Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Jagajaga has just spoken for close to 20 minutes in this debate on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill (No. 2) 2015. In those 20 minutes this nation has had to borrow another $1.4 million. And we will borrow another $1.4 million in the next 20 minutes, and so on and so on, every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year for the next two years as we try to bring this budget under control. What this means is that we are continuing to add to the debt burden which we will hand on to our children and our grandchildren.

It is all very well for the member for Jagajaga to come in here, whinge and complain about the difficult job that we in the coalition have to do in trying to repair this budget, but, mind you, Madam Deputy Speaker, it was a problem that was created by the member for Jagajaga when she sat on the Treasury benches—when she was sitting in that Labor cabinet which ticked off all that reckless and wasteful expenditure, which turned the $20 billion of budget surplus they inherited into record deficit. It put this nation into so much red ink, for which we now have to find $13 billion every year—not to pay for family tax benefits or to give to kids with disabilities or to health care or to public transport or to education. That $13 billion, which could otherwise have gone to those very needy causes, simply has to go to pay the interest on the debt that they created. They are the ones who come in here after causing all the mess and causing the reasons this budget repair is needed to whinge and complain about fairness.

The member for Jagajaga talked about the fairness test. There is nothing more unfair than running deficit budget after deficit budget. Even with all the hard work that this coalition government is currently doing and all the unpopular steps we are forced to take to wind that budget deficit back, we will be looking at a decade of budget deficit. If you are looking for something that is unfair, that is unfair. It means that the children we are talking about—the beneficiaries of the family tax benefit—will have to pay higher taxes and they will have fewer government services in the future simply because over the last decade we have been spending too much money.

Ms Hall interjecting—

I hear the member for Shortland interjecting. She is a champion at coming in here and complaining about some of the tough measures that we have made. I remember the member for Shortland was there voting every time over the last six years when Labor was on its reckless spending spree, racking up the debt. I hope that, when the member for Shortland goes out doorknocking, she apologises to her electors for creating that debt through all that wasteful expenditure which she never spoke up against. I hope you go and apologise and explain to your constituents that every single year now $13 billion has to be found just to pay the interest on the debt that you are responsible for. I hope you apologise to them.

I also hope that members of the Labor Party would at least listen to their former leader, Paul Keating, for over the last couple of days—and it is not often, I must admit, that I would agree with the words of Paul Keating but this time I am in lockstep with him—he said:

…commodity prices have dropped, budget revenues are falling. When commonwealth revenue has been so affected the penny ought to drop that we should be cutting spending.

He is right: the penny ought to drop but, unfortunately, it has not on the other side of the chamber. They think they can continue to borrow and spend and tax and borrow some more and spend some more. They simply do not understand the damage that they are doing to the future prospects of this country.

None of us likes to make these hard decisions. All of us would like to continue to spend and hand out benefits left, right and centre to all our constituents, but the government does not have any money. The only way we can get that money is to increase taxes and to continue to borrow. That is the worst possible thing we can do.

The other thing we need to make a note of is that the money we are borrowing to finance government spending is mainly coming from overseas. It means those interest payments we make actually have to go out of the country. One concern I hear a great deal about from my constituents is that foreign companies are coming in and buying up parts of Australia. They say, 'We are getting further and further behind. There more and more foreigners owning parts of Australia.' When we continue to borrow money, we are getting ourselves further and further into debt with foreigners, and more and more foreign entities are owning a bigger part of Australia. That is because we are borrowing from them to pay our ongoing expenses.

There should be one word that we have for all pieces of legislation in this place—sustainability. We cannot continue to spend unsustainably. We like to talk and teach about it in the schools we go to. We hear sustainability as one of the buzzwords. I would like them to learn about economic sustainability; that is what we need to focus on. We cannot continue in the way we are going because we should—even after this last decade of deficits—look at what is down the track for us. Look at how our age profile is changing; look at the ratio of people of traditional working age between 16 and 64 to people aged over 65. Go back to 1974-75, when we had 7.3 people of working age to every person over 65; now we are down to 4.5 people. For every person over the age of 65, we have their expenditures and their pensions being sustained by those 4.5 people of working age.

If we take the projections forward to the year 2050, we are looking at having only 2.7 people of working age for every person aged over 65. If we cannot balance the budget on the current demographics that we have, what hope do future generations have when we will have such a ratio of people of working age to people aged over 65? This is the obligation that we have, and we need to fix it now. We cannot continue with this reckless spending.

The member for Jagajaga talked about how this would affect single parents. There is some good news in this for single parents. I will give you the example of a single mother with one child who is three years old. The child attends long day care four days per week while her mother is at work. Assuming the mother's income in 2018-19—that is, three years down the track—is $68,000, under the new childcare subsidy she would be $2,845 better off after the new family tax benefit changes have been taken into account. These horrendous cuts that the member for Jagajaga is trying to frighten constituents with are simply not true.

But we need to make some tough decisions. We as a nation simply cannot continue to spend and tax and borrow in the way that we have been. Some hard decisions need to be made. I would hope that members of the opposition, rather than whingeing and whining and complaining, tell the truth to their constituents, admit the problems that we have and work with the coalition to try and bring our budget back to balance. With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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