Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

It is disappointing to hear a Labor Party who seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the election and nothing from their time in office. They are living a life of fiction where money grows on trees and where we throw it around and promise everybody everything. You fudge and you fiddle with numbers in budgets. You have assumptions that live in make-believe land. You ignore the reality of the consequences of your actions and you simply boot the consequences down the street for some responsible person to deal with.

That is the Labor way, and we have seen more of it here today. Labor should be hanging their heads in shame. They fit the nation up with six years of the most abominable governance this country has ever seen. They learned nothing from those areas of failure, mismanagement and waste. They fit up the next generation of kids through intergenerational theft, spending on the visa card for someone else to service, and then they come in here as if there is no work to be done.

It is little wonder that a once Treasurer of Australia, the member who just spoke, has not even got his time as Treasurer listed on his bio. Why is that? It is because it was one of the most lamentable periods of treasurership we have ever seen, so he does not fess up to it. He subscribed to the argument of the former Treasurer Wayne Swan, the member for Lilley, when confronted with the reality of the debt trajectory Labor put this nation on. When asked: what are you going to do about the debt limit? His response was, 'That will be someone else's problem.' Didn't that say it all? That is the Labor way. It is always someone else's problem.

The Australian public know—and they sent this message to the Labor Party at the last election—that these political problems do not just swap from one side of the chamber to the other. They are the nation's problems. They are the people's problems. They are the debt and deficit burdens that our citizens must carry. They are the impairments to our economy and people's livelihoods and living prospects. They are our problems. They are made the problems of all Australians.

The problem they also have is that Labor is failing to address this harsh reality. We have seen the populist politicking. We have seen Labor's headline hunting. We have seen the scaremongering. What we have not seen today and what Labor continue not to demonstrate is any sense of accountability and responsibility for its actions to deal with the consequences it created or the leadership needed to steer this nation and its people out of the dark corner of debt and deficit Labor has taken us into. It has no plan for the hard work that is needed to restore the great promise that we should be talking about—and that is the promise of our nation.

We have the promise of a great nation, of living standards that are envied around the world and that we want to carry forward and sustain for future generations. That is the great promise of Australia. What did Labor want to do? They wanted to trash and junk that and not even address the consequences of their actions—debt and deficit. And we have nothing to show for it. We have no improved productive capability. We have no better chance to succeed. We have no opportunities that have been enhanced. We have no infrastructure that is to be the building blocks and sinews of enterprise and commerce. We do not have that. We just have fudged numbers that Labor left to the incoming government, claiming these absolutely ridiculous revenue projections that were never going to materialise. Instead, they spent every last dollar on that fiction of revenue and then went even harder.

Do we see Labor addressing any of that? No. But this budget does. This budget is our action plan to take responsibility not for what we created but for what we understand impairs our nation and the damage it does to our citizens, the intergenerational burden it puts onto our kids and the impairment it causes our economy. The chance for us to be all that we can be—that is what drives us. That means we have to deal with the debt and deficit legacy that Labor gave us.

We saw in this parliament today shadow minister after shadow minister reframing contrived arguments about cuts, only for them to hear time and time again, 'No, there are more resources going into those areas. There is more effort going into the building blocks of our future potential. There are more opportunities that we are working to create for our citizens.' We do not ask for our people anything other than a chance for them to be their very best. But the Labor Party come in here and talk about a young person's future as if it is inextricably linked to a life on welfare. When did we give up on people? When did we give up on our potential? When did we stop striving to enable people to be their very best? When did we stop recognising that economic opportunity and prosperity needs to be won? It needs to be earned. It is not a gift that we just pull off the shelf. When did we stop saying to young people and to all of our citizens: 'Be the best you can be. Have a go.'

We will support people through targeted expenditure and by transferring consumption into investment in our future prospects by tackling the debt and having an economic management plan that says, 'We as a nation can do so much better if we all pull together and tackle the horrendous legacy that this former Labor government has left us,' and that gives us the chance to be our very best and recognises that in the middle of this century there will be three people working for every one in retirement compared to the five working for every one in retirement now.

If that were not enough of a challenge, what do Labor want to do? They want to fit people up with the burden of debt and deficit. They have already started. Did you know $1 billion a month goes into servicing the debt that Labor created? That is right now. What could we do with that $1 billion? What new potential could we support? What enterprise investment could we make? What chance could we as a government have to provide the framework for our citizens to be their very best? What could we deploy those resources to do? There are so many things. Instead, what do we get? We get politicking. We get a fanciful creation of hardship and harm, when Labor do not even want to look at what is in the budget.

We have said to the Australian public that the great promise of our land is something that we all need to work for together. We have mapped out our economic strategy. The budget is a key part of that. We are faithfully honouring our commitment to build a strong and prosperous economy because, through that strength, we can be safe in the assurance that we can sustain the living standards that people look for and secure in the knowledge that the safety net we provide the vulnerable is not vulnerable itself because of our inability to finance it.

We said we would stop the boats, and we have done that. We said we would axe the carbon tax. Do you know what is ironic? So did Labor. We had tax rises and an expenditure explosion under Labor and, in opposition, they are still causing that. Because of Labor, the carbon tax that they promised we would not have and that they said they would terminate will go up again on 1 July. It will extend its reach to on-road heavy transport. Here is a chance for them to do something. If they believe anything that they have said today about the cost of living, they should help lift that financial burden. But they will not. Of course they will not, because it is all about politics. It has always been about politics. It has never been about anything else for Labor but politics.

Do you know what our nation is calling for? It is calling for leadership. It is saying to our parliaments and our governments: take a longer term view, realise the changes that are happening in our world and in our nation and build the economic capacity so that we can fulfil that promise—the promise of a great country, with a living standard that is envied around the world. You cannot achieve that if you hock your future on debt and deficit, on false promises, on popularity stakes, on squibbing the tough call to repair the budget. If we do not repair it, that will kill our promise for the kind of life that we hope for ourselves, for those who have already gone before us and for those who will follow us. That is what this budget is about. That is what this economic action plan is about. That is the challenge that this parliament faces and, frankly, our nation faces. Do we want more of the Labor style of politics?

Government members: No!

I have never met anybody who wants more of this headline hunting, this crass populism or this politicking that is all about trying to win the headlines tomorrow but losing our future. Nobody wants that. That is why the government was changed, with adults in charge who have real competency and a considered measured plan to build that strong, prosperous economy, who recognise through that strength that we can be our very best. We can say to the vulnerable: 'Don't be uncertain about our capacity as a nation to meet your needs for the future.' We can say to our young people: 'Please invest in yourself so that you have brighter prospects, a livelihood you can aspire to. We will invest in you, but invest yourself.' We say to those in the workforce, 'You know this can't keep going,' and they do know. They are prepared to make a contribution. They are prepared to make a second effort. They are prepared to share in the rebuilding of our potential and the great promise of our country. We are up for that. We are on board for that. It is not easy.

Labor probably has not realised that politics and governance can be hard sometimes, because it is about principle; it is about consistency; it is about shaping a plan and helping our citizens be their very best as we are working to make our nation have the best prospects, to be its very best. So I say to those opposite: 'Ditch the Labor playbook. Get on board. This is too important for you to muck around with.' (Time expired)

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