David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It's good to be able to respond to the questions from the member for North Sydney. I also want to pick up on some of the comments from the member for Rankin. The member for North Sydney rightly points to the importance of fiscal constraint. He asks about that because he knows that the Australian people want their government to live within its means and he knows that the Australian people expect their governments to take a prudent and cautious approach to spending the money of the people. And there is a tremendous contrast between the prudent observations of the member for North Sydney and those opposite, because, when the member for Rankin was the chief of staff to the Treasurer of Australia, the real growth in spending under the previous government was some four per cent on average per year. It was very, very high—four per cent every year. Under this government—and this really goes to the heart of the query from the member for North Sydney—the average growth in real spending has been just 1.9 per cent per year, and, when you're talking about a budget of literally hundreds of billions of dollars, that difference between four per cent on average and 1.9 per cent is immense. And the good news is that, in this budget, the forecast rate of growth of spending declines even further to 1.6 per cent, and that comes through the hard work of going through each program carefully and of thinking, when one is going to spend the people's money, that it is just that—the people's money. It's not the government's money. It is money that has been generated by the hard work and enterprise of the Australian people, and we need to be very judicious and careful in how we spend it.

We also know that government net debt is expected to peak in this financial year—the financial year that ends in less than two weeks. And we expect that net debt will be reduced by some $30 billion over the next four years. So it is very important: we are turning the corner from that appalling legacy of debt and deficit that those opposite left us. We know they haven't passed a surplus budget since 1989, and the member knows that 1989 was a very long time ago. There have been no surpluses under those opposite since that period, some 29 years ago. And so, Member for North Sydney, it is pleasing that we are in a position of turning the corner on net debt and of paying an estimated $30 billion over the forward estimates, and it is an extraordinary contrast with those opposite, because what we saw under those opposite was the requirement for more and more spending to be addressed to interest payments. Of course, when they came into office there was no net debt. There was some $16 billion of cash in the bank, and they turned that around to a net debt of close to $200 billion—a very, very poor result indeed.

I want to also address a number of the comments of the member for Bruce and the member for Rankin. The member for Bruce should be assured that the process in relation to equity accounting is as it has always been—the Auditor-General is required to sign off on the government's financial statements, including the treatment of any equity-accounted investments. That's as it should be. That's a very sensible and prudent approach. There are specific rules in relation to the classification of an investment as equity: it must be outside the government sector, there must be an expectation that the investment will be recovered in real terms and the government must exercise reasonable control over its investment. These are all the sorts of questions to which the Auditor-General turns their mind.

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