Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on this matter of public importance. It is difficult to know where to start, because there were about 27 conflicting messages from Senator Lines about what will be in this budget. But it was instructive, and Senator Lines gave us a glimpse of where she and the Labor Party are up to with their budget critique. The Labor Party's critique is now seriously flagging and running out of steam. Senator Lines, like her fearless leader, Mr Shorten, is running out of ideas and critique and really has nothing positive to say.

We heard about this 'year of ideas', that the opposition would present something to the Australian people about what they would do to fix the mess they left this country in. So far, we have heard nothing. When you have no ideas, when you have no plans and when you have no positive vision for the future, all you can do is have these flagging criticisms that change. We have heard it is going to be an 'unfair' budget, a budget about 'saving the Prime Minister', a 'boring' budget and a budget about 'saving the Treasurer'. Which is it? It will actually be a budget about the needs of the Australian people. It will be a budget about fixing the fiscal mess—that the vandals on the other side of this chamber left this country in—whilst seeking to grow jobs and support small business and families. That is what this budget will be about.

That is why we see such a confused critique from Senator Lines, Bill Shorten and others in the Labor Party. They just do not know what to say. It is one of the reasons we are seeing the Australian people waking up to Mr Shorten. We are seeing his personal approval rating go through the floor. Do you know why? It is going through the floor because people have figured out that he does not stand for anything. People have figured out that it is very easy, when the government makes tough decisions, to be critical. It is very easy when you have made the mess—as Bill Shorten and the Labor Party did—to pretend it is not your fault, that it is the fault of the incoming government, which is trying to fix the mess you left. It is very easy to do that.

Over the last 12 months we have seen this critique falling flat. That is because the Australian people do not believe the Labor Party can fix the mess they created. The Labor Party are showing no signs of it in opposition—and we certainly know what their record is like in government. It is interesting to hear Labor senators talking about budgets and promises. I am reminded of Mr Swan's promise to return the budget to surplus. Hundreds of times, he promised that the budget was coming back to surplus. Mr Shorten went further than that: he said they had already delivered a surplus. He went out to the Australian people and said, 'We have delivered a surplus.' That was not true. In fact, we were tens of billions of dollars in deficit—every year.