Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was tough, it was slow and they opposed every responsible economic decision along the way. It was not easy for a government between 1996 and 2007 to get the nation’s economy to where it was.

I am not saying that I would ever expect our Prime Minister to stand up and give credit to someone other than himself. That may be asking a little too much. But in last night’s speech to the AiG what we saw was a frank airbrushing out of what happened in 2007, the hard work that had been done, the great nick that Australia was left in as an economy. The OECD admits that. What we are debating today is that providence of the next decade. Make no mistake: what we have spent, what we have disbursed, is the providence of the next decade, of the next three election terms, so this side of the chamber simply says, ‘Let’s do it as efficiently and effectively as possible,’ and that is the case that is being made today. That has not been done. Confidence is a big thing and of course when you have a large amount of fiscal stimulus in an economy money has to land somewhere. We are not denying that. What I think people around the kitchen table at home listening to this debate will be asking is:  was it really the best possible spending we could have hoped for? Was there waste that could have been avoided? Do we really need to spend away the next decade of providence? They are good questions. What Australians have seen instead is profligacy.

You are quite right—there will be a whole lot of new buildings opened around the country. Who am I or anyone on this side of the chamber to say that our schools do not desperately need new infrastructure? But in the same case why would I not support giving money to non-profits? Of course I would. It is all good stuff. But in the end this government has to learn at what point you live within your means. It is a principle that is understood by small businesses around the country, and Australia is the nation of small business. It is a principle understood by families around the country. Our concern in this MPI is that it is not a principle understood by the other side of the House.

What we know is that an enormous amount of latitude has been extended to the government over the last 12 months. There were some tough decisions to be taken; we acknowledge that. There were known unknowns 12 months ago, but there also are certain things that we well realised. We knew Australia’s financial position, we knew about its strong and robust financial sector and, of course, we knew that when times got tough we had rapidly growing enormous economies to our north that were always going to need our commodities. They were the three factors that this government is attempting to airbrush away. Let us be honest: if we are going to get through this and find a solution, what we need to first of all do is make sure that every cent spent from now is spent as efficiently as possible. We have not seen that to this point.

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