Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The Treasurer did get one thing right this week: this is a true-to-form Labor budget. It is hollow, it is shifty, it is vindictive and it is not to be believed. There is a fudged surplus—in fact, some have branded this budget the 'fudge-it budget'—there are more broken promises, there is nothing to drive productivity, and there is nothing to repay debt or to secure jobs. This budget is really built around a carbon tax and additional compensation for the burden that is going to be placed on Australian families and the burden that is going to hit Australian businesses right across the country in just 51 days.

Labor has learnt absolutely nothing from the lessons handed out to it by the voters in New South Wales and Queensland in their recent elections. The people of Australia are sick of governments that waste their money, they are sick of governments that spend what they do not have, and they are certainly sick of governments that fail to tell the truth. This budget just delivers more bad news for Australians. It does nothing in particular for regional Australia. There is a feeble, contrived $1.5 billion surplus, and it certainly fails to inspire or encourage struggling communities and families in regional Australia. It offers no hope for small businesses battling in a difficult economic environment. Bringing spending forward and pushing expenditure into out years just to invent a one-off surplus does not give you any more money. Businesses balancing their books and struggling to meet the costs of keeping their employees on staff, and families budgeting for their household needs, are painfully aware of that.

This slippery budget surplus is simply not worth the paper it is written on. For instance, the $1.1 billion that is being paid early to local government of itself almost wipes out the surplus. The $1.8 billion being paid to the states early for infrastructure projects more than wipes out the surplus. The $1.4 billion being paid to the states early for disaster relief also almost wipes out the surplus single-handed. The $1.5 billion compensation for the carbon tax, being paid early, also wipes out the surplus. Then, of course, there are many other measures like this where money is shifted from one year to another just to deliver a surplus standing on a lonely island in a sea of debt. Simply no-one will believe this kind of attempt to master the true bottom line after four Labor budgets have simply amassed a cumulative deficit of $174 billion.

Of course, this is not the first time that Labor have promised a budget surplus. They did that in 2008-09 at their first budget, but it was not some tiny $1.5 billion surplus then. On that budget they promised a surplus of $22 billion.

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