Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I say that we are doing so much in this nation to make sure that we are both fair and responsible—because we acknowledge the task that was left to us by a Labor government: it was a previous Labor government that left us hundreds of billions of dollars in debt. And with every decision that we make, we have to deal with that task. The Australian people might have forgotten about the debt that the Labor government left for us, but might I remind them that when Mr Howard and Mr Costello left government, the treasuries were overflowing with money. Yet, through the term of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, they just squandered it all, sending our nation hundreds of billions of dollars into debt, and now we are trying to deal with this issue. I would now like to refer the question to the relevant minister to finish the answer.

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