Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Cormann. Can the minister advise the Senate how decisions made this year about budget repair will impact on living standards in the future and affect intergenerational equity?

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

I thank Senator Edwards for that very important question. If we do not repair the budget now, what we are doing is forcing up taxes for our children and grandchildren and we are forcing down living standards for our children and grandchildren.

Senator Lines interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Lines.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to 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)

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the minister explain how the decisions made this week about economic and fiscal reform will impact on investment decisions and business confidence?

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

If we want to protect our living standards today, if we want to build opportunity and prosperity for the future then we need to implement the economic action strategy the coalition took to the last election and we need to implement our plans to repair the budget.

This week last year we had then Prime Minister Rudd go out into the community saying that he was going to be the carbon tax terminator. Now we on this side of the chamber know what a carbon tax terminator looks like and we certainly know that Prime Minister Rudd was no carbon tax terminator because guess what? The carbon tax is back. As soon as the supposed carbon tax terminator, Mr Rudd, goes off into the sunset, here is the Labor Party—having campaigned on the promise to remove the carbon tax, indeed, having asserted they had already abolished the carbon tax—voting every day to keep it. This is a tax that has not been terminated but is still alive and kicking.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister inform the Senate what decisions are necessary to provide confidence that Australia is building a stronger, more prosperous economy and that repairing the budget is on track?

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

I refer senators on the Labor side in particular to a quote from former Treasurer, Mr Swan. In his 2011 budget speech he said:

… meandering back to surplus would compound the pressures in our economy and push up the cost of living for pensioners and working people.

Treasurer Swan said meandering back to surplus would be bad for pensioners, families and the economy. Well guess what? Under Bill Shorten and under Chris Bowen, not only are they not meandering back to surplus but they have taken the expressway back the other way. They are taking the expressway to bigger deficits and more debt and that is not in the national interest. The Labor Party need to start thinking about what is in the national interest, they need to start thinking about what is in the interest of our children and grandchildren. And what is in the interest of our children and grandchildren is to build a stronger economy and to fix the budget mess that Labor left behind.