Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

You are right—not when you are in the chair. I withdraw.

The profligacy and the excess of those opposite—the higher debt and the higher deficits—have costs for Australian families. You have to give the Prime Minister top marks for spin and sheer gall. For those opposite to be lecturing on surplus budgets and on fiscal responsibility when none of them has ever been part of a surplus budget is absolutely ridiculous. Those of us on this side of the House are in no mood to be lectured by those opposite on balanced budgets—not by a political party that has run deficit after deficit every year it has been in office since 1990. If they were a football team they would have a perfect record for all the wrong reasons: zero out of 10. They would surely win the wooden spoon.

Let us have a close look at their record, since they are so interested in this subject. They are so interested in giving lectures and so uninterested in looking at their own record. But their own record is the only thing that matters to Australian families and small businesses. If we go back to 1990-91, we see a deficit of $400 million, rising to $12 billion the following year, to $18 billion the year after that as well as the following year and to $14 billion the year after that. Then—and this will sound familiar to my colleagues on this side of the House—in 1995 the then Labor government promised that the budget would return back to surplus—that it would miraculously turn back within one year. Back in those days, before the Charter of Budget Honesty—introduced by Treasurer Costello—the government did not release the fiscal outlook at the start of an election campaign. So right through that election campaign Labor insisted that the budget was still in surplus. Even those members opposite know about the infamous black hole that the Howard government encountered upon its election. The outcome for the 1995-96 budget was $11 billion.

That was the last six years of the Labor government—back-to-back deficits, helping pile up net government debt of $96 billion. That debt had a tangible cost. It cost $8 billion a year just to service that debt and not pay it off. That was $8 billion that was not spent on roads, schools or hospitals. Luckily, Australia then took a different path. By 1998 the budget was back in surplus and we started chipping away at the debt mountain. It took 10 years from 1996 until 'Debt-Free Day' in April 2006. By 2007, there was $45 billion in the bank as a buffer against the unforeseen. As a result, Australia was uniquely placed when the GFC hit in 2008. Imagine what Australia would have confronted if we had stayed on that path of deficit and debt for all those years—if we had stayed on the Labor path.

For this Prime Minister and Treasurer to claim credit for Australia's performance through the GFC, when it was the work that was done prior to that to prepare Australia against the unforeseen that was responsible, is absolutely shameless. It is like two second-string players appearing on the field during time on in the last quarter of a grand final and trying to convince people that they were responsible for all the match-winning moves. When it comes to economics, it would be embarrassing if it were not so serious.

If we look at the first four years of this Labor government, there is still no surplus. As the shadow Treasurer said, Labor's record has been deficit after deficit. As the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, there has been $167 billion worth of cumulative deficits—$27 billion, $54 billion, $47 billion. Then we come to the 2011-12 financial year. The deficit was supposed to be $12 billion—and this is an interesting point, as the shadow Treasurer pointed out. It was 'supposed to be', but what happened? The MYEFO in December 2010—about 15 months ago—pegged this financial year's deficit at $12 billion. Six months later, in the budget, we were told it would be $22.6 billion. Then, at the end of last year—another six months on—it was $37.1 billion. And the year ain't over yet. Those opposite have the hide to try to lecture on budget surpluses when, in the whole lifetime of one of the members on this side of the House, Labor has never delivered one.

The Treasurer is on some sort of Burke and Wills expedition. The government thinks it can airbrush away its own history over more than 20 years, but the public are very familiar with the debt story in Australia, because they have paid the price, over many years, for Labor's failure. It is always the failure of Labor's fiscal competence right here in Canberra that forces Australian families and small businesses to pay the price in their homes and their small businesses. They know in their hearts of hearts that a lack of competence here by this government is leading to a lack of economic confidence throughout Australian small businesses and Australian families. This is backed up in all the official publications that the minister, the Treasurer and his colleagues will never quote from in question time.

But the record of those opposite, for the last 21 years, is of nothing but deficit—

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