Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the 166 occasions that she promised to deliver a surplus. I refer the Treasurer to the 366 occasions that he promised to deliver a surplus. How can the Australian people ever trust the Prime Minister's word when she said on all those occasions that, in order to make life easier for Australians, she would make sure the government lives within its means?

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney will remove his prop. Member for North Sydney, you can seek leave at the end of the question. Meanwhile, you can remove your props.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Speaker. I thank the member for North Sydney for his question. I can see that the summertime fitness regime has involved weight lifting as well. Congratulations to him—well done!

I refer the member for North Sydney to my earlier answer in the House, I refer him to my statements at the National Press Club and I ask him, in what should be a year where there is the time and the space and the certainty for a sophisticated policy debate, to try and deal with the level of sophistication necessary in the economic debate before this nation.

We find ourselves in a circumstance where, per unit of GDP, less revenue is being returned to the government than at any time since the 1990s. Indeed, around the world, other democracies, other developed countries, are also struggling with this phenomenon. There are no doubt cyclical factors at play and, as I indicated in my National Press Club speech, and as the Assistant Treasurer has said on more than one occasion, there may be some things about the accounting of profits in the modern age that need to be thought about and thought about in the context of the G20. We need to deal with facts.

Dealing with the facts and dealing with the revenue write-downs that we have seen, Treasury are doing their best, their best projections after the GFC. We have seen huge write-downs from before the GFC. Then we have seen huge write-downs again that Treasury did not forecast and did not predict. In the circumstances of those write-downs, you have got a clear choice to make: do you focus on jobs and growth or don't you? This is the choice that we faced when the global financial crisis was at its height, and we as a government said, 'You focus on jobs and growth.' I respect that the opposition made the opposite decision, and that is their judgement call. They decided that the nation should not focus on jobs and growth, and that is why they opposed our economic stimulus package. So there is a divide here. We focus on jobs and growth. The opposition is committed to the opposite, to not focusing on jobs and growth.

We are at another moment where a decision needs to be made: do you focus on jobs and growth? We are focusing on jobs and growth. If the member for North Sydney wants to lead the economic debate of the opposition once again into not focusing on jobs and growth, that is a matter for him, and he will be held to account for it. But there is nothing more important to this Labor government than the jobs of working people. We have put them first in the most difficult of economic days, and we will put those jobs first now.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Given now that, on over 500 occasions, she and the Treasurer have said that there will be a surplus, I refer her to her statement in 2011: 'You can't run this country if you can't manage its budget.' Given that this government can't run the budget, Prime Minister, shouldn't you just give up trying to run the country?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the member for North Sydney: first, if he wants to be taken seriously by anyone then he needs to deal with the facts. He knows that what we have seen with the government's budget is a revenue write-down, and he should acknowledge that.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on! Off what?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's the member for North Sydney—good at bellowing, not so good at analysis. I refer him to every statement that has been made by Treasury about revenue write-downs. We have adhered to a medium-term fiscal strategy to contain expenditure. What is happening in the government's budget is not increased expenditure; it is revenue coming down.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's rubbish!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And there is no amount of bellowing, no amount of shaking his head, no amount of denying the facts that gets the member for North Sydney away from that. So we need to deal with that—yes, we do—but I will hold the member for North Sydney to account for the words he said today. I take that to mean that he will publish full costings of all policies in a timely way, and he can start by giving full and proper costings of every policy utterance made by the Leader of the Opposition to date, because not once since the 2010 election has the opposition produced a policy with a proper costing or credible savings. (Time expired)

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I am seeking leave to table several documents.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ease up, buddy. Relax. It's the beginning of a new year.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for North Sydney!

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table 166 promises in writing from the Prime Minister about the surplus and 366 promises from our old mate the Treasurer about a surplus.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, I don't like him!

Leave not granted.