Arthur Sinodinos (NSW, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Those details will be available in the debt statement to be released with the MYEFO. That will provide the sort of information you are talking about. To answer Senator Wong's question, there will be more transparency, not less, as a result of this agreement. That transparency will cover how the debt is being used, including any debt use in relation to infrastructure. Can I make the point while I am on my feet: at no stage am I saying that we are supporting more debt per se. We are calling for a more intelligent debate based on this transparency about what debt is used for, but our commitments remain: to deliver a surplus of one per cent of GDP within a decade, to reduce the size of government as a share of GDP each year, to reduce the overall tax burden on business and taxpayers over time and to offset new spending commitments. Indeed, the $20 billion infrastructure package that we have talked about is paid for. We identified how we would pay for it before we came into power. So we are not seeking a blank cheque and no-one is giving us a blank cheque. What we are getting is an increase in transparency, which may well mean that the opposition and everybody will have the benefit of information as a basis for a debate about what the government is doing. Rightly, that debate will no longer be a debate over limits and ceilings, it will be a debate over the quality of the measures the government of the day has taken.

I think it is paradoxical to say that somehow we are now allied with the Greens. I do not think the Greens would argue that they are allied with us on a variety of matters. Indeed, they remain allied, I think, with the opposition, particularly on issues which fall within the broader environmental/climate change area and I think the mining resource rent tax. So I think it is unfair to characterise us as having somehow formed a new alliance. What has happened is that on a case-by-case basis this government has taking a pragmatic approach when it is approached with some sensible proposals from the Greens and we should recognise that and acknowledge that. In this case we were prepared to go with that particular set of proposals because, frankly, we were getting nowhere on the issue of the limit per se.

On the point Senator Cameron made earlier, what I find remarkable about this debate is that the strong approach on debt under the previous government which he talked about was an approach which saw debt increase and keep increasing. The coalition did not oppose the first round of stimulus spending, it did not oppose the measures that were taken to support the financial system at the time. We would have liked the government of the day to acknowledge that we went into the global financial crisis with no net debt, with a very soundly regulated financial system and with the benefit of being cheek by jowl with the fastest growing area of the world economy, the Asia-Pacific. So we went in there with a lot of strong marks in our favour, and of course the Future Fund and a number of other capital funds accumulated by the coalition. This description of the former Treasurer, Peter Costello, as somehow being supine and all rest of it, well, on his watch I think he had 11 surpluses out of 12 or something like that and the round of measures he took in 1996 and 1997 to get the budget back in the black and set up the Howard government is a testament to his capacity to deal with his Prime Minister and his ministerial colleagues.

The other point I would make is that the 2011-12 budget, for example, under the previous government was an opportunity to consolidate their budget credentials. It was a lost opportunity. There was something like $22 billion worth of extra spending in that budget, I think it was, and $19 billion of savings measures. In other words, the government took savings measures but it always managed to find ways to spend the money as well. It did not take account of the highest terms of trade in our history to get the budget into a more solid fiscal position.

We all acknowledge that, since the global financial crisis, revenue growth has not been as strong as it could have been. But that was not a licence to drive spending as far as we could by being as optimistic as we could be about what the economic forecasts were looking like. These are the matters that we should be debating in the future—the actual decisions a government makes, the choices it makes—as opposed to having a debate over limits. I would hope that we can bring that debate to a close and vote on the matter soon.