Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will remind the House that the topic of today's MPI is the government's plan to allow itself to run up unlimited debt. That is what I intend to speak about. Every day we are reminded by this government that they have been given a mandate by the Australian public to govern on the policies they campaigned for—every day. Yet every day, we are being hit with new policies and positions that directly contradict what they took to the Australian people during the election. In opposition, members opposite insisted that they were on a unity ticket with Labor on education. In opposition, government members opposite insisted that we were in the grip of a budget crisis and needed to reduce our debt. Really? I am not sure what to believe. If that is what the government campaigned on, surely Gonski would be going ahead and we would now be taking action to reduce our debt. But that is not what is happening. Every day this government is changing its story and breaking its promises. This is not the government Australia thought they were getting.

The Treasurer went to the election promising to reduce debt and to implement deep budget cuts. He called it fiscal discipline, if I am not mistaken. But that is not what he is doing now. The government has instead embarked on a spending spree and now wants to allow itself access to unlimited credit. The Liberal Party campaigned against debt before the election yet one of their first actions in this parliament is to request an unprecedented increase to the debt limit of 67 per cent. The coalition can in no way claim a mandate to increase the debt limit by this amount to half-a-trillion dollars.

Make no mistake: the first time that the $500 billion figure was mentioned was when the Treasurer announced it on 22 October, six weeks after the election. The government was not given a mandate to increase the debt limit to half-a-trillion dollars and they certainly were not given a mandate to scrap the limit altogether. And the Treasurer has gone from promising to pay back the debt before the election to wanting to double the debt a couple of weeks ago to now wanting to run up unlimited debt. Today, we are talking about having an unlimited debt limit. This new position on removing the debt limit altogether is truly remarkable.

In this House on 12 March this year, the now Treasurer rose to speak and address the government on debt limits. He said:

The truth is that Labor do not know how to live within their means. They are like someone with a credit card who is out of control.

The thing is that credit cards do have a limit. And for good reason. That is why the debt limit exists and that is why we support the continuation of the limit and an increase in line with any evidence to support it. The Treasurer is now suggesting that we remove the limit altogether and go on a free-for-all. I shudder to think what that means for Australia based on the few weeks of crazy spending that we have already seen.

They have thrown $8.8 billion to the RBA, money that they did not want or need, a move of political means, not economic means. Then there was the $1.2 billion that came from nowhere this week and was thrown at the state governments as hush money. I would like to say that this was to address disadvantage in education, but there are no guarantees about where that money is going to. It is a no-strings handout. That is $10 billion of unbudgeted spending in this first sitting of the 44th parliament. No wonder they want to scrap the limit.

This Liberal government is now saying: 'We're happy to break promises. We don't want controls on our spending. Let's remove the debt limit altogether.'    The Australian public cannot trust this government. We cannot trust anything they said during the election; we cannot trust what they said yesterday; we cannot trust what they say today. Who knows what they will be saying tomorrow? But we do know one thing about what they say: we will not be able to trust it.

The coalition called the Greens 'economic fringe dwellers' during the last parliament but now promises to deal with them on the debt after the election. Labor is not going to support removing the debt limit. We will not support removing parliamentary scrutiny of government debt. Labor's position on debt is clear and it has been consistent. The government needs to be transparent and open its books and produce the evidence required.

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