Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Friday 19th February 2010

Welcome back, Michael Aird!

After a brief, but entertainingly incompetent cameo by Lara Giddings, finally Michael Aird has returned.

While I appreciate the struggle he must have gone through to convince the strategists in the Labor Party that he should be allowed to show his face publicly again, he has once again flailed away in vain.

Our website is absolutely correct. Michael Aird knows this. He just doesn’t want to accept it.

Our website simply points out that from 1 July 2009 to 11 February 2010 (the day before the election), Labor publicly committed to some $588 million that was not included in the Budget for 2009-10.

However, what I would really like to know is whether or not it was the Treasurer’s Office that supplied Lara Giddings with yesterday’s spectacularly wrong ‘Election Commitment Report’.

It sounds like Michael Aird is very angry that David Bartlett and Lara Giddings have sidelined him and yesterday’s set-up of Ms Giddings was payback. Maybe after being forced to embarrassingly back down on land tax and water and sewerage Michael Aird has decided that he doesn’t want to work with either Mr Bartlett or Ms Giddings anymore and is determined to be a spoiler.

Anyway, as I always enjoy the Treasurer’s colourful, albeit wildly inaccurate press statements I am pleased that Mr Aird has made a comeback.

The invitation for a debate still stands, by the way Mr Aird.