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

It is so important to get our budget back on track because we do not want to leave our country in a weaker position than we found it. We do not want to leave our children in a situation where they have less opportunity than we had, because this generation has spent beyond its means, because this generation was governed by a government over the last six years which did not know how to manage money. An ongoing deficit of $191 billion in their first five budgets and another $123 billion of projected deficits are reckless and irresponsible. We want to build future opportunity. We want to build a strong Australia. We are asking people to join us and to contribute. We are all in this together. It is so important that we get this right, because we do not want to be the generation that our children and grandchildren point to and say, 'What did you do to our country? You inherited a strong country from your predecessors. What did you do to keep it going?' (Time expired)