Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Let me keep this simple: in 2007, when the Labor Party, under Kevin Rudd, won the election, they inherited the best fiscal position in the history of this nation. In 2007, when Labor won the election, they inherited the best fiscal position in our entire federal history. Just six years later, the coalition government, elected in September last year, inherited the worst ever fiscal position of an incoming government in the history of this nation. We left Labor with the best fiscal legacy, and they returned the favour by leaving us the worst. That is a fact. That is the background; let us just keep it simple.

I heard a lot of debate during the winter recess about whether there is a budget emergency. The Labor Party and the Greens say that there is not a budget emergency. It is true that there are many nations in the developed world with far greater GDP-to-debt ratios. The emergency is the trajectory. It is not the great problem today, tomorrow or even next week; that is not the emergency. The bleeding has started but does not become terminal for another decade or so. The trajectory is the emergency. The debt trap is what will kill our children's futures.

We know from Treasury figures that there was a $180 billion deficit when the coalition came to government. If you just take the current forecast expenditure over the next 10 years, that will rise to $667 billion. That is $667 thousand million if we do nothing—if we do not add anything and we simply pay the bills and accept the structural deficit as it now is. The Labor Party claim that they assisted in getting Australia through the global financial crisis, but their great failing is not that; it is to leave this country with shocking structural debt.

What will a deficit of $667 billion in 10 years time mean? Well, at the moment we are paying about $1 billion a month in interest and we are borrowing the interest payments. In 10 years time, the interest payments will be $3 billion a month—that is, $36 billion a year. That is at current forecasts with no further expenditures. That is the legacy that this lot left us. They created the problem and we are trying to fix it up. Within a decade, every Australian man, woman and child will owe $25,000. I am not making this up; these are Treasury forecasts. This is the debt trap left by the Labor Party. Within 10 years, we will be shackled, swallowed up and strangled by structural debt.

For the Labor Party, the issue is: do they still believe in balancing budgets? I do not know. Mr Swan used to talk about balancing the budgets. He never did balance the budget, but he said he believed in it. When is the last time, Acting Deputy President, you heard the Labor Party, Mr Shorten or Mr Bowen come out unequivocally saying that they believe in balanced budgets? Do they have the rectitude and fiscal discipline to bring back a budget surplus ever again? They have not for the last 25 years. We do not even know anymore if the Labor Party believe in balancing the budget. If they do not, that means an enormous change in Australian political culture—because up until recently we always have. In short, what it will mean is this: that the Labor Party is no longer prepared—if they do not believe in balancing budgets—to make tough decisions today so our children do not wear the cost tomorrow. It will mean that our children and our grandchildren, most of whom cannot vote, will be paying for our current consumption—for our health, our education and our welfare. I will make you a bet that we will not hear the Australian Labor Party make an unequivocal commitment to balancing budgets. They will always be equivocal. Any commitment they make will be fractured—because they cannot make that sort of commitment. They have not done it for 25 years and they do not have the fiscal discipline to do it.

I notice the MPI uses the word 'unfair'. The Labor Party likes to talk about social justice. Is it just to ask future generations—our children and our grandchildren, many of whom cannot vote and many of whom are yet to be born—to pay for our health, education and welfare? We on this side say that is outrageous. If we have to cut back on health, education and welfare, so be it. It is just so diabolically wrong to ask our children to pay. Sure, it is an economic disaster—but it is also morally corrupt. It is morally corrupt to ask our children to pay for our lifestyle. It is so wrong, yet the Labor Party cannot make an unequivocal commitment to balance the budget. It is pathetic.

At least Senator Xenophon today had some ideas about how he thinks we should balance the budget. I do not agree with him, but at least Senator Xenophon has put forward some proposals. The Labor Party and the Greens have come up with nothing. You would think that, given the fact that Labor created the problem, they would try to come up with a solution. Given that they created the problem—the huge projected debt, the $667 billion of projected debt within 10 years—you would think that they would come up with an answer or a solution. Have they done that? No, they just whinge all the time and say it is terrible.

If we do not act, this nation will—not tomorrow, not the next day, not even a year from now and not necessarily even five years from now—go into inevitable decline. That is what will happen to this country. It will become another western European economy: high debt and big government, with everyone running to government for solutions. In those countries, every ratbag in town, every rent seeker, goes to government seeking handouts. Is that the sort of country we want?

Our country, our parliament—and this is the emergency—has to make the decision within the next 10 years. After that, it will be too late. I hear Mr Shorten say, 'We are going to go for growth.' That is the old social democratic get-out-of-jail-free card—hoping to hell the economy grows fast enough to fund more expenditure. If it does not, what do you have? You have western Europe, where their GNP from January, February and March of each year goes towards paying the interest bill on their debt. That is what this lot have set in train.

I am not suggesting this is going to happen tomorrow. I have never said that. But this is the great economic and, even more so, moral challenge that confronts this nation in this parliament. All I can do—I can stand here and debate all day and all night; I can debate for the whole year or for the next 10 years—is simply ask if the Labor Party is still committed to equity, fairness and social justice? If they do not want to force our kids to pay for our debt, why do they not come up with some solutions? We will not hear anything constructive from them today and we will not even hear a commitment to balance budgets in the future. That is the great failure of social democracy here in Australia and in Europe.