Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Casey for his question and his strong contribution to matters economic in this place. He is also one of a small band of optimistic Carlton supporters in this place. This budget delivers for families, jobs and growth and it reigns in government spending. We inherited government spending that was increasing at 3.6 per cent, and the IMF said that, of 17 OECD countries, Australia had the highest and fastest rate of spending growth. But as a result of our policies we have reduced spending growth to about 1.5 per cent over the forward estimates, and debt under us will be $110 billion lower than it would be under the Labor Party.

I was asked about any alternative approaches. The biggest alternative approach and the biggest risk comes from the Leader of the Opposition, the man sitting opposite. Consider this: in his budget-in-reply speech, the Leader of the Opposition spent an additional $220 million every minute. He started the speech with a $52 billion black hole and he finished the speech with a $58.6 billion black hole. Forget Lee Majors, the six million dollar man. We now have Bill Shorten, the sixty billion dollar man! Consider this: in Labor's year of big ideas, all the Leader of the Opposition can come up with is higher taxes. Whether it is a reheated carbon tax or whether it is a slug on people's super, more than 400,000 Australians' savings will be hit.

Consider this: the closest the Leader of the Opposition has ever come to a budget surplus was in the newsletter that he released to his electorate where he said:

… back to surplus on time, as promised …

Now, you can still get this community newsletter on his website today. It is still there. We know the Leader of the Opposition can be quite profound: 'The future is the present.'

…everybody is somebody.

And,

If you don't know where you're going, every road'll get you there.

But, dare I say it, he has matched it in a press conference during budget week. When asked about his economic plan for the country, he said:

If you can see down the road what's coming, then what you've got to do is get on with it and deal with it.

I do not know what Labor is dealing with, but it is definitely not dealing with the debt and deficit that Labor left behind.

See this speech in context