David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers as referred to by Senator Fifield. Senator Fifield speaks of untruths sustaining a fiscal story. On that, no-one can doubt the credentials of the coalition. In fact, Senator Fifield raises the spectre: what happens if Labor is re-elected? I can tell you that one of the first things we will do, Senator Fifield, is thank you, because it is the political strategy crafted by you and your colleagues which I am sure will be a critical enabler to that glorious day, should it ever come.

The coalition come to this conversation, and come to this political debate, sitting on top of a policy edifice which could not possibly look weaker and which could not possibly look more ramshackle. A $70 billion black hole underpins the political proposition of those opposite—a $70 billion black hole which those opposite are determined to avoid and refuse to accept acknowledgement for—and now they have the temerity to attack the policy and the fiscal position of this government.

As Senator Wong made clear in her answer, the government that holds the record for having the highest level of spending as a percentage of GDP is the Howard government, at 24.2 per cent of GDP. While that number had fallen to 23.7 per cent by 2007, that is still far greater than it is today. In fact, the difference is some $24 billion per annum. So, in fact, rather than the Labor government, those opposite have the record of pulling more money out of this economy through taxation regulation. But, of course, you would never know that if you were to listen to the opposition—and there are a lot of other things you would not know as well. You would not know that those opposite propose to axe the carbon tax at a cost of $27 billion to the budget and that $3.2 billion of that is required to fund chairman Abbott's action plan.