Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Will the minister outline the need to maintain a strong budget surplus? What is the government’s response to suggestions that the surplus be eroded?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his question. The government is committed to responsible economic management, to maintaining a very strong surplus and to very substantial infrastructure funds for investment in Australia’s long-term economic prosperity for the future. We have inherited an inflation rate at a 16-year high and 10 interest rate increases in a row, putting serious pressure on working people in this country and of course, most significantly, increased government spending at a rate above five per cent per annum in real terms. That is why the government had to take strong action to ensure that we have fiscal settings putting downward pressure on inflation and interest rates and to ensure that Australia’s government is investing for the long term—investing in infrastructure, investing in growing our economic capacity and putting long-term downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

Ever since the budget was handed down it has been under threat in the Senate. The strong fiscal settings that the government put in place in the budget have been under threat as the Liberal Party have taken a very strong stand in favour of cheaper Ferraris and Porsches, in favour of cheaper alcohol for teenage drinkers and in favour of higher taxes on middle-income Australians—a strong stand from the Liberal Party, reflecting where they really stand on the big issues facing the nation.

That is not all. Along with blocking these initiatives, the Liberal Party, under the former Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bradfield, willy-nilly made big spending promises over the past six to nine months without ever once hinting where the money to pay for those promises might come from. I will mention just a few: pensions, fuel excise and infrastructure in schools. If you actually add up the dollars, you will see that the total cost to the 2008 budget surplus of their actions in the Senate—and only three of their unfunded promises—would be in excess of $4 billion and the total cost in the 2009 budget would be well over $5 billion.

As we all know, we have just had a change of opposition leader. The first question that the new Leader of the Opposition needs to answer is whether he is going to maintain the commitments made by his predecessor. Is he going to maintain the irresponsible spending commitments and the wrecking attacks on the budget in the Senate? The member for Bradfield has gone off into exile. He has joined the member for Higgins in indefinite exile in the political twilight zone up beyond the bleachers. The member for Higgins thinks it is still his surplus. He has not noticed there has been a change of government. If it is his surplus, why doesn’t he defend it against attacks from the vandals in his own party?

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The issue is relevance. I thought this was a day of great concern to the Australian community and that we didn’t need jokes from a bad actor.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wilson, when you discover a sense of humour, I will start making jokes.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will get back to his response.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have seen recently a fair degree of posturing from the opposition on the issue of the pension rate. It was rightly pointed out yesterday by a number of members of the government that only about 12 months ago the people undertaking this posturing actually had an opportunity to do something about this. Amazingly enough, they did not.

I want to add another point to illustrate how hollow and hypocritical these people are. Not only were they not doing anything; let us have a look at some of the things they were doing. For example, in the last 16 months of the Howard government—when the member for Bradfield was a cabinet minister, the Leader of the Opposition was a cabinet minister and the member for Higgins was Treasurer—they spent $457 million on government advertising. That would have helped a few pensioners! They spent $350 million—about three times the ordinary amount spent on industrial relations—on the infamous Work Choices. And they managed to top $4½ billion in government grants—10 times the amount they spent on government grants only five years before that. So, as well as looking at the things they did not do for pensioners less than a year ago, we should be looking at what they actually did spend the money on and why government spending was increasing at the rate of five per cent per annum, all in order to save their political hides.

Regardless of the turmoil in the opposition and regardless of who the leader is, they do not change their spots. They stand for irresponsible economic management, they stand for wasteful, short-term spending of government money and they stand for the interests of well-off Australians at the expense of working people and pensioners.