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

I will tell you why: if we are dealing with legacies, the greatest legacy Labor has left is 200,000 more Australians unemployed. The greatest legacy Labor has left is $123 billion of deficits. The greatest legacy Labor has left is $667 billion of debt. And now that they are in opposition they are trying to create a new legacy, because they are opposing $40 billion of savings that are going towards fixing the mess that they created. They started the fire in the kitchen, and now they are trying to stop the fireman from putting it out.

Of course they think it is funny, they think it is humorous; they think it is clever politics. You see the Labor Party's response to the entire budget has been about politics and process, not about policy—and why? I will tell you why. They were the architects of the co-payment in Medicare, they were the architects of the co-payment for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, they were the ones who first introduced university fees—the Labor Party were when they actually did have principles. The coalition supported them in those reforms because we knew we had to do what was right for the country even when we were in opposition.

But now the modern Labor Party has no principles, it has no values, and it has no leadership. That is reflected in the fact that the modern Labor Party does not know what to support and want to oppose from day to day. That is the legacy of the modern Labor Party. I say to you: the people who should be most concerned about that are the Australian people, because there has always been a bipartisan approach to fix and strengthen the Australian economy. The only obstacle today, the only thing swinging in the breeze, is the modern Labor Party.

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