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

I thank the member for Boothby for her question and for her support, along with all of those on this side of the House and those who have been part of this government since we were first elected six years ago. I thank them for their commitment, their discipline and their sound-mindedness in backing policies that have ensured that in this year we are bringing the budget back to surplus.

A surplus is not an end in itself. A surplus is a means to an end. It is ensuring record spending on infrastructure in modern times and record spending on health and education, and is delivering tax relief to Australians. It is ensuring that we are building the budget again and have two per cent of our GDP being spent on our defence forces. We are doing all of those things, and at the same time we are bringing the budget back to surplus, a surplus that means Australians can have confidence that we can meet the uncertainties that are ahead.

How long those uncertainties will be present no-one can really know, and that's why it's important that you have a government that knows how to be stable and certain, doesn't jump, doesn't lose its nerve and actually can maintain its discipline and not engage in the thoughtless, reckless, ill-considered policies that we saw from Labor when they were last in government and that Australians are still paying for today. We were able to bring the budget back into surplus by getting expenditure under control.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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