Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this consideration in detail debate on the Finance and Deregulation portfolio, and I welcome the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, who has just arrived in the last minute, to this debate. I point out that we have heard a lot in the four weeks or so since the budget about the government’s plans to bring the budget back to balance after what they say will be a temporary period of about six years. We have heard much from the Treasurer and also from the Minister for Finance and Deregulation about the assumptions under which debt will be run up, will peak and then will be run down over time.

What I would like to do in this consideration in detail debate is pose a number of questions to the minister for finance. The first question relates to his statement, a couple of months ago now, after he addressed the National Press Club, when he appeared on The 7.30 Report and stated in that interview:

… there is a limit to any organisation, even the Federal Government with a very strong balance sheet as to how far it can go into debt and that’s something I’m very conscious of … We’re well aware of that …

I ask the minister, given his statement that there is a limit—which, of course, there is—to nominate what he as finance minister considers that limit to be. I also ask the minister: has he received any alternative, different or supplementary advice about debt projections and future deficits under different budget assumptions in the period prior to the budget or in the period immediately after the budget, over the last four weeks?

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