Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

What was that? We had the professorial tutorial. He read the timetable wrong.

Dr Leigh interjecting—

Those who are listening may be bewildered to know that the MPI topic we are supposed to be debating is the government's move to cut transparency, accountability and consumer protection and its impact particularly on the voters of Western Australia.

Dr Leigh interjecting—

Instead, we got a PhD dissertation about why we need another regulator.

Dr Leigh interjecting—

He did not manage to come to the point that the points he said were so crucial to the regulator can actually be dealt with without creating another institution. What a novel idea! To see the professor who does not even have the courtesy to sit quietly and listen to the discussion on the actual topic he brought forward—it just shows you what a rabble Labor is.

To show you what a matter of public importance this is, there were 21 questions at question time today and not one of them was on this subject. So absolutely gripping, so compelling—Labor was so insistent that the parliament allocate time to this matter of public importance, but it was not important enough to ask a question. Isn't that remarkable. But doesn't that give you an idea about just how misguided and how completely befuddled this Labor opposition is. To hear the professor talk about what should be happening to protect consumers—he seems to overlook a little problem. We heard the Treasurer today saying that under the previous Labor government we saw the fastest growth in government outlays in the top 17 IMF countries in the world. But what did they forget to fund? They forgot to fund the ACCC. They forgot to fund the regulator that is there supposedly to protect the consumers. I know those opposite have had very little interest in competition policy and consumer affairs. They have had so little interest while they were putting all this debt and deficit on the national bank card that they forgot to fund the ACCC.

Did you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, that if it were not for the election and the change in government, our principal regulator and protector of consumer rights would run out of cash next month? So convinced was Labor that consumer protection mattered, that they forgot to fund the agency whose task it was to implement those protections. On 12 September 2011, there was a request for an unimproved operating loss that ran over the top of the budget that was allocated in 2010-11. We thought, 'Oops, we have overshot.' The professor is off to read the timetable and realise what the topic is before the parliament. On 16 January 2012, guess what, another operating loss—

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