Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

They are paying for the Prime Minister and his Labor government’s reckless spending and rapidly rising debt. Labor’s budget is the first in a decade to increase the burden on Australian families, with a record debt of $315 billion—and, of course, that does not include the potential extra debt that could be created by the Ruddbank and Labor’s $43 billion broadband excursion—and a record $58 billion deficit. We also will have one million unemployed by 2010-11, private health insurance rebates being attacked—meaning longer waiting lists and higher costs for all Australians—and the cutting by a third of the superannuation co-contribution scheme, which bolstered the retirement savings of low and middle income earners. Australians will need to work much longer to pay off all this debt. This reckless economic mismanagement will hurt Australian families. This budget reveals the high price that will be paid.

Labor are doing what they always do best, which is racking up debt and splashing the red ink about. They certainly are doing it at a record rate. With this debt to surge to $315 billion, the Rudd government will make even the Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating governments look fiscally responsible. Two-thirds of net public debt will be due to spending decisions taken by the Rudd government over the past 18 months. Since the November 2007 election, Labor have announced new spending of $124 billion, an average of $225 million per spending day. It took the coalition $9 billion worth of interest and about eight years to pay off $96 billion of Labor’s debt. Just think how long it is going to take for us to pay off $315 billion. And that is assuming it stays at $315 billion. Knowing the track record of Labor governments, that $315 billion is only the starting point; it is going to get higher and higher.

We have had the feigned outrage of Mr Swan and Mr Rudd in their complaints about the interest rate increase, but they are directly responsible for it. If this government is going to go out and borrow $3 billion a week, it is inevitably going to put upward pressure on interest rates. The decision by the Commonwealth Bank was just the beginning. The government is borrowing record amounts of money in competition with the major banks and as a result the cost of money is inevitably going to rise. You cannot continue with low interest rates while the Australian government is borrowing billions of dollars a week in order to hand out the $900 cheques. Senator Hurley was talking about the so-called spending in Australia. Might I remind her that there are about 514,000 nonresidents who are also eligible to get the $900, and millions of dollars just left these shores because Centrelink could not be bothered asking the Department of Immigration and Citizenship who these people were and thereby at least saving us some money on that front. Mr Rudd and Mr Swan will voice their displeasure yet what are they going to do about it? Absolutely nothing.

Before I conclude, I would like to say a couple of things about New South Wales. New South Wales was plundered and pillaged and, of course, the architects of that plundering and pillaging were Senator Arbib and all his New South Wales Right mates. They have abandoned ship in New South Wales and are going to do federally what they did to New South Wales, which is to send it into a record state debt that is going to cost a staggering $30,000 per household—an absolute and utter disgrace. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.