Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Treasurer's December comments that the government will have to make difficult choices in the budget. Which is more important to the Prime Minister: giving four high-income earners an extra $75,000 in PPL or giving $211 to the children of war veterans? Why is the government prioritising cutting the payments of the children of war veterans, including orphans?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a government that will repair the budget, but it is also a government that will keep its commitments. Some of the commitments that we made were quite tough and uncompromising commitments that involved making serious savings, including savings that a lot of people would not like. Even though the income support bonus goes to some 1.3 million Australians, we had the courage to say, pre-election, that it would not be continued under a coalition government, because a coalition government does not believe in spending what it does not have. You cannot give people benefits endlessly on the nation's credit card, and that is the problem with members opposite.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

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

The member for Jagajaga will desist.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They have engaged in a species of intergenerational theft. That is what they have engaged in. Under members opposite, there was $123 billion of cumulative debt, $667 billion of debt, $123 billion of accumulated deficits—that is the problem that we are wrestling with. We will not shirk the difficult decisions needed to engage in the job of fiscal repair, because we understand and we believe the Australian people understand that, if you want to fix the economy, you have got to fix the budget first, and that is exactly what this government will do.