Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the government is building a stronger and more sustainable budget? How important is the government's budget repair strategy to economic growth and jobs?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question, and I commend him on his great advocacy on the Monash Freeway.

The government is establishing a strong platform for jobs and growth in our economy by backing Australians who are out there working, saving and investing every day, and simply wanting a system of support that backs them in the decisions they are making. Australians are responding positively to this, as the Prime Minister has just said, in what Bill Evans described today as 'a cracking result' on the Westpac Melbourne Institute Index. We now have more optimists than we do pessimists about our economy in this country. That is a good thing, and that is backed up—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are more optimists than pessimists in the chamber!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are more optimists than pessimists in the chamber, too, the Prime Minister reminds me. The optimists about the economy are on this side, and those on that side are full of negativity. They are all in the blues on that side about our economy because they cannot see the opportunities that are there, that Australians can see, and that is why they are responding.

That platform for growth and for jobs in our economy has many components. One of those is a stronger budget. A stronger budget is one where you get control of expenditure. You have to control expenditure to manage a budget, not—as those opposite would do—simply seek to raise taxes to ensure that revenue is higher than expenditure. On this side of the House we believe in getting expenditure below revenue, and that is what we have been doing. There has been some $64 billion in expenditure savings since we were elected. Spending growth under this government has fallen from over three per cent—what we inherited—to 1½ per cent. The deficit is reducing at a rate, on average, of around half of one per cent of GDP each year, and that is what we remain on track to deliver. From next year onwards, the net debt as a percentage of GDP will be falling.

That is what is happening on this side of the House. On the other side of the House, there is a very different path. If we had continued the trajectory of Labor's spending in government over this budget and the forward estimates, it would be to the tune of almost $80 billion in additional expenditure. This is a government that is controlling our expenditure but it is not just that: as the Prime Minister was just saying, they have learnt nothing on that side of the chamber. The shadow Treasurer has said this: 'We have a clear fiscal rule of more saves than spending.'

But, as we learnt yesterday, they turned a $4.7 billion save on the family package into a $500 million save, thinking it could actually pay for $3½ billion dollars worth of expenditure. It is worse than that: because they have some $60 billion in commitments that are out there and only $5 billion to pay for them. He said last night: 'You raise an extra dollar, you can only get to spend it once.' They have spent it 12 times. That is not the approach of this side of the House. We are controlling expenditure to ensure a stronger budget.