Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The millions of Australians who voted for this government were told, 'This new government's going to stop the boats and pay back the debt,' and on their first day, at the first question time on the first full sitting day, we see the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection refuse to answer questions about stopping the boats and we see the Treasurer move a piece of legislation, to be rammed through in an hour, to increase the nation's debt limit by $200 billion, a 67 per cent increase—the biggest ever increase in our debt limit. This happened on the first day of this government. That is the clearest sign, the clearest symbol, that the party opposite campaigned on one platform and is governing on a very, very different one.

We heard the Treasurer just then say, 'We didn't vote against the debt cap in some cases,' and he is right: in some cases they did not vote against it. What he did not tell us—despite his rhetoric about responsibility, the Tea Party and who will wear the blame—is what they did in opposition. We had the former Leader of the Opposition, the now Prime Minister, on 11 May, in relation to the debt cap, say:

… the Government has to justify this. Our money, our future, is too important to be mortgaged like this without the Government giving us the strongest possible arguments for it, because every dollar that they borrow has got to be repaid.

'Give us the strongest possible arguments for it,' the then Leader of the Opposition said. And what do we see from this government? No MYEFO, no economic update. They are taking decisions—which we will get to—in relation to the Reserve Bank and refusing to give an economic update.

The Prime Minister again, today in question time, says, 'We'll give you MYEFO in December like you used to.' There is one little problem for the Prime Minister: in the six years of Labor governments, not in any year was MYEFO released in December—not once. In his first question time the Prime Minister misleads the House of Representatives—in his first question time. He does not mislead the House of Representatives once; he misleads the House of Representatives twice in his first question time, because the other thing he said was, 'We never opposed increases in the debt cap when we were in opposition.' When the Leader of the Opposition and I pointed out that they voted against one in 2009, he changed his story real quick. On the run in question time he said, 'Well, not when I was Leader of the Opposition we didn’t.' So it was somebody else's fault—it was Malcolm Turnbull's fault!

There was one little problem for the Prime Minister—they voted against an increase in the debt cap last year. In 2012, as I recall, the member for Warringah was the Leader of the Opposition. If you look at the Hansard for the Senate, the other place, you will see 'ayes 35; noes 30'. The noes are the Liberal Party and the National Party in the Senate. As I recall, the member for Warringah, the now Prime Minister, was Leader of the Opposition. So do not go lecturing us about Tea Party politics. Do not go lecturing us about our moral obligation to vote for an increase in the debt cap when you voted against it in 2009 and 2012.

What about the justification? We saw the Prime Minister, the then Leader of the Opposition, say, 'Give us the strongest possible arguments for it.' One of the arguments could be the mid-year economic forecast, and I thought, in fairness to the government, that they might provide more of an update in the explanatory memorandum. I thought I had better wait and see what was in the explanatory memorandum—I thought it might provide a new peak debt figure. I thought it might provide more information about the state of the books. We got the explanatory memorandum a few moments ago. I will share it with the House. It is 11 pages long. Page 1 is the glossary. There it is, page 1—more blank than not. Page 2 is completely blank. Page 3 is a general outline. Page 4 is blank as well. We get to page 5 and there is a bit in there. We have a figure on page 5, so we are getting somewhere, making progress. Net debt is $370 billion—they have repeated my economic statement in the explanatory memorandum. There is no new figure, no update—they have repeated the economic statement on page 5. On page 6 there is a detailed explanation of the new law. Page 6 is not too bad. On page 7—now this is a good one—the House needs to know this—

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