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

Most Australians clearly believe that, because we see it in the level of support the Greens get across the country. It tends to be around eight to 10 per cent. So 90 per cent of Australians reject Greens policies, but unfortunately we have an opposition, the alternative party of government, which sometimes gets infected with the Greens' view of the world. We are certainly not going to be lectured to by the Labor Party on how to do budgets. We are not going to be lectured to by the Labor Party or their Greens coalition partners on how to fix the mess that they left us. But what we will do and what this budget will do—and I am confident that it will—is continue on the path of fiscal repair, which is critically important.

We have to acknowledge that this is a serious issue. We cannot just let the deficits keep growing as they would have under Labor. Whilst doing that, we need to deliver the critical services, but we need to support jobs growth and support the economy. We need to support small business, and I am very confident that there will be excellent news for small business in this budget. We need to support families. We need to help them in all sorts of ways, including getting back into the workforce and supporting them in those choices. By doing that, we can fix the mess that we inherited and we can ensure that we have a prosperous future as a nation. That is our responsibility as a government, that is a responsibility that this government is up to and it is a responsibility that those opposite have comprehensively failed at, which is why they have no credibility when it comes to these sorts of discussions.