Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

We've doubled the deficit? I think you will find it was actually your patterns and projections that increased the deficit. What we have been trying to do is to pare them back, and you oppose it in each and every way. So whilst you lecture us about economic modelling, the reality is that you do nothing to support bringing down the debt of this nation—that debt per individual—and the interest bill of $1 billion a month alone puts added increased cost-of-living pressure on each and every person.

What I would say to the opposition is to take a reality check. What we should be doing is looking at what we can do to flatten out fluctuations in the cost of each litre of fuel where, as I said, the variations on a day-by-day basis are way more than the cost of increase of this excise. I could understand their argument if, indeed, this money were going into consolidated revenue, which is what happened with every tax increase by the former Labor government. This money is being hypothecated into roads.

In fact, there is so much money being spent—$8.7 billion, as I said in 2016-17—on roads alone. There are roadworks such as the East West Link, which is a $3 billion commitment; Adelaide's North-South Corridor, a $944 million commitment; the Perth Freight Link, now $925 million; the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing, now $1.285 million; the Black Spot Program at $564 million; Roads to Recovery at $2.4 billion; the Northern Territory Roads Package at $77 million; the National Highway Upgrade—

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