Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

As everyone in this chamber and everyone viewing here and around the country knows, tonight we have a budget. It is a very, very important budget, which obviously represents the values of this government and the necessity for this government to repair the debt and deficit disaster that we were left by members opposite—by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, and his colleagues.

I want to assure the Labor Party and all the people of Australia that we will fix the debt and deficit disaster that we were left by the Labor Party, and we will do it in ways which are faithful to the commitments we made pre-election. Let me remind members opposite that every day during the election campaign I expressed the objectives of this coalition should we be a government—we would stop the boats, we would scrap the carbon tax, we would build the roads of the 21st century and, above all else, we would bring the budget back under control. That is what this nation needs, and that is what we will deliver.

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