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

Madam Speaker, I seek the indulgence of the chair to add to an answer.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer may proceed.

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

I report to the House that the government has come to an agreement with the Australian Greens about the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Amendment Bill 2013. The Greens have engaged in honest discussion with us about dealing with the debt limit that was put in place by the Labor Party in 2008. The original debt limit was $75 billion. That was broken by the government. It was increased to $200 billion, and the Labor Party broke that; then $250 billion, and they broke that; and then $300 billion, and they broke that. The Labor Party treated the debt ceiling limit as a target. It is not a target; it is in fact a way of constraining the government in the way it goes about its business. The problem was that Labor could never keep to it. We sought to increase it to $500 billion on the best advice from the Treasury, based on the legacy of debt that we have been given by the Labor Party, together with a $40 billion to $60 billion buffer to reassure the markets that Australia remained open for business.

The fact of the matter is that next week we will reach that $300 billion limit. We did not create this debt; we are now trying to fix it. Immense uncertainty surrounds this issue. The Labor Party have refused briefings from the Treasury. We offered the Leader of the Opposition briefings from the Secretary of the Treasury about this matter; he refused them. When we spoke to the Greens, they were prepared to engage in full and frank discussion.

I table the agreement with Senator Christine Milne. This is the totality of the agreement. There are no side deals. There are no winks and nods about any other issues. The agreement comes down to greater transparency about the debt and how it is used by the government. I have no problems with that at all. We have a mandate to fix the problem and we will fix the problem. But, unfortunately, the Labor Party has consigned itself to irrelevancy in relation to these economic matters—complete irrelevancy. The fact that the Australian Greens were far more amenable to dealing with what is a major problem of the Labor Party's creation, and the fact that they were prepared to deal with us but the Labor Party was not, says everything.

We need to move quickly in dealing with this. Now that an agreement has been struck and that the Greens will be moving amendments in the Senate, I ask the Labor Party not to delay the passage of the legislation. It is one thing to prosecute the argument about the $400 billion, but I urge the Labor Party to deal with this as soon as possible in the Senate and in the House of Representatives to avoid any uncertainty about Australia's capacity to meet its needs. It was a significant issue facing both this House and the Senate over the next few days. The matter has now been resolved.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer did in fact have a question asked of him during question time relating to any deal with the Greens and any terms and conditions that related to it. He has added to his answer by tabling that agreement.