Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Government senators and members are keen to ensure that we can fulfil our election promises, that we can provide certainty to the Australian people when they look to their federal government for leadership—particularly around the national economy. That means ensuring that every promise we make is fully funded from a source of revenue that we can control and that we actually know what is going to be delivered. Ninety-five per cent below target, by the way—but it is nothing new for the Labor Party to be missing out on targets, skipping out on budget constraints and skipping out on surplus projections. A target missed here, a target missed there—no wonder we need a commission of audit.

Labor is focusing on health and education because Labor wants to revive a scare campaign which would claim that the government is going to sack teachers, doctors and nurses. The problem with that is that the federal departments of health and education employ thousands of public servants—but no teachers, no doctors and no nurses. I think the conversation that we need to have as a nation, and that the Abbott-Truss government is going to face up to, is to articulate areas of responsibility within our federation so that we get some clarity around budget areas, so that we are not all paying for the same things and so that we get rid of the overlap.

What is the Commission of Audit going to discover about Labor's multibillion dollar school halls fiasco? What will the commission discover about Labor's cruel abolition of the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme? What really is the value for money, rather than throwing money at state dental programs which do not have the dentists to do the job? These and many other questions will be dealt with by the Abbott-Truss government's National Commission of Audit, and Labor is not going to like the answers.

Labor have been attacking the government's very well-planned approach to how we are going to get this country back on track and how we are going to deliver on the surpluses that you never could because you were not prepared to take the hard decisions. You were not prepared to say no. Like the dealer to the junkie on the corner, 'We just kept handing it out.'

Opposition senators interjecting—