Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Higgins fully understands and appreciates the mess that we have inherited after six years of chaos. Labor left Australia with a broken budget, a damaged economy and a serious mess to fix, and I know that this was no more better demonstrated than in the state of Victoria where we have got transport systems and infrastructure chaos needing to be repaired, and we are getting on with the job.

When the Prime Minister was first elected, he said he wanted to be the infrastructure Prime Minister. I know that he also stated, quite clearly and quite categorically, that we were once again open for business. He, as well the trade minister, have led important delegations and taken a lot of Victorian business people with them to open up preferential trade agreements with both Korea and Japan, which will mean considerable investments for Victoria into the future and getting on with the job of improving those key transport areas in Melbourne. Regional Victoria will follow, and, as the member for Higgins pointed out, it will lead to improved and bolstered productivity.

When Labor came to office, as we heard the member for Higgins say—and she would know, as she worked for Peter Costello, one of the great Treasurers of this nation—they inherited a surplus of $20 billion with no net debt and $45 billion in the bank. Between 2008-09 and 2012-13, Labor delivered deficits totalling $191 billion. Labor left additional project deficits of $123 billion over the next four years—so that is going up to 2016-17. As the member for Higgins pointed out, we are paying at the moment $12 billion of debt annually thanks to Labor's mess. That equates to $1 billion a month—you could build a lot of roads, rail infrastructure, schools or hospitals with that $1 billion each and every month that we are paying down.

The Deputy Prime Minister—the Minister for Infrastructure—has correctly pointed out that, if left unchecked, that is going to be $3 billion per month of money that we will not have to invest in Melbourne or regional Victoria. We have got to pay down that debt so that we can then get on with the job of building the important infrastructure not just for Victoria, New South Wales or the ACT—which the shadow minister proudly represents—but indeed for all of Australia. We do need to have productivity-building infrastructure. The Abbott-Truss government has reduced Labor's deficits by $43.8 billion through to 2017-18. Gross government debt is also forecast to be $389 billion in 2023-24, compared with $667 billion that Labor left us. Certainly, if we do not do something, our future generations are going to inherit a far worse mess than what we have got now.

As the member for Higgins pointed out, the trouble is that Labor spent way beyond the hidden amounts in their budgets. They left us with budget booby traps in every cupboard door that we opened in Treasury and Finance. There was $1.2 billion secretly cut from schools. There were projects funded by non-existent mining tax revenue. Labor spent money that they had never earned to the tune of $16 billion—that is $16,000 million of mining tax revenue that never realised anywhere near the amount projected. A virtually broke Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a really important agency, was left virtually penniless by the federal government. There was no funding for offshore processing, although we heard in question time today of the numbers of projected people who were supposed to come to Australia in the first six months—we have been in government nearly nine months now—but have not come, because our policies are working. They are policies ridiculed by the other side.

The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection is getting on with the job of stopping the boats, which is also going to help pay down our debt, because we are not spending the amount of money on detention centres—nine of which we have closed—in processing people who arrive unauthorised on our shores. We fixed up depleted Reserve Bank reserves, another problem of Labor's. There are 96 non-enacted tax measures—more hidden costs left by Labor.

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