Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

in 2017-18, $18 billion, a six per cent increase; and, in 2018-19, at the end of the forwards, $18.8 billion. Education funding goes up every single year, and I can say the same thing about hospital funding. It increases from $16.4 billion to $18.9 billion over the budget and forwards.

What I find puzzling about the questions from the opposition is that they seem to be suggesting to the Australian people that the opposition are going to be committing to some other form of increased spending by the nature of their questions. But we know that they have given no commitment whatsoever, they have not talked anywhere, about the levels of spending that they are now suggesting, and they are trying this three-card trick with the Australian people by raising these issues. But what they do have a problem with is something very specific: they have more than a $50 billion budget black hole when it comes to their failure to identify savings and their failure to identify the revenue to pay for all these things they say they can do.

What people will get from us is complete transparency on these issues—complete transparency. We say what we spend and we say what we save, and we know we need to get greater control of spending. Those opposite are putting a great falsehood to the Australian people with their pretending in this area. They are saying that they will increase spending in these areas, but they have nothing with which to pay for it. That is what we saw when they were in government, as they dug Australia deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. Those opposite have learnt nothing, absolutely nothing, from their time in opposition. That is why they will never be ready to come back to government.

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