From AAP:
Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce wants to bet federal Treasury boss Ken Henry $1000 that the government fails to deliver its $1 billion 2012 budget surplus.
The forecast surplus depends largely on the government’s proposed 40 per cent resource rent tax.
Senator Joyce said achieving the 2012 surplus will be miraculous.
“Does Dr Henry truly believe that?,” the Nationals leader told ABC television on Tuesday.
“If he does, I’m willing to take a $1000 bet with Dr Henry, and if he is … a billion dollars or better I will pay him $1000.
“If we have a deficit, is he prepared to match my money?”
Senator Joyce has clashed with Treasury secretary Ken Henry previously. When Barnaby was the Opposition’s Shadow Finance Minister, the insufferably arrogant Ken Henry appeared to relish taking every opportunity during Senate Estimates hearings… and in public speeches… to make thinly-veiled criticisms about his economic views. Criticisms that the feral media pack wlecomed gleefully in their constant baying for Barnaby’s sacking.
Ironically, the increasingly dire global economic events are demonstrating ever more clearly, that when it comes to economics, Ken Henry is usually wrong.
Barnaby Is Right 
Comments