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

My question is to the Prime Minister. How can the Prime Minister possibly justify spending $25 billion a year on stage 3 of the government's personal income tax scheme and on its big business tax cut when, under this Prime Minister, gross debt has reached half a trillion dollars for the first time in Australian history?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. Of course, we've seen net debt peaking; we're turning the corner on the debt that he and his colleagues in the Labor Party created. I notice the honourable member referred to a reduction in tax as spending. You can't spend money that's not your own, you know? Members of the Labor Party think that every dollar that every person earns and every business earns belongs to the government and that, if you reduce tax, it's spending; it's their money. That's the difference. And you know what? They have an aspiration to keep more of it.