Ted O’Brien isn’t backing down from his dispute with Jim Chalmers in the final stretch of Thursday’s roundtable. But he argues the real conflict is not in the verbal sparring between the two political rivals, which has now been covered extensively in the media.
Instead, the opposition treasury spokesman says it is in the substance of the debate itself. And in his view, that wasn't resolved over the three days of the roundtable.
“I left the round table with zero confidence that the government understands it needs to stop the spending spree,” O’Brien told Capital Brief on Friday morning.
“Even though people might be more interested in the notion of conflict, I raised hard facts in a very sober fashion around the table and Mr Chalmers’ response was one of ‘defence and deflect’, and clearly [he] was not prepared to address the facts,” he said.
