Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I stand here in the federal parliament with my parliamentary colleagues, I think it is important that we reflect on why we are actually here. What is the responsibility that comes with being an elected member? Surely our greatest responsibility is to ensure that the Australia that we hand over to the next generation has as much if not more opportunity than the one we inherited. Surely our greatest responsibility is to say to those Australians, 'We are prepared to meet the difficult challenges that our country faces so that you can inherit a country where you have the same opportunity to get ahead, where you don't have to pay more tax than we did, where the government of your day has the same opportunities to invest in roads, infrastructure and education.' That is what this debate around the budget is all about. It is a moral question about what we leave behind as much as it is an economic argument, and it is really important that we put on the table the reality of what we actually face, because so much of this debate has centred on an idea that we will simply say that a problem does not exist when it clearly does.

So let me run through what the problem is. Under the former government spending increased faster than it did in any of the 17 advanced IMF economies. That was borrowed money against the next generation. If we do nothing debt will reach $667 billion. That is a big figure. If we put it into context it is over $24,000 for every single Australian. The next generation, if we do nothing, will start off their working life with a bill of $24,000 for every single man, woman and child. That is, in this year, $500 for each and every single one of us to repay the interest on the debt. If we do nothing, that hits $17 billion a year. That is over $1,200 a year per person to repay the interest on the debt.

Let me put that into perspective. For this year alone $12 billion would fund the complete upgrade of the Bruce Highway for over $8 billion, it would fund the upgrade of the Gateway Motorway for $1.2 billion and it would build a new tertiary hospital for Queensland for $2 billion, and we would still have hundreds of millions of dollars left over. Instead the former government thought it was a good idea to hand out $900 cheques to people living overseas and to dead people, and to have pink batts and school halls. That was money that was borrowed against the next generation of Australians.

Before we deal with that debt problem, we also have a demographic challenge as a nation. We are going to see the percentage of the population aged over 75 go from about six per cent to over 14 per cent. That is a challenge; it is not a problem but it is a challenge we have to be prepared to meet. If we do nothing the Productivity Commission says taxes would have to rise by 21 per cent. So if we do nothing—if we do what the Labor Party is proposing, which is simply to keep borrowing against the next generation—we are going to say that an Australian born today will inherit a debt of $24,000 a person and we think they should also pay 21 per cent higher taxes than we do. I am not prepared to be part of a government that says that is okay.

The reality is that all of us must contribute to pay back the debt that we were left by the former Labor government. All of us have to contribute. And it is not easy. But I am not prepared to engage in a political debate that those members opposite, members of the Labor Party, want to engage in, which is a cheap, opportunistic debate which will deny future generations the same opportunities that we have, the same opportunities to invest in roads and schools and hospitals for future generations. So we have to live within our means and we have to go for growth in the private sector, because it is not the government that creates wealth and prosperity; it is actually those hardworking Australians out there in the community.

That is why we are going to cut the carbon tax—so that we can help not only families and locals in my community to get ahead but businesses to go out there and thrive and prosper and employ more people. It is why we are cutting a billion dollars worth of red tape every single year—so that businesses in my community can grow and prosper and thrive and employ more people. It is why we are creating, for the first time ever, opportunities for young people to take up a trade, a diploma or higher education without paying a dollar—so that as people go into the workforce they can pay tax and continue to deliver greater prosperity for our nation into the future.

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