SUBJECTS: Hockey misrepresents British PM's speech
CHRIS BOWEN:
Well today in Question Time Joe Hockey said that Gordon Brown, last night, argued that the British Government would cut spending to withdraw stimulus. This is completely false and completely misleading.
Mr Brown mentioned the word 'stimulus' once in his speech and that was to say that he would be arguing for the stimulus to continue at the EU. In fact, Mr Brown's speech is a powerful argument for keeping fiscal stimulus in place. In fact, the theme of Mr Brown's speech is to argue that now is not the moment to withdraw stimulus.
Last week Stuart Robert argued that Australia was the only nation not to be withdrawing the stimulus. Then Joe Hockey claimed that it was all a left-wing conspiracy and today we have the phantom Gordon Brown speech.
Mr Hockey needs to explain today: was he being sloppy or was he being dishonest?