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

That is what we are doing because if we continue to borrow in order to fund our consumption today, eventually it will have to be paid back. The only way you can pay it back eventually is if you increase taxes down the track or if you cut spending down the track. If you have a mum and dad putting a part of their grocery bill on their credit card every month and they run up that credit card for six years then they have to take out a second credit card to pay for the interest bill on the first. Can you imagine if they then said to their children, 'By the way, eventually, we are going to just keep on running up this credit card. We are going to continue to fund our groceries on this credit card and eventually when we pass on we will pass on the credit card debt to you and we will expect you to pay off not only the credit card but also the compound interest on it.' I bet not anyone on the Labor side, I bet not anyone on the Greens side, I bet not anyone in this chamber would ever do this to our children. Why should the Australian government to this to our children?

The Labor Party are playing politics with our budget. They are playing politics with the national interest. Do not look any further than the fact that they voted down budget measures that they initiated and banked in their last budget. Today the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, introduced the Labor 2013-14 Budget Savings (Measures No. 1) Bill 2014, which seeks to bring back before the parliament the budget measure from Labor's last budget, which Labor opposed last week. So every single budget measure that Labor initiated that Labor blocks in this Senate will come back as a Labor 2013-14 budget savings measures bill until Labor passes their own savings. (Time expired)