Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

It was 1989. I remember Wyatt Roy say in this place that he didn't think he'd seen one in his lifetime. So we know you'll never be able to deliver a surplus. We know that you will place this country into debt. We know that future Australians will be saddled with a burden that will take years and years to pay off. That is what you are promising. It is the most radical change that this nation has seen since Whitlam was in power. No opposition has promised to increase taxes like you are, to increase spending like you are and to saddle this country with the debt that you will.

When it comes to our government, what we're able to do is, through sound economic management, deliver record funding for schools, record funding for hospitals and record funding for infrastructure. We know that, while we're doing that, we can deliver a surplus and we can start repaying the debt that you mounted up when you were last in government. That is going to be the contrast that we will put to the Australian people at the next election, and it will be a stark contrast: big-taxing, big-spending opposition policies versus sound economic management on this side. The Australian people will know that, through our delivering of a strong economy, when we make promises, we can keep them. When we say that we have record levels of funding for schools, for hospitals and for infrastructure, they know that it is there because of our sound economic management. They know that what you are promising to try to deliver we will never, ever see. It will never see the light of day.

We only have to look back at education, for instance. What happened with the Building the Education Revolution? Six billion dollars was wasted. It didn't lead to a better outcome for a student. It was $6 billion of waste. We know you are about big spending and big taxes. We on this side know about sound economic management that can deliver the programs, the education policies, the health policies and the infrastructure outcomes that this nation needs. I can't wait till we get that election campaign going, because you'll be there measuring up the curtains and we'll be making sure that you never, ever get the chance to put them there.

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