John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

If Senator Thistlethwaite can find me one economist in the world who says it is good government policy to stimulate your economy while the Reserve Bank is raising interest rates, tell me who it is. Tell me one economy in the world where the reserve bank is raising interest rates and they are stimulating the economy, borrowing money, mortgaging our children's future away to stimulate the economy. That is just an oxymoron. That is crazy. You would not find one economist in the world who would agree with what you have done. Now you have left us in such a financial mess, mortgaging our children's future away. Your history is a disgrace of financial management. You have never delivered a budget surplus in 21 years, and we will highlight this to the Australian people every day of the week until the next election, which will be August next year. It will not be in September, because in September next year Treasury delivers the actual facts of the budget we are in now—this year's financial year, in which we have been promised a surplus. There will be no surplus. The Australian Labor Party does not understand what the word 'surplus' means. It is a word from outer space, something they cannot deliver. All my life, whether it be state government or federal government, it is the Australian Labor Party that sends us broke. And who has to clean up the financial mess? The coalition does—just like the magnificent job former Treasurer Peter Costello did when he inherited a budget of borrowing $10 billion every year, $96 billion worth of debt.

This says it all: when this government came to power in 2007 the credit cap for this government to borrow was $75 billion. They then raised it to $200 billion and wasted so much money on school buildings and pink batts schemes—what a waste of money. It was not infrastructure to help our nation produce more; they wasted it. They go on their money wasting schemes, and here we are now with the debt.