David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hesitate to say it but I suspect that what actually happened here is that the newly elected government forgot that it was not in opposition and that it actually had to start governing. It continued to play politics rather than look at what would be the real economic solution. The country faces a crisis of confidence and that is what has led to the situation that we are currently facing. Yet, despite all the government’s blustering, posturing and attempts to rewrite history—I am coming back to the budget—its huge slashing of vital services and its $19.7 billion of new tax hikes over five years, it has still only delivered the same surplus that would have been delivered if the government had not got out of bed.

The government has been trumpeting about how much it was saving but it introduced a massive $34 billion in new spending—that is right: $34 billion. That is an amazing amount for a government that was selling a budget on the basis of how much it would reduce spending. It is important to remember that the robust, sound and enviously strong economy that was inherited by this government in November of last year is very different to that which we inherited in 1996. We really had cause to complain when we inherited that.

We had a $96 billion deficit upon coming into government, and here we have this government inheriting a $22 billion surplus without getting out of bed. We had $96 billion of debt—and that was in 1996 dollars. That was costing us $10 billion a year in interest—$10 billion a year that we could not spend on education and health. What is more, it took us 10 years to repay that. Over 10 years, we had to repay $96 billion in principal and service the interest costs over that time. Senator Conroy sits over there and talks about how we squandered the proceeds of the mining boom. (Time expired)