Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps the member opposite also wants to suggest there is no fire. The member for Scullin had a case of poor timing because that was just before—literally just before—the Parliamentary Budget Office announced that if Australia's spending continued at the same rate, the nation's debt forecast would increase at the fastest rate in the OECD. We have heard the criticism drop off since that statement, but it is a sobering statement and one we all ought to reflect on.

How are we supposed to tackle the problems of debt and deficit left by the previous government if the Australian Labor Party and their voters in the Senate refuse to acknowledge we have a problem? The first stage of addressing any problem or crisis is to acknowledge we have a problem. I would say to members opposite: stop being debt deniers and get with the program. You helped create the problem; you need to help find the solutions. This government is proposing solutions to the debt and deficit crisis. Even with the measures we are taking, only $300 billion of your debt will be wiped out over the forward estimates—only $300 million. That is less than half of the projected net debt.

It is a very serious situation. It is a debt crisis. We are not a big nation and we are not an economy with a huge GDP that can afford to sustain large levels of debt. It is not enough to point to Europe, the sick countries in the world and the United States—they would kill to be in our position. They do not know how to solve their debt problems and return to the level we are at. They look at us with envy. It is not appropriate for us to chase them at the fastest rate of debt growth of anywhere in the world, especially in the current world economic climate. Take the member for Chisholm's previous points about us. She lamented us not being competitive. At the moment we are certainly not competitive with countries in Asia which have low taxation rates and economies that are very competitive—countries that are structurally geared towards encouraging investment, entrepreneurship and development.

Opposition members interjecting—

It is galling to hear members opposite interjecting on this point. You could go to Singapore where the corporate tax rate is capped at 17 per cent; no wonder business wants to go there from Australia. People are now making investments all around the world and looking at Australia, saying, 'The top marginal tax rate is almost 50c in the dollar. Why would I invest in Australia?' It is unacceptably high all through the income tax scales, all the way down. That is because we have to pay for all the nonsense that Labor came up with, whether it be the pink batts scheme or the school hall scheme. I had a school in my electorate, the member opposite would be interested to know, where there were only 100 pupils. They already had a library but your last government built them a second library. The second library, you might be interested to know, member for Banks, did not have air conditioning and did not have any internet connections. The first library was better than the second library. That poor little school got two libraries for 100 pupils. That was the Labor government. That is the Labor way: spend money willy-nilly because it is not yours and you never have to pay it back.

In this budget we have taken tough decisions. The budget is tough because it needs to be. It is not tough because we want it to be but because we are in the context of $667 billion of projected net debt. We have one of the fastest growing net debts in the OECD. Without structural reform we will go further into debt and be paying off this debt for a long time to come, off the prosperity of future generations of Australians. That is a position I am not prepared to accept. I fully support the budget measures. It is difficult and tough, and I understand that many people, not only from my electorate but all around Western Sydney and Sydney in general, will find this a tough budget. But they will acknowledge that this is a necessary budget when we pay back $300 billion of Labor's debt and we have smaller interest bills to pay and more money for the federal government to do good work.

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