Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important MPI to critique the government's economic performance. Margaret Thatcher, a great hero to those on this side, once said, 'The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.' That is what is happening with this government: it is using other people's money to spend recklessly and, as a result, burden future generations, shackling today's children and the leaders of tomorrow.

We know from testimony at Senate estimates just yesterday that the gross debt for the Commonwealth will hit $270 billion next month. By Christmas it will rise to $290 billion and break through the $300 billion debt ceiling to hit $340 billion soon after that. Those on the other side have lifted the debt ceiling four times: first to $75 billion, then to $200 billion, then to $250 billion and now to $300 billion—and we know that is not enough. This is the party that has delivered us pink batts, overpriced school halls, green loans, cash for clunkers, GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch—and do we all remember the 2020 summit? These are all the creations of those on the other side. As a result, their economic mismanagement has seen this country go into greater and greater debt. We also know from the March quarter National Accounts that growth is only 0.6 per cent. Why that is important is because that is half of what it was last year. Perhaps more worryingly, consumer sentiment is down seven per cent in May. That is as a result of the people of Australia losing confidence in the economic management of those opposite.

We have just had a budget which would normally be released with great fanfare to the Australian people. The galleries were half full, whereas for the Leader of the Opposition's budget-in-reply speech they were overflowing. What did we learn in this budget? We learnt that economic growth was going downwards, down to 2.75 per cent from three per cent. We also knew from this budget that unemployment was going up to 5.75 per cent. That is as a result of this government's economic mismanagement. We also learnt that there were great broken promises in this budget. Remember those opposite writing to their constituents and telling them that there would be an increase to family tax benefit A? None of that was delivered in this budget.

What about their holier-than-thou commitment to spending more on education? In fact, there was a $300 million cut to education in the budget, and billions of dollars cut over the forward estimates. And they are robbing Peter to pay Paul by going to the tertiary education sector, which is supposed to be the hub of productivity and a great export earner for our country, and ripping money out of the higher education budget. Fred Hilmer, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, has said that the government's commitments in the Asian century white paper are now such a joke as a result of these cuts to higher education.

Then there is the greatest broken promise over the carbon tax: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' There it is in this budget, with a promise that the carbon price will be $12 a tonne in the coming years when we move to a floating price. Twelve dollars a tonne? If you go to New Zealand it is trading at 85c, if you go to the European Union it is trading around $3 to $4—and the government would have us believe that the carbon price will be $12 a tonne in just a couple of years.

Again there were great predictions about what the mining tax revenue would be producing for the Commonwealth. Currently the mining tax produces just $200 million of revenue for the Commonwealth, but the government in the budget has promised that the revenue coming in from the mining tax will be $2 billion, a 1,000 per cent increase on where it is currently. If you take into account the high Australian dollar, or changes to the dollar, and if you take into account moving commodity prices—which, by the way, are 15 per cent higher than they were at their highest point under the Howard era—then we cannot take this government's funding commitments and revenue promises at face value. In fact, it is another multibillion dollar black hole.

But the best evidence of why you cannot take this government's commitments at face value is that the Treasurer of Australia—the greatest Treasurer in the history of the world, he would have us believe—started his budget last year by saying, 'Tonight I announce four years of budget surpluses.' Well, there has not been a Labor budget surplus since 1989. Do you know what the No. 1 movie was in 1989? Indiana Jones. Why is that interesting? Because Graham Perrett, the member for Moreton, said that this government is in more trouble than Indiana Jones—and Indiana Jones was the No. 1 grossing movie in 1989, the last year that the Labor Party delivered a budget surplus. So when we had Wayne Swan come into this place last year and say, 'Tonight I deliver four years of surpluses,' we did not believe him. And now the Australian people know why we did not believe him, because they have announced the fifth biggest budget deficit in the history of the Commonwealth—$19½ billion, with another $18 billion the year after that. They will never, ever deliver a budget surplus.

Those on the other side go on about the AAA credit ratings that they have been able to manage to achieve. I can tell the House that we had AAA credit ratings when the economy was managed by Peter Costello and John Howard. In fact we inherited in 1996 a AA credit rating and we lifted it to AAA. Moody's and Standard & Poor's, the two key agencies, gave us that AAA credit rating. The downgrades had come under the Labor government, so do not lecture us about AAA ratings. The record of the Costello-Howard years was not only getting back that AAA rating which Labor had lost, it was also paying back the $96 billion of government debt and leaving $70 billion in the bank.

It was also about creating more than two million new jobs and getting the lowest unemployment and inflation in three decades. It was also about a 22 per cent increase in real wages. That is what people are interested in—real wages growth. It was about getting industrial relations disputes down to record low levels. I will tell you this fact: in 2012, 301,000 days were lost to industrial disputes in Australia, but in the last year of the Howard government, what was that number? It was 49,700. That is the difference between us and them. We delivered real wage increases. We delivered two million new jobs. We delivered the lowest unemployment and inflation in three decades. We have delivered a AAA credit rating, and we obviously paid back all that debt.

What we are seeing now, through the economic mismanagement of those opposite, is 20,000-plus new regulations and 30 new taxes. We are seeing a budget deficit year after year and we are seeing gross debt 'quickly approach the $300 billion debt ceiling', which soon will be breached. We are seeing more than 250,000 jobs being lost in small business; we are seeing more than 100,000 jobs being lost in manufacturing; we have seen major financial decisions by companies to abandon big projects like the Port Hedland extension, Olympic Dam, and obviously there has been the sad news coming out of Ford for Broadmeadows and Geelong.

This is a really serious debate that the Australian people need to have. This government, when it came to power in 2007, had Kevin Rudd promising to be an economic conservative. He has been anything but that, and Julia Gillard has just driven debt higher and higher to the cost of the Australian public. (Time expired)

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