Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We will give them to you in due course. We are not the only ones concerned about the deterioration in the government's fiscal position. This government, as we have all seen over the past four or five years, is addicted to deficit and debt, and it is showing no signs of checking into rehab. The member for Parramatta touched on the issue of debt and the fact that our governments have had relatively low debt by international comparison. The interesting aspect of that, particularly over the past 20 or 30 years, is the very significant increase in private sector debt, which has driven our economic growth at a time when governments have been reducing their debt. It is important to look at the total debt profile of the country, not just government debt. If you take this government's profligate spending and add it to the high levels of corporate and private debt that we have, then you have a serious issue.

Let us look at some so-called accurate information and the final budget outcome for 2011-12. We were told that initially the budget deficit was going to be somewhere around $11 billion, and then that was increased in the midyear economic update to about $22 billion. Lo and behold, we finished up with an actual deficit of nearly $44 billion. This government has been very good at creating history of all manner and shape. Again, we have seen the government create history with Australia's third-largest budget deficit of all time. In five years this government has spent like a gangsta rapper on payday. It has spent the $70 billion left to them by the Howard government and has racked up an additional $147 billion in net debt. The government now has cumulative deficits exceeding $173 billion since coming to power in 2007. To add to the history, this is the 10th anniversary of recurring budget deficits under a Labor government.

How can this government honestly say they will return to a budget surplus in 2012-13, some seven months from now? As David Uren, economics editor at the Australian, pointed out:

Swan has been here before. In 2008 he refused to countenance that the GFC would push the budget into deficit, until after the mid-year budget update.

Uren said that the core of the problem of the past five years is that business activity has not been generating the same level of tax revenue, particularly capital gains tax. He added that there was also the spending side of the ledger—so it is not just the revenue that has fallen but, more importantly, there has been a massive increase in expenditure over these past five years. To top it all off we have a government that claims that tax increases are actually savings. In all honesty, where will these savings be found? The government do not know where they are going to be found, and that is why they are looking for ideas from us and are looking for us to release our policies prematurely. When are the Australian people going to be informed about how these savings will be made by those on the treasury bench, who are the ones responsible, and what cuts will be made, and, more importantly, what additional taxes will be imposed on everyday Australians already doing it tough under this government.

In my electorate of Forde, businesses and residents have already been hit with price increases on their electricity and utility bills, in part due to the carbon tax. What other increases in the cost of living will we see? The government talk about interest rates, but what they fail to tell the Australian people is that, while interest rates have come down, the spread—the difference between the cash rate and the actual rate that the banks charge—has blown out. Instead of being 180 basis points, as it was in 2007 when we were last in government, the gap is now some 315 basis points. On an average home loan of about $300,000, that is costing the average Australian some $4,000 a year extra in interest costs.

There are other cost blowouts that I have not touched on yet. Where are the savings going to be found to fund promises like new facilities for asylum seekers in Nauru and Manus Island, the new dental plan currently before the House, the Gonski school funding, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and any of the other promises that this government has trotted out over the past few months, none of which are funded? The government has not explained where these savings to fund these additional promises are going to come from out of existing revenues.

As I touched on earlier, as we are seeing declining revenues we are seeing increased spending and therefore increased borrowing—some $40 billion since the 2011-12 budget. In addition, interest payments have increased from $1.1 billion a year in 2007-12 to $6.6 billion. By any simple calculation, you can see that if you combine declining revenue with more debt and more payments you will not end up with a surplus, let alone a few extra billion dollars to fund Labor's promises. The net debt figure in the final budget outcome is already some $5 billion more than forecast in the 2012-13 budget—in just seven weeks that equates to an extra $90 million a day being added onto the national credit card.

The government are so desperate to hide their spending from the Australian people they tried shifting expenditure between years and have kept projects like the $50 billion NBN off the books entirely. The Australian National Audit Office addressed this issue recently and forced the government to move $500 million of a special dividend received from the Reserve Bank back into the appropriate financial year. It is these pea-and-thimble tricks, these sleights of hand, that we have to be so vigilant about when the government are presenting the nation's financial position. This is why this matter of public importance is so relevant—the Australian people need to know the actual budget position of this nation.

This government loves to compare us to the poorer performing nations in the world and is revelling in the fact we have now moved up to being the 12th largest economy in the world, above Spain and others. That is hardly a ringing endorsement. It is more a case of those countries falling than us rising.

It is instructive to look at some other basic economic facts. Annual growth in building approvals in 2007 was nearly 15 per cent. In the year to April 2012, there was a decline of some 24 per cent. Growth in lending for housing declined by 7.2 per cent in 2010-11. That compares with growth of 9½ per cent in 2006-07. We need to restore hope, reward and opportunity to— (Time expired)

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