Page 2981 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 August 2008
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Again, he puts it here in writing but cannot even speak to it. He does not have the guts to speak to it because he knows it is wrong. In fact, he was backed up by his new friend, Mr Mulcahy, who said, “Those costings are wrong.” I said, “Tell us where they are wrong.” He said, “I will, later. I will tell you later when I go back and look at it, when I have had a chance for one of my staffers to look at it, but they are wrong.”
How does he know that they are wrong? Because the Treasurer told him. The Treasurer told him they were wrong. The Treasurer told the minister that they are wrong, but the minister has such little confidence in what he is told by the Treasurer that, having been given a total of 30 minutes over the last two days to devote even two minutes or five minutes of that time to backing it up and backing up the claims that he is happy to put in his press releases, he was unable to do it.
We do note that he has kept his head down this entire time. It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing when you have got so much opportunity, when you have got all the resources of a department and Treasury to back you up, that you do not have confidence in what your Treasurer is saying and that you do not have confidence in what you put in your own press release to come here and say why you think you are right, because, in his heart of hearts, he knows that he is wrong on this question.
That is why we cannot support these amendments; particularly we cannot support No (2) because he has not even spoken about it. He is so embarrassed, he is so unsure of himself, that he refuses to speak to it. We have given him the opportunity.
I will continue to speak to the amendment and particularly Mr Barr’s comments.
Mr Barr: You cannot even make up your mind what you are talking about, Zed.
MR SESELJA: He chimes in now; he figures we are not talking about the money anymore so he can put his head back up. All of a sudden, he can put his head back up and pretend he is finished doing whatever he is doing—the pretend writing that we saw.
As much as that was embarrassing and, I think, does undermine his credibility even further and undermines, of course, his Treasurer’s credibility, we did see another new thing introduced into the argument today by Mr Barr. And that is the concept that under Labor not only will they not match our policy for reducing class sizes in years 4, 5 and 6 in our government primary schools but Mr Barr today, in his comments, left open the possibility of increasing class sizes. He has left open the possibility—
Mr Barr: What rubbish, Zed. Withdraw that.
MR SESELJA: He does not talk about the money because he does not like to be held accountable for what he says. He would not want to be held accountable for what he says. No, he would not want to be held accountable for what he says in this place. We know what he said in this place.
Mr Barr: Get your hand out of your pocket, Zed, at this point, I think. You have got both hands working furiously in your pocket at the moment.
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