The one major item on the agenda is the ETS and it will put people out of work, reduce their capacity to meet their house payments and put family financial security onto the street. This solo crusade is at the expense of Australia’s working families, their jobs, their house payments, their standard of living and their sense of economic security. We have seen two economic stimulus packages. The first which was delivered in December became known as the “blow it bonus” as registered clubs and casinos reported huge increases in gaming revenue. The more prudent - shock horror - banked it, so as predicted the stimulus package was a flop. We said it would be, we were right.

Now, there is to be an insulation-led recovery. This is starting to become a bit whoopy. It is certainly banal, with an infrastructure package borrowing not so much from the Sydney Harbour Bridge designer JJC Bradfield but from sundry forms of ceiling insulation promos from late night TV.

This whole metaphor of armies of green people descending on houses throughout the nation, with ladders and ceiling batts, inspiring a stock market rally, carried on a wave of new consumer confidence, I’d have to admit is slightly unbelievable and verging on pathos. In reading the newspaper, the ceiling batt solution seems to be more appropriate as a headline around about the start of April than where we are now.