Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister did not acknowledge Parliamentary Secretary Shorten, but I think we will, because we know that he is more talented than most of the people on the front bench, which is why the Prime Minister is keeping him on the middle bench. What this Prime Minister did was spend $53 billion in two stimulus packages in late 2008 and early last year and, coupled with additional spending, the automatic stabilisers under the budget, he ran up a net debt in excess of $200 billion. This economic magician, this former economic conservative, this one-time Christian socialist who became an economic conservative and is now an old-fashioned Social Democrat—and the scourge of economic fundamentalism, but he does believe in fiscal prudence—turned a $20 billion surplus into a $30 billion deficit in a single financial year. He has even bigger deficits in the future.

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