Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Seselja for that question. It is indeed a fact that the former Labor government promised on more than 500 occasions that 2012-13 was going to be the surplus year. But, as always happens under Labor, they kept promising surplus budgets and they kept delivering more deficits. None other than Senator Wong, after she became the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, less than a month into the job, said to the Australian Institute of Company Directors, 'The return to surplus is not negotiable.' The following year she said that we are 'on track'. She promised that the three out-years from 2012-13 onwards would all be in the black with surpluses growing each year. Just this time last year on the ABC Insidersprogram, Senator Wong—the then Minister for Finance and Deregulation—said, 'Our position has never changed.' She said the budget update was 'on track' to return to surplus and, 'Over the forward estimates those surpluses continue to grow.'

The consolidated financial statements for the Australian government for 2012-13 actually show that the coalition government's last budget in 2007-08 had a fiscal surplus of $22.3 billion that went to a deficit of $27.9 billion.

We had an underlying cash balance in our last year in government of $24.6 billion. That turned into a $19.5 billion deficit. By 2007-08, the coalition had delivered six successive surplus budgets. This is Labor's fifth successive deficit budget. There is, of course, one more Labor deficit budget to come, and we will provide an update on that next week. (Time expired)