Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. There is a $2 billion black hole in the budget from the bank tax. Will the Treasurer advise the House how he intends to fill it—or is he simply going to add it to the three quarters of a trillion dollars of debt revealed in the budget papers?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow Treasurer can assert all he likes, but it does not make it true. The estimates for the major banks levy are set out in the budget papers. The shadow Treasurer has become the major banks' parrot—he jumps from shoulder to shoulder, squawking and squawking; on every occasion squawking on cue in this chamber, turning around to his colleagues and saying, 'Who's a pretty boy, then?' That is the shadow Treasurer—he has become the big banks' parrot. And he puffs himself and plumes himself up on every single occasion, coming to the dispatch box with his big tough voice. But the truth is that he has not even read the budget papers.

What we know is that on this side of the House when we make promises we pay for them. When we say we are going to increase spending in schools by $18.6 billion, the parents of Australia can take that to the bank. When we say we are going to ensure the National Disability Insurance Scheme is fully funded, the parents and carers and Australians living with disabilities can take that to the bank because they know that, on this side of the House, when we make commitments we fund them and we support them and we follow through. When those opposite were in government, they ran up spending in real terms, growing at four per cent every single year. But their revenue growth was less than one per cent. There have been only two governments in the last 50 years that have ensured that their expenditure growth does not exceed their revenue growth: this government and the Howard government. When they were in office, when that shadow Treasurer was the Treasurer, he used to stand by Treasury forecasts every single day, and now he seeks to impugn those he used to praise. What a parrot!