Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister did not mislead the Australian people on either occasion. The very simple fact is that, before the election, we had a profligate government that oversaw, with the assistance of the failed finance minister sitting opposite me, the wrecking of this country's future by ensuring that we were on an unsustainable trajectory into debt and deficit, which would have hung like a millstone around the neck of the next generation. We promised the Australian people that we would fix that. Despite that promise to fix it, along with the Australian Labor Party—who, on a road-to-Damascus-type conversion, promised that they would introduce $5 billion worth of their own savings, then voted against it when the new parliament resumed—we as a government have sought to do the right thing by the next generation of Australians, to bring the debt trajectory into a sustainable pattern.

Why are we doing that? Because we want to see for the future that we have a national disability insurance scheme that is affordable, that we have a pension scheme that is affordable and that we have a health system that is affordable. Whilst we are continuing to pay over $1,000 million a month just on interest—