Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We all wish that we were immune, Senator Polley, but we are not. Australians can see the global financial crisis occurring every day. They are not fooled by suggestions that the economy is a result of a Labor government. They know we are confronting a global financial crisis. The coalition maintains its scepticism. Its hypocrisy about the cash splashes that occurred under the Howard government, and the hysteria that has occurred in today’s and yesterday’s debate, partly explains the continued standing of the coalition in this current political environment. We are not immune to the global financial crisis.

The global recession that we are experiencing has resulted in the largest downgrade in Australia’s budget revenues in living history. Compare that to what we have just heard from Senator Brandis and Senator Mason. The global recession that we are now experiencing has resulted in the largest downgrade in Australia’s budget revenues in living memory. To be very specific on this point, it has wiped approximately $210 billion from the federal budget. In that context, we have the opposition saying that the $188 billion debt, which they call a debt bomb, is irresponsible. To quote them precisely, they class it as ‘reckless spending’. Let me challenge that point with the perspective that needs to be applied around it. Remember that what has been wiped from the federal budget is larger than the total debt that the coalition is complaining about.