Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Thorp, who spoke before me, commenced her address by expressing some degree of confusion as to why the opposition focuses on this issue. I will tell you why the opposition focuses on this issue: because every dollar borrowed is a dollar of future taxation. Every dollar borrowed is pushing off the cost of what you wish to do today to future generations. And what this government is doing, with the much-lauded Schoolkids Bonus it was talking about in question time today, is actually borrowing from the very kids whose parents are receiving it, just like it did with the stimulus to build overpriced school halls that crowded out the schoolyard—