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

My question is to the Prime Minister. At the last election, the Prime Minister described a budget deficit of $24 billion as 'a debt and deficit disaster' and 'a budget emergency'. What does the Prime Minister now call a budget deficit of more than $24 billion?

Government members interjecting —

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

There will be silence on my right to allow the Prime Minister to speak.

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

Debt and deficit is Labor's legacy. They created it and we are fixing it. I can assure the shadow Treasurer that, while this is a budget for jobs, growth and opportunity, while this is a budget that will be responsible, measured and fair, at the heart of this budget is a credible path back to surplus.

Members opposite will discover that, while they were completely incapable of dealing with the deficit, this coalition government will reduce the deficit every year. As a figure, we will reduce spending as a percentage of GDP every year because we understand economic management and economic responsibility in a way our predecessors simply do not.

Mr Swan interjecting —

It is good to see the member for Lilley still in this chamber, isn't it? And he wants to be here for a long time to come, to the dismay of the Leader of the Opposition. I hope he will be here for a long time to come because as long as he is here we will remember his infamous beginning to the 2012 budget—'the four years of surpluses that I announce tonight'. That is what he said. Instead, they delivered debt and deficit as far as the eye can see.

At the beginning of the 2013 election campaign, members opposite told us that the deficit was going to be $18 billion. It came in at $48 billion—a $30 billion black hole that they should have known about and should have told us about. That is the legacy that we are dealing with.

But as the Australian people will see tonight, they can trust their fiscal future with this government. We are on, at last, a credible path back to surplus. We are back on a credible path to economic responsibility. We are a government that are serious about economic responsibility, and we will be again a country that can live within its means.