JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, are you going to make economic policy kinder and gentler?
TREASURER:
Obviously the result of the by-election in Ryan has shown a swing against the Government and it’s a substantive swing, but the outcome is not yet known. And it could well be that Bob Tucker wins in Ryan. And I hope that he does. So we’ve got to take on board the messages, people have spoken, the Government needs to take that on board. But we’ll be continuing to deliver good economic policy. I can assure you of that. I think one of the risks that people saw in Ryan was the risk of a Labor Party which is absolutely ill-equipped for Government. You had Mr Beazley saying on radio this morning, this is what he said on radio this morning, he said ‘if you don’t have any policies, the issue of how you can afford them doesn’t arise’.
JOURNALIST:
Are you happy to keep BHP …..
TREASURER:
So he’s either got a policy he can’t afford or he can afford it because he hasn’t got a policy.
JOURNALIST:
Are you happy to keep BHP headquarters in Melbourne?
TREASURER:
Actually, I think it’s a very good announcement, that you’re going to have a major resource company headquartered in Melbourne with a (majority) Australian board.