Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline the state of the economy and the budget inherited by the current government?

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

I congratulate the member for Moore on his outstanding maiden speech yesterday as well.

I will release the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook next Tuesday at the Press Club, and I will there lay down before the Australian people, in all of its detail, the state of the budget that we have inherited from Labor and the state of the economy that we have inherited from Labor. That will illustrate to the Australian people that that government was the most reckless government in modern Australian history. It was a government with absolute disregard for Australian taxpayers' money. And the waste—the entrenched waste that was part and parcel of six years of the worst government of Australian history—is going to be revealed in all of its graphic detail. The outlook will also have the appropriate forecasts for the Australian economy. And it will show, based on the September national accounts, the fact that at the moment the Australian economy is locked in below trend growth.

We have rising unemployment. We have falling terms of trade. There is no act of self-delusion as existed under Labor, but we have a plan. We have a plan to get it back. We have a plan to fix the budget. We have a plan to start living within our means. We have a plan to grow the economy. We have a plan that focuses on getting rid of the carbon tax, getting rid of the mining tax, rolling out an agenda for infrastructure that helps to stimulate job growth. We have a plan that gets the balance right in relation to workplace relations, bringing back the Australian Building and Construction Commission, with all of its powers and resources, to stand up to the thuggery of the mates of the Labor Party. We have a plan that focuses on building the infrastructure that is going to drive a stronger economy: better competition laws, a better financial services regime. We have a plan that needs to be rolled out—and it is not just that it can be rolled out; it must be rolled out. When I reveal the mid-year budget numbers next Tuesday—no matter how bad they are, no matter how alarming they will be—I will say emphatically to the Australian people, there is only one way to fix it: give the coalition a free hand to fix the budget, give the coalition a free hand to fix the economy and get the Labor Party and their mates in the Greens out of the way so that we can get our legislative program through the Senate.