Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am asked a question about spending by the Leader of the Opposition, who was a cabinet minister and, before that, was Assistant Treasurer. In the entire time they were in office they didn't deliver a single surplus. They promised one in the first year and didn't deliver one for the next nine years. We turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion surplus.

I am asked about spending, so I will give some examples of the reckless spending of those opposite. There was $4 billion to cancel the French submarine deal, $1.8 billion paid out to victims of robodebt, $444 million went to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation without a tender process or even consulting the foundation and $660 million was for commuter car parks where there were no train stations. There was $423 million for an offshore processing contract awarded to a firm registered to a shack on Kangaroo Island. There was $100 million of sports rorts, with funding based on a colour-coded spreadsheet. There was $70 million on a COVIDSafe app that found only two unique positive COVID cases. Speaking of COVID, do you remember the $10 million on a new 'Australian made' logo that looked like a COVID molecule? They spent $10 million on it for it never to be seen again. Then there was the land at Western Sydney for the airport—the Leppington land scandal. Ten times its value they paid. That's before you get to the $20 billion of JobKeeper paid to companies that were increasing their profits. That's before you get to the $29 billion in NBN cost blowouts and the $31 million cost blowout in one project—Inland Rail.

It takes some gumption to come in here and ask about spending. What we're doing is investing in education and training. We're investing in Australia's future while we are delivering responsible economic management, which is why we've cut inflation in half.

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