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

I do not do this often but I will quote the member for Lilley, the former Treasurer—and he will remember these words; they were wise words. In 2010 at the National Press Club, he said in relation to the release of the Intergenerational report:

Faced with these budget challenges, we essentially have three options. We can cut government services or increase taxes; we can allow budget pressures to build and leave the problem for future generations to deal with; or we can take steps now to grow our economy.

We are actually following that advice—at least on this one occasion, when it comes to the member for Lilley—in ensuring that we deal with the challenge of fiscal consolidation and we grow our economy by supporting lower rates of tax for businesses so they can employ more Australians, so they can reinvest in their companies and so they can take themselves forward. But those opposite have a very different approach. What they are doing is standing in the way of getting the budget back into balance, by refusing to expect a government to be able to get expenditure under control. They refuse to acknowledge that our spending must be affordable and that you just cannot keep running up the bill and expecting others to pay for it.

Those opposite are like a father and/or mother taking their kids out for a dinner, and they order up big and order everything they can—put it on the table; put it on the table—and then, before the bill comes, they walk out the door and they do a runner, leaving the kids to pay the bill. The Leader of the Opposition is used to people picking up the bill for him when it comes to his dining expenses, but our children should not have to pick up the bill for those opposite, who want to keep running up the bill. We think that spending should be affordable. We think we should be able to get that in order. We simply ask those opposite to not tax future generations of Australians because they, those opposite, cannot get control of expenditure.

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