Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The point I am making is that the idea that this fine minister should somehow be disqualified from serving simply because of a mistake made in the heat of the moment is simply absurd.

On the question of the budget, our budget strategy is simple. It is to get the budget back to surplus as quickly as we can and as responsibly as we can. Members opposite know that that is the right strategy because we had statement after statement from members opposite saying that we needed, to quote the Leader of the Opposition, 'a budget surplus for a strong economy'. They all know that a budget surplus matters. The problem is that they never delivered it. In the famous statement of the member for Lilley, he said: 'The four years of surpluses that I announce tonight.' He announced that in 2012. Labor has not delivered a surplus since 1989. On the form that members opposite show, Labor is simply congenitally incapable of delivering a surplus.

We heard the Leader of the Opposition on radio the other day. He said:

… we're more likely to get back to surplus under a Labor government than this current mob.

Really? They have opposed every savings measure. This Leader of the Opposition has opposed every savings measure, including his own. He is not trying to create a budget surplus; he is trying to sabotage a budget surplus. He says he wants a budget surplus, but he is not prepared to support a single measure designed to deliver it. This is a Labor Party that have absolutely given up on governing or even pretending to govern this country. They were incompetent in government. They are wreckers in opposition. They are the budget saboteurs par excellence.

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