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

But the Labor Party do not care. They are happy to see our children pay for our standard of life now. Well, that is unacceptable to the coalition. We will not pass the debt burden on to the next generation of Australians. We are going to deal with it now and it must be dealt with now otherwise the challenge gets greater and greater—the debt goes up to $667 billion and that is based on the assumption that we do not have over the next decade any severe economic downturns, and based on the assumption that we will have another 10 years of continuous economic growth. We have already had over 22 years of continuous economic growth, one of the longest periods of economic growth in world history in recent times. Very few countries can boast of a period of growth. The reason why we have had that period of growth is that previous governments undertook the reforms to ensure that the economy got stronger and that budgets were sustainable—and they were Labor governments and they were coalition governments. But the last six years of Labor defined recklessness. The last six years of Labor was the most cowardly government Australia has seen in more than a generation. Why so? Because they failed to deliver on their words and the Labor Party failed to prepare Australia for the challenges of the future.

Ms King interjecting—

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