touch, how incompetent, they are and how they do not understand the challenges facing the Australian economy.

The fact is that the fundamentals of our economy are strong. If you have a look at the figures today, you will see that consumption, dwelling investment and business investment are all making positive contributions to growth, but the big negative in the figures today is the impact of those cyclones and those floods. Those opposite want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that they never happened. This is incredible.

I do not think there has been an opposition this incompetent, this out of touch, in the history of this country. They want to ignore too the very strong pipeline of business investment that we have. They want to ignore the fact that, if we are going to cope with that in the years ahead, we have got to bring our budget back to surplus. But they are intent on wrecking that surplus. They come into the House and complain about deficits. They have never seen a deficit that they did not want to make bigger, as they come into this House and oppose saves. They are opposing vital savings measures in this House. They are trying to wreck the government surplus. It has got so bad, and they have got so negative, that they are now opposing their own policies. Can you believe that? They are opposing a policy of the Howard government that goes back to 2004 because they are so negative.

Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Treasurer could not be being more irrelevant to the question he was asked. He is required to be directly relevant, and he is straining over every subject other than the question he was asked—and 'straining' is the word.

The SPEAKER: As I have reflected in the past, less debate would be helpful, but I think that the Treasurer should keep in mind that he needs to relate his material directly to the question.

Mr SWAN: They pretend that the global financial crisis is a hiccup and that the natural disasters, the floods and cyclones, did not happen. That is how incompetent they are, how negative they have become and how unqualified they are for high office.