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

The economy is a serious subject. This House deserves a serious debate, a debate based on facts and not on scares, and that is exactly what I am going to attempt to give the House. I welcome a debate about economic management; I welcome a debate about economic competence—because economic management is taken seriously by members of this government and, on the evidence so far, it is not taken seriously by members of that opposition.

I have been asked by the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer: what is our economic plan? It is quite simple. We want to get taxes down; we want to get regulation down; we want to get productivity up; we want to get participation up—because what that will do is create more economic growth. But, in order to get taxes down and in order to take the burden off taxpayers and off business, we have to get spending down too. That is the problem. This country does not have a revenue problem; this country has a spending problem because members opposite built permanent expenditure into our system based on temporary revenue. That is the problem. What we need now to do is to adjust spending so that it is more suitable to the long-term revenue that this country can expect.

I am very happy to have a debate over economic management; I am also very happy to have a debate over competence—because this government did not put pink batts in people's roofs only to see them catch fire and houses burn down and lives lost. This government did not put the people smugglers back in business and produce almost 1,000 boats and over 1,000 deaths at sea. This government did not close down the live cattle trade in panic over a television program. This government did not roll out a National Broadband Network costing almost $100 billion, way over budget and way behind schedule. This government did not introduce a carbon tax, which was socialism masquerading as environmentalism. It is worth repeating not scares but facts. This government has stopped the boats and saved lives at sea.

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