House debates

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Matters of Public Importance

Budget

3:18 pm

Photo of Joe HockeyJoe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

This government has left us with an interest bill of $12 billion a year. This would be enough to fully fund the Gonski education reforms, to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to build 12 new teaching hospitals.

The government has staked its economic credentials on delivering an underlying budget surplus, but already there are private sector bodies such as Access Economics raising doubts about whether a surplus can actually be achieved this year. We will wait and see if it is achieved. The government has shuffled the money around. They have shuffled expenditure from one year to the next. They have shuffled revenue from one year to the next. They have engaged in accounting tricks. The numbers will be heavily massaged. But whether they get there or not, what matters is the sustainability of the budget and whether budget borrowings will continue to climb. The whole idea behind a desire to have a surplus is to reduce the burden of debt. The Treasurer knows this. On the day after this year's budget he claimed the reason to achieve a surplus was to pay down debt. He said, 'It is very modest. That is why you come back down to surplus. That is why you pay down your debt.'

Yet the budget papers show that the Labor Party will continue to increase borrowings until 2015. This year alone the Labor government will be borrowing $24 million a day to fund just its off-budget initiatives. Next year they will be borrowing $19 million a day. So every day this government has been in power debt has been increasing. Nothing changes.

Labor has now sought to increase the limit on the government's debt ceiling on four separate occasions, to increase the credit card limit. It was originally $75 billion. Then it went to $200 billion, and then $250 billion. This year the government said, 'Don't worry—we're paying down the debt. But, just in case, we want to go to $300 billion.' Just in case!

Total government debt on issue is currently $240 billion, but with all the spending for an uncosted National Broadband Network and a $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, who knows where we will be in three years time. Most concerning of all, it does not include all the announcements this government has made over the last few weeks—all targeted, dare I say, not at the electorate but at Kevin Rudd. The government has announced $120 billion of new spending initiatives to put off the leadership challenge of the member for Griffith. That is what it is about. If anyone thinks it is seriously about people with disabilities, then why isn't the government allocating serious money to it? If it is seriously about submarines, then why isn't the government allocating the money to it? If the government is really serious about dental health care, where is it going to find this money?

Of course, there are also the Gonski reforms. Remember it was the member for Griffith—whose predecessor had 'noodle nation'—who said he would deliver the education revolution. That is why this Prime Minister is determined to have a Gonski plan with no money. But still, they have given the commitment. This is about building monuments to Julia, as everyone in the Labor Party seems to be doing, to fend off Kevin. The bottom line is—

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