Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, I say to you that this is a government that cannot live within its means; and, when the government cannot live within its means, it defaults to higher taxes and new borrowings. The Labor Party, over five years, has introduced 27 new or increased taxes. Remember the alcopops tax, the flood levy, the carbon tax and now a mining tax that hardly raises a dollar? Only Wayne Swan could introduce a new tax that hardly raises a dollar and brings down two prime ministers. That man is a genius as Treasurer! And it leaves the budget worse off. Their mining tax package leaves the budget worse off. Their carbon tax package leaves the budget worse off. What does that mean when you add the borrowings, the $200 billion of new borrowings, that Labor is out there collecting? And let's be frank: whenever the government borrows money, it is borrowing future taxes from our children, because someone has to pay the money back.

So the Labor Party's call on the Australian people is higher, much higher, than anything in the coalition years, because when we were in government for 11 years we did not borrow a dollar—not a dollar—but the Labor Party has borrowed over $200 billion. This is what the Labor Party does. It completely trashes the joint, tries to claim the high moral ground and leaves Australians to pick up the pieces and pay the bills. Labor writ large are a disaster for Australia, and the sooner they are gone the better.

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