Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please outline the outlook for the coming budget? How will repairing the budget help everyday Australians?

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

I thank the honourable member for Petrie for his question and I note that the only way we can start strengthening the Australian economy is to start strengthening the Australian budget—we inherited from Labor $123 billion of deficits and $667 billion of debt. We will be unable to fix this problem unless we actually are allowed to get on with the job of strengthening the budget. The budget is presented for a four-year period. That has been happening for some period of time. At the last election, the Labor Party said that the deficit this year would be $47 billion and, subsequently, $34 billion in the second year, a $24 billion deficit in the third year and a $18 billion deficit in the fourth year.

In the upcoming budget in May, for the first time, the fifth year comes in. When we were in opposition, we continually pointed out that Labor were pushing a tsunami of new spending into the fifth year. For the first time, we are starting to get a picture of it. In the fifth year, we have in real terms an increase in education expenditure of 3½ per cent. Labor said it would not be more than two per cent. In health, we see an increase of 4.2 per cent. Labor said it would not be more than two per cent. In defence, we see an increase of 13 per cent in one year—back ended expenditure by Labor. They said it would not be more than two per cent. For overseas aid, foreign aid, Labor back loaded in the fifth year a 66 per cent increase in foreign aid. And, of course, in disability spending, there will be a 125 per cent increase as the NDIS comes into play. And it was not properly paid for.

There is no surprise here that Labor engaged in insidious activity to hide the fact that they were burying in the out years, burying beyond the election, a massive tsunami of increases in expenditure, and they have no shame. There is no sense of embarrassment.

The IMF surveyed 17 leading countries and identified that the Labor Party left the biggest increase in expenditure of the 17 top IMF countries in the world. It was the biggest increase in expenditure and the fastest increase in debt of the 17 surveyed nations. That is the Labor legacy. I say to the people of Australia, and I say to all the members of the House: we are going to set about fixing this problem in the best interests of the Australian people.