Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

As you quite rightly say, Senator Nash: this is not the first time. They say it is all about reuniting people with, supposedly, lost super, lost bank accounts, lost first home saver accounts and lost life insurance. But the government will end up with the people's money in order to make it look as though they are achieving a $1,770,000,000 surplus. And their desperation, casting around for more and more cash, is not an isolated incident. But I have to admit this bill does take the cake.

We have had a government which, over the last five years, has delivered $172 billion worth of accumulated deficits. It is a government which inherited a very strong budget position: no government net debt, a $20 billion surplus and $70 billion worth of Commonwealth net assets.

The government, in 2007, was collecting more than $1 billion in net interest payments on its investments. Now the government is heading for more than $150 billion worth of government net debt, is heading for $300 billion worth of gross debt and is now planning to pay nearly $30 billion in net interest payments just to service the debt that it has so far accumulated—and this is even before we get to talk about the $120 billion in unfunded spending promises that Labor ministers, from the Prime Minister down, have been making in recent months.

No wonder they are always casting around for more cash, through new and increased taxes. There were 27 new or increased taxes in the first five years of the Labor government, through more than $150 billion worth of government net debt. And they are also raiding government business enterprises, none more so than Medibank Private, the government-owned private health insurer that, until 2009, was a not-for-profit health insurer. In order to facilitate their raids on the bank accounts and on the capital assets of Medibank Private the government changed them into a for-profit fund, which means that they now have to pay dividends and income taxes.

But not only do they have to pay ordinary dividends out of their ordinary operating profits, they also have to pay the occasional special dividend. Whenever the government is short on cash, whenever it is trying to create a fiscal illusion, it looks around the government business enterprises for more cash. Guess how much cash Medibank Private are expected to put on the table for this cash desperate government?