David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on this MPI, focusing as it does on the incredibly clear contrast between those opposite—all three of them who are here with us this afternoon—and the members of the government. It is important that we are fair to those opposite. It certainly has been the case in recent times that all we hear from those opposite is negativity, complaining and just whingeing, basically. So you could be excused for thinking that there was no strategy at all over on the other side, and no real philosophy. But there is. There is a very, very clear approach to government on the other side, and their views on how things should be conducted. It is really just three words: spend more money. That is always their view: spend more money.

In 2007 they came into government, kicked off the spendathon and off they went. They were very, very hard to constrain during that period, because government spending went up by 50 per cent in six years. That is a massive rate of growth. There are businesses all around Australia which would be thrilled and delighted if they were able to have that sort of revenue growth in a near-six-year period. The Labor Party had $50 billion in the bank when they came in and $200 billion of debt when they left—heading down the track, incredibly, towards two-thirds of a trillion dollars in debt within a decade. That is trillion with a T. That is not a word we are used to using in Australia very much. It is not the EU. It is not China. It is not the United States. This is Australia. But the path that those opposite—and there is now only one of them still with us—were on was a path towards two-thirds of a trillion dollars of debt; just unbelievable.

They were not content with what they did in those six years. What they decided to do after that was lock in, in their numbers, the fastest rate of growth in the OECD for the next six years. Not content to grow it at 50 per cent for the six years they were in government, they said, 'Let's lock in dramatically higher rates of spending from 2012 to 2018.' They never saw a government-spending program that they did not like! There are so many examples.

We have talked about the NBN many times. It is remarkable, knowing what we now know about the NBN—from $4.7 billion of government investment, then to $43 billion. We now know that it was on track to be $72 billion. It is fascinating, because the member for Lilley, in 2009, at the time of the grave announcement of the NBN, encouraged Australian mums and dads to invest in the NBN. He actually said, 'There couldn't be a better investment,' than the NBN. That is what he said. This man was the Treasurer of the entire nation.

We are paying $1 billion of debt every month. What do we get for our $1 billion? We get to stand still. We borrow $1 billion and, once we have done that, we get to stand still at a debt level of about $200 billion, which is just extraordinary.

This budget addresses the significant problems that were created by the previous government. Importantly, because it is a prudent budget and a careful budget, there is the capacity to invest where it is sensible to do so—for example, in infrastructure. The WestConnex in my own electorate will be a fantastic initiative, cutting travel time to the city by more than 20 minutes. There are of course other great programs, such as the Restart program, which will encourage employers to employ older workers. We need to remember that, within the prudent envelope of this budget, we have provided for record levels of spending in hospitals and schools. Every year they go up and up, and continue to go up.

All of this hard work, cleaning up all the mess means that we save $300 billion that we would otherwise have incurred in debt. We go from a $50 billion deficit to just $3 billion within a few years and we address those difficult structural problems. We have ended the spendathon; someone had to do it. That is what coalition governments do. What those opposite do is spend like there is no tomorrow and that is the wrong plan for Australia.

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