Politics & Power Quote by Julie Bishop

Bishop’s line is opposition politics at its most surgical: don’t attack the price tag, attack the paperwork. By framing the problem as the government “not coming clean,” she shifts the argument from dollars to trust, where governments are always more vulnerable. The figure $10.4 billion is there less as an accounting detail than as a rhetorical weight - big enough to trigger suspicion, specific enough to sound audited. It’s an accusation dressed in the language of procedural responsibility.

The key word is “assumptions.” Bishop isn’t saying the package is wrong; she’s implying it’s built on contestable premises being kept offstage. In policy fights, assumptions are the scaffolding: economic forecasts, uptake rates, risk models, timelines. Most voters won’t parse them, but they understand the insinuation that hidden assumptions equal hidden motives. She invites the public to imagine a back room full of convenient numbers.

“Informing the Australian public” widens the target. This isn’t just a dispute between parties or experts; it’s a democratic grievance. The subtext is: you’re paying for this, you deserve the truth, and they’re denying you both.

Contextually, this fits a familiar parliamentary dynamic in Australia: large spending announcements and “packages” rolled out for maximum political impact, with the uncomfortable caveats buried in briefings, budget papers, or delayed modelling. Bishop’s intent is to force the government onto the defensive terrain of transparency - where even a competent policy can look guilty if it won’t show its workings.