Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

So after 10 years he now does not support it. Is that right? So the member for Fraser, who is part of the economic brains trust on the other side, supports a co-payment for Medicare. He claims it as a Labor idea, in fact, in the article. He says it is a Labor idea. Yet the member for McMahon, as part of the latest scare campaign that the opposition now wants to come up with, is running around trying to create this. He should talk to the member for Fraser. He says it is his idea.

This is an opposition that refuses to accept that they left the country in a mess. The budget situation that we found when we came to government on 7 September last year was a complete and utter mess. The MYEFO update that was released in December told the truth about the situation in which we found the budget. It said that if we do not address the fiscal challenge we will have a deficit for a decade, unless we change the structure of the budget. Unless we address the budget structure we will end up with over $500 billion of Labor debt. In 2007 when the Labor Party came to government and the member for Lilley inherited the Treasury from Peter Costello there was no debt. In 2008 when there was a global financial crisis the Labor Party went, 'You beauty, it is time to spend.' They opened up the chequebook. They built school halls when schools did not need it. They handed out cash when people did not want it—

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