Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am going to let you in on a secret. I have to share a secret with the parliament. To assist the honourable member for Watson, I have heard recently about 'the Swan dream team'—the member for Lilley coming back and forming a partnership with the member for Watson and sidelining the member for McMahon. We have heard all about it. He is up the back there, waiting. We all know that his talents are wasted on the backbench.

The member for Lilley stood at this dispatch box on budget night—what year was it now? 2012?—and started with:

The four years of budget surpluses I announce tonight …

What a proud moment that must have been for the member for Lilley—he was only about $200 billion out! What happened? I will tell you what happened: Labor left a mess. They left a level of debt that was unsustainable for Australia's future. They left every single young Australian to be born in a decade's time with $25,000 of debt in their birthing suite.

We have come in and we have started to fix the mess. We have made significant strides. Whatever it is, we want to get rid of the net debt and we want to get Australia back to where it was.

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