Page 637 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 11 February 2009
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materials are falling. It should be no surprise, because the entire economy is slowing. Okay? That is where I am getting the answer to that question—from the macroeconomic indicators which are being published and which were most recently published last week.
It is not expected that the government’s stimulus package—again, it has not been passed yet, but the package that was announced last week—will have an inflationary effect. Mrs Dunne finds that funny, but the opposition have found all the discussions around this funny.
Mrs Dunne: I know an awful lot of Labor people who think it will have an inflationary effect.
MS GALLAGHER: Good on you, Mrs Dunne. Whilst the unemployment lines continue to grow and while families struggle, you can sit here on your comfortable income and laugh while other people try to put together a solution to what is perhaps the gravest economic climate that this country has seen for decades. You guys sit and laugh.
Mr Seselja: It is your performance.
MS GALLAGHER: Righto, Mr Seselja, if it makes you feel better to say that it is my performance as Treasurer that has caused the global financial crisis, good on you. I do not think that anyone in Canberra will believe you. If it makes you guys feel relevant and comfortable to tell everybody that it is my fault that the national economy and in fact the global economy are facing the challenges they are facing at the moment, continue to do it, Mr Seselja. No-one is listening to you.
What people want is answers. They want support from their government. They want investment. They want the government to take decisions, to act quickly in a timely, targeted fashion. That is what the stimulus package provides the opportunity for. Whilst you guys sit there and harp and laugh, and think it is funny, all of those struggling Canberrans—and there are Canberrans struggling right now, and there are going to be more of them—
Mrs Dunne: And you do not know how it will affect them.
MS GALLAGHER: There will be more of them. Mrs Dunne, you just sit there and laugh at them. We will get on with working out how to deliver the final package when it comes to the ACT.
Mr Seselja: What a ridiculous thing to say.
MS GALLAGHER: This is the way you conduct yourselves. You should be ashamed.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Coe, a supplementary question?
MR COE: Treasurer, given your personal economic analysis that the package will not have an impact on prices, will you provide the Assembly and community with a
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