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

I am sure the member for Fraser, sitting at the table, does not want to hear that this coalition government has created 300,000 new jobs in the economy in the last 12 months. As we know, economic growth in the last 12 months has been three per cent. It exceeds any G7 nation. We are leading the world. The economy is heading in the right direction.

The dangers are what we hear from this Labor government. We also need to remember how ham strung the coalition has been in creating those 300,000 new jobs and getting that level of growth above the G7 nations. You know what? This government has to find $13 billion, every year, just to pay the interest on the debt that you guys ran up. Every month, we have to pay a bill of $1 billion in interest—because of your waste and reckless spending. That money could have gone to schools, to education, to kids with disabilities, to roads and to hospitals. We cannot use that.

It all has to go to paying interest on the debt from Labor's reckless spending. Yet we have this good record so far. What should really concern every single Australian is that if this Labor government were ever in power they would simply give more power to their union masters. We saw the story today about their mates in the ACT Labor government doing a secret deal.

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