Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was another Labor shame, that is right, and Labor should apologise. Once again we see the extent of Labor's inability to responsibly handle precious—and they are—taxpayer dollars. What we see here is Labor's typical practice of treating Treasury like a union slush fund. Unless we take action debt will rise to $667 billion within 10 years. That will leave every Australian with a debt of around $23,000 per person.

Under the previous Labor government more than $16 billion was stripped from the defence budget. This included a 10.5 per cent cut in 2012-13, the largest single cut to the defence budget since the end of the Korean conflict. This resulted in the share of GDP spent on defence falling to 1.56 per cent, the lowest since 1938.

Who can forget these fantastic contributions to Labor's greatest hits of budgetary calamities? The Rudd-Gillard government's six years of chaos, waste and mismanagement delivered higher taxes, record boat arrivals and debt and deficit as far as the eye can see. Labor turned $50 billion in the bank into a projected net debt of well over $200 billion, the fastest deterioration in debt in dollar terms and as a share of GDP in modern Australian history. Labor's debt is already costing $1 billion a month in net interest payments, and that is all borrowed money.

We have a government that is turning this around. We did not cause the problem but, unlike Labor, we are committed to fixing this problem. I would like to just say that all of my election commitments have been delivered, particularly the commitment on the new gate at Enoggera Barracks. We are about delivering. We are about turning budgets into surpluses. (Time expired)

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