Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I appreciate your support and protection. This is an important point: the government has dragged us into a terrible position in a budgetary sense, therefore we will have to make some genuine savings to achieve what the Australian public expects. Last week the shadow Treasurer made this point very clearly in his response to the budget at the National Press Club, where he said that the coalition has a commitment, as a major priority, to achieve genuine surplus budgets in the first three years of our term.

I want to raise a serious point in relation to the first two points of this motion before us. As I said at the beginning, the member for Fraser will appreciate this. They are worthy points to make. However, not only do we have genuine concern that the numbers in the Public Service right now too high, and we will move to reduce them; we are also concerned about the standard of information that has been coming out of key departments such as the Treasury. We think, and I know several well-known economists around the country think or believe, that the standard of advice and forecasts coming out of the Treasury are not up to scratch. As a priority, we in government will be seeking to address that. We need a strong Treasury. We need a strong Prime Minister's department. We need a strong Public Service. It is fair to say that we have been disappointed, particularly with this budget, when we have seen what can only be described as extremely optimistic forecasts, particularly when it comes to the revenue side.

With this government's excesses, the waste, the mismanagement, the increasing size of government and the debt it has built up—and the member for Blair made a good point on this earlier—the structural deficit that has now been so substantially built into the budget is so great that it will be a challenge for us coming into government to handle properly. As our population gets older, we will have fewer taxpayers and a larger demand on our services. That is what Peter Costello told us in the 2000s with his Intergenerational Reports. That is the reason that the debt they have built up, with $8 billion a year we now have to pay in interest, will make it harder and harder. That is why the coalition will commit to genuine reform in the Public Service, to reduce the numbers to the appropriate levels to do the job we ask. But we will not stand for this hypocrisy from the member for Fraser in moving a motion when his own government seeks to do exactly what it condemns us for. (Time expired)

I seek leave to table the article from the Canberra Times.

Leave granted.

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