Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that it is your motion. I listened very carefully to the Leader of the Opposition's speech. I listened very carefully to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition's speech. Just then, I listened very carefully to the Manager of Opposition Business, who is also the shadow minister for finance. I listened very carefully to what he had to say. None of the three mentioned what their economic policy is. None of them mentioned what their plan is for the debt that they are supposedly concerned about—the debt they created. There wasn't a debt when they came into government in 2007.

As the member for Casey very succinctly said earlier, in 2007, when the Labor Party came into power, the federal government had $44 billion in net financial assets and they blew it completely in the course of two years. According to page 16 of the Intergenerational report, by the end of Labor's six-year period of government we were on a trajectory that was leading to an underlying cash deficit of 11.7 per cent of GDP by 2054-55 and—get this—net debt would reach almost 122 per cent of GDP. How much is 122 per cent of GDP in 2055? It is some $5.6 trillion. What countries would we be compared to if our net debt did actually reach 122 per cent of GDP? We would be compared to Greece and Spain. We would be compared to those countries in Europe that are considered to be basket cases in terms of their economic management. That is the trajectory that we have been on and that is the legacy of the Labor Party.

Opposition members interjecting—

I love the way you guys verbal the Prime Minister. In the last few weeks the Prime Minister has been making a clear and sensible point. He has noted that the Intergenerational report has completely blasted the case of the Labor Party that there was a major debt problem, and, secondly, has shown that in the first budget of the Abbott government we have halved that debt problem. We are now on a trajectory, under current legislated programs, that would take us to a deficit of some six per cent of GDP by 2055 and net debt is projected to reach almost 60 per cent of GDP. That would still be an appalling $2.6 trillion. We did not say that is a great result; we said it is an improvement on what Labor had otherwise locked in with their policy agenda. We have halved that problem, and now we have got to a situation where we now move on, in the next budget and the next budget and, after the election, the budget after that and the budget after that, to get back to surplus, we hope, within the next five to six years. I hope that is the case, because we need to get this under control, because we do not want to be in a situation where we are facing a future like Greece, like Spain, like Italy.

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