Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to follow the member for Lilley in this debate. I am sorry he is leaving, because he may have been able to get some assistance in understanding how you manage an economy, how you produce growth and how you can leave others who follow with a budget situation that is, in fact, manageable. I must say I am very much aware of the way in which the Labor Party looks at these matters. It came through in the comments of the member for Lilley that we have just heard. The Labor Party seems to have a view that governing enables you to simply dole out money. The fact is they are experts at that. My late father used to say, as an economist, that the coalition are experts at growing the cake, building a bigger economy, and the Labor Party's expertise is only in how you cut up the cake. And I am not even sure they are expert in that.

Labor came into office back in 2007. When they came into office there was a very significant surplus. The government had been running an economy which was growing, creating jobs. The government was able to pay a dividend to taxpayers and there were programs that the Labor Party now criticise and say we should not have had, but which we could afford. Labor came into office and told us, 'It was terrible. We faced a global financial crisis'— not of our making; it was all being done in Europe—'but what we have to do is spend to make sure we don't get into trouble.' We were not in trouble, but they said we had to spend. I must say that the coalition took the view that some spending might have been appropriate, but they not only spent; they spent and spent and spent well more than was necessary to address the issue. I think they had largely forgotten that we continued to have high levels of exports, particularly in the minerals area. We were still receiving income. The idea that we had to cut in the way in which we did I think was flawed, but they went down this route and we are now left with a very significant debt as a consequence. I might say I am not even sure that the spending was altogether appropriate. If you come to my electorate and look at the spending in some of the private schools and what they were able to do with the amount of money that was made available, we got very positive outcomes. When I look at some of my public schools, the way in which they were implemented to a particular model, you had even situations that schools with halls got another one.

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