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

I thank the honourable member for Ryan for her question. I also welcome the interest of the Labor Party in paying back debt, because now they have a new-found interest in repaying debt—something they never had. But all of a sudden we discovered today that they are really concerned about people paying back their debts. The only problem is that the Australian Labor Party has made the debt worse for everyone. In just six years they wreaked havoc on the Australian economy and left us with a debt growing to $667 billion. That is $25,000—

An opposition member: Come on!

I know—'Come on!' I know it is hard to believe. I know that is a big number for you guys over there. There are a lot of zeros. But let's narrow it down to what it means for every single Australian. It is $25,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in Australia in 10 years, whether they went to university or not. So people who are the poorest of the poor in the nation have the same debt liability under Labor as the wealthiest person—and why? Because that is Labor's approach to debt. They pick and choose the moments they want to talk about it.

The great challenge is that without action in our budget the interest on that debt would be $3 billion a month, and 70 per cent of that interest is paid to people overseas. Because we are borrowing money from people overseas, we have to pay interest back to those people, and 70 per cent of the interest bill is paid to people living overseas. The Labor Party want to make this issue worse. They do not want to improve the debt problem; they actually want to make it worse. That is why they are opposing $40 billion of savings, including $5 billion of their own savings, which is quite remarkable.

But, what is more, it is even worse than that. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs pointed out, the member for Sydney wants to increase it by a further $16 billion. She wants to go back to the full foreign aid program that Labor had—$16 billion extra in foreign aid with borrowed money. Of course, the Labor Party will not deny it.

An opposition member interjecting—

Are you denying it? No, they are not denying it. You are committed to it—an extra $16 billion. In fact, she put out a press release.

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