Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. This morning the Treasurer said that the independent pre-election economic forecast was wrong. But in June, the Minister for Social Services—a person who has an interest in such matters—said, and I quote:

… as we know, the PEFO is where the officials tell the truth about what the budget really is …

Prime Minister: who is right? The Treasurer? The wannabe Treasurer? Or should we check with the member for Wentworth?

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

Well, Madam Speaker, I can tell you who is always wrong, and that is the members opposite.

Every single budget prediction was always wrong! They said the right thing: they said that we needed a stronger budget for a stronger economy. They said a budget surplus was important. But they never, ever delivered. They thought the budget surplus was so important that they claimed actually to have delivered one! The Leader of the Opposition himself was constantly bombarding his own electorate with claims that a budget surplus had already been achieved.

Let's look at what members opposite said before the election and what actually happened. They said as we were going into the election that the budget deficit for 2013-14 would be $18 billion. Well, it turned out not to be $18 billion but $48 billion, a budget black hole of unparalleled proportions that they created, that they knew about and that they should have been up-front and honest about. They were fundamentally dishonest before the election. And no wonder that this government has had to take very strong action—very strong action—to bring the budget under control.

We know what this Leader of the Opposition is against. He is against budget reform and he is against any savings whatsoever—even savings that he supported in government. He supported the savings in government and he banked them, but he failed to legislate them and then he opposes them in opposition! That is the kind of fraudulence that we get from the Leader of the Opposition.

This Leader of the Opposition is against anything that might be unpopular. He is even against a South Australian Labor government studying nuclear energy. So far this Leader of the Opposition's only contribution to public policy is to run around the country screaming, 'That's unfair!' What is unfair is the fact that this Leader of the Opposition helped to create a budget disaster. They booby-trapped the budget in government and now they are sabotaging the task of budget repair. Well, the Australian people are awake to this guy.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're awake to you!

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

The member for Isaacs will desist!

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

The Australian people understand: Shorten by name, shorten by nature—short on trust, short on credibility and short on any sense of budget responsibility.