Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mitchell for his question because he knows how important it is to remember experiences from the past. Of course, the fact is that the experience that we are dealing with is that Labor left $667 billion of debt and $123 billion of deficits. When the Labor Party are challenged about what they would do about this very significant structural problem, they say: 'Don't worry. When we were in government we had $180 billion of savings.' I thought: 'Wow, $180 billion of savings. Let's go a bit into that,' because you have to peel it apart like an onion to find out what it really is. In fact, nearly half of it is increases in taxes—not savings, but actual increases in taxes.

Ms Owens interjecting—

In fact, their definition of savings is about taking more savings from the Australian taxpayer.

Ms Owens interjecting—

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