Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that is the legacy of Senators Bilyk and Moore as members of a Labor government that generated $123 billion of cumulative budget deficits and racked up gross debt that is spiralling towards $500 billion dollars if it stays on the same trajectory. So of course we have to make changes! If we sat back, that debt would just keep growing, and create an unsustainable burden on future generations. If those opposite care about jobs and if they care about the future of this country; if they care about future generations in that sense, they will support us to bring the budget back under control and to restore competitiveness for business and industry—and people like Senator Carr, who belongs in another era, will be cast to that other era in future, so that we do not have to deal with those who seem to think that the only answer to jobs is more government intervention.