Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for that question. Debt is too high—there is no doubt about that. We want to get it down. The best way to get it down is to get the budget back to surplus. The best way to get the budget back to surplus is for Labor, as a start, to support their own savings proposals from the last election.

Labor went to the last election promising $5 billion of savings and, when they came back in opposition, they voted against their own savings. The Labor Party wants us to have increased debt and they are claiming to be concerned about debt. Labor wants us to have increased spending and they claim to be concerned about spending. It does not work for you, because it smacks of hypocrisy.

I would say to the honourable member, as the Prime Minister said, that we inherited a trajectory of $667 billion of gross debt. We are down $110 billion on that. We got it down. We still have work to do. We inherited $123 billion of deficits: We have got that down to $82 billion over a four-year period but we still have more work to do, there is no doubt about that. So I would say to the honourable member, come up to the plate and actually do something to reduce the legacy of debt and deficit left behind by Labor. It was an ugly legacy. I know it is not your fault in particular—I know it is the member for Lilley: He was the one who was doing it, but it gives me no confidence that the Labor Party has now appointed the member for Lilley as the person to frame the policies for the next election.

See this speech in context