Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. Will the minister update the House on the government's plan to return the budget to surplus and of any threats to these plans?

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Holt for his question and I can report to him that the budget will—

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting—

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

Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will withdraw.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to report that the budget will be back in the black, that we will have more jobs for Australians and that we will spread the opportunity of the mining boom across this nation. We will bring the budget back into surplus by 2012-13. The government has a strong fiscal strategy in place that has us on track to return to surplus well ahead of our peers. The strategy will ensure that, as we go forward, our public finances continue to be amongst the strongest in the developed world. This is the right economic strategy for the times and the right strategy for an economy which is expected to be pushing up against capacity over coming years.

We have a strict fiscal strategy to get us back on track. We are allowing the level of tax receipts to recover naturally as the economy improves and we will be maintaining the government's commitment to keep the tax share of GDP below the 2007-08 level left by our predecessors. We have a strict spending cap in place. We have been offsetting every single dollar in new spending. In fact, over the last three budgets, we have saved something like $83.6 billion. Members of the House might be interested to know that that number is seven times the savings put in place by the former government in their last three budgets. I have been asked to talk about what risks there are to these plans. Mr Speaker, I can tell you that the risk to these plans sits opposite. The Leader of the Opposition is a risk to these plans to get us out of deficit. If we were to use the opposition numbers as economic strategy, we would be in deficit every year over the next four years. On their latest reckoning, not only are the Liberals stuck in the red next year but they remain there for every single year of the budget. This would be three years after the shadow Treasurer, interestingly, the other day committed to getting the budget, if they were in charge, to surplus by next year; yet their other numbers show it would take them at least another three years. The mob opposite have a track record and well might the opposition—

Opposition members interjecting—

The opposition are yelling out because they know what is coming. They know that in the election they had an $11 billion con job. Remember the con job. Treasury and Finance dissected their savings after the election and it was found that they had an $11 billion black hole. Hang your heads in shame, Coalition. And then, when they tried to work out where to find some new ideas, let us not forget that they went down the road to the outhouse of conservative politics and asked One Nation for their ideas. There is no doubt that there is a very real risk to this budget surplus, and they sit opposite.

On Thursday night the opposition have a clear choice: they can support the plans to return this budget to surplus by 2012-13 or they can squib the challenge. Budget week is not just about the government but about the opposition, and our challenge to the opposition is don't squib the challenge of taking the budget into surplus. None of us will forget, of course, that the opposition leader squibbed it last year. He handballed it to Joe Hockey the next Wednesday, who handballed it to poor old Andrew Robb, who was left to try and find the cuts.