Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to reflect on the fact that the mismanagement of the economy over the last six years means that a Noongar cultural centre within my electorate will not be funded. If we think about the $1 billion we pay per month in interest, all of those initiatives that I have outlined could have been funded with that money in reality. So the aspirations of people in my community are dented by the fact that we do not have the capacity to move forward in the way that they had anticipated and expected. I look forward to a better budget and a better economic future for Australia under the Abbott government. I want to be able to deliver the programs that Hasluck wants and needs, for the constituents who live within my electorate. I look forward to a government with the benefit of hindsight and the establishment for the use of resources that come back into the economy that enables us to build those very things that are the fabric of any community in which we live. To me, mismanagement is an indictment because it has an outcome that is unpalatable. I would hope that Labor has learnt from those last six years and that whenever they come back to the benches they do not squander the opportunities for future Australians.

I commend these bills to the House. I certainly look forward to a future in which our economy prospers and grows, and in which the budget deficit accumulated over the last six years is reduced, and in which we move back, in the long term, to deficit levels that will enable initiatives in my electorate to be funded in the future.

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