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

As the member for Fairfax knows, you never want to end up in an economic trough. You do not want to end up in a trough, because when you end up in a trough you get yourself into trouble. And of course if you keep spending money that you do not have—or other people's money, which is even worse—you can end up in the trough. From our perspective, we want Australia to be strong and robust. We want Australians to be prosperous, and the best way to do that is for Australia to live within its means. And the second thing you should do is understand that we cannot continue to put expenditure on the credit card. We cannot continue to build up deficit and debt that we cannot afford to repay over a long period of time. That is why we have made the tough decisions, the difficult decisions, but the right decisions in the budget.

Ms Owens interjecting—

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