Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, because I repeat the proposition that the Liberal Party’s and the National Party’s position on debt and deficit rests entirely on an exercise in fraudulence. It is policy fraudulence. The fraudulence is this: those opposite are saying that they would not engage in deficit and deficit financing. Those opposite, however, have said, when pressed: firstly, that theirs would be $25 billion less than the government’s, which means that you have a Liberal Party policy of a $275 billion gross debt; secondly, if you take the member for Warringah’s proposition, it is $21 billion less, which means that you have a $281 billion debt position on the part of the Liberal Party; and, thirdly, you have the Leader of the Opposition’s position. He says that it is not a question of the number.

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