Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

He says, 'Proudly'! I do not how you can be proud of $191 billion of achieved deficits. How can you be proud of $123 billion of forecast deficits, which would have resulted in 16 years of deficits in this country? How can he be proud of $667 billion of gross debt, and right now borrowing $1 billion every month just to pay the interest on the debt? If, like the member for Franklin, his abacus continued to borrow into the future, in 10 years time that would be $3 billion of borrowings every month to pay the interest on our debt.

Be that as it may, and the revisionist history that the member for Rankin tries to engage in—my serious question to the parliamentary secretary—

Honourable members interjecting—

Thank you. My question to the parliamentary secretary goes to the proliferation of bureaucratic structures and regulation under the former Labor government over the last six years. Despite promising to limit regulatory impacts—and I think Mr Rudd had a promise of 'one on, one off' when it came to regulation. In their cabinet submissions, every department was going to have a regulatory impact statement. Somehow, we managed to end up with 21,000 new pieces of legislation and regulation. That is 21,000—so much for another promise to the Australian people that was not met by those opposite over the last six years. The people in my electorate have conveyed that as being a little bit like a 1,200 kilometre screwdriver from Canberra.

Honourable members interjecting—

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