Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. It follows his earlier answer about public finances. Can the Treasurer confirm that net debt has just reached a new record high, and that most of that is Liberal debt accumulated under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can confirm that net debt is $392.3 billion in 2019-20. That is 19.5 per cent of GDP. But I can also confirm to the House that when we came to government, debt was rising by more than 30 per cent per year. Guess who was chief of staff to that economic genius, the former member for Lilley, Wayne Swan? The member who wants to tax a lot; the member who likes to tax a lot: the member for Rankin.

The reality is that Labor inherited a pristine balance sheet. After the coalition, with John Howard and Peter Costello, had managed the public's finances, there was a $20 billion surplus and no net debt. By the time Labor left office, it had left behind $240 billion in accumulated deficit, with debt growing by almost 35 per cent. The reality is that it's been hard work and it's taken us six years, but we have delivered the first balanced budget in 11 years. I'll say that again. When we came to government, we inherited a budget deficit of $48½ billion: around three per cent of GDP. We have now banked a balanced budget. Could you imagine responding to the challenges we face, with the fires, the virus, the floods, the drought and the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, with a $48½ billion deficit? We would have had to put up taxes. The Coalition doesn't do that. Only the Labor Party does that. The reality is that the Labor Party had $387 billion of higher taxes that they were going to whack on the Australian people. They would have been whacking it on the Australian people at the same time that we were dealing with these challenges. No wonder former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating said that the Labor Party had lost the ability to talk about aspiration and to speak to aspirational Australians.

Who is to blame for Labor's train wreck of economic policies? It was the member for Rankin who, with the member for McMahon, was the co-architect, the genius who came up with $387 million of higher taxes; the geniuses who came up with the attack on the top end of town; the geniuses who came up with the attack on retirees, mums and dads who wanted to have an investment property and family businesses who wanted to create more jobs.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney's interjections are the problem. She's warned.