Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. That would be nice, thank you. So here we are with a bill which has become almost a symbol of the uncertainty and lack of knowledge that anyone, including ourselves, has on what the state of the books really is. It is just another chapter of many chapters of overspending.

Sitting suspended from 16:59 to 17:12

I should bring my comments to a conclusion, given the list of speakers who are following and given that I have made the principal point, which is that, as normal practice, we will not oppose or seek to amend this Appropriation Bill, although it does again demonstrate—and it has become a symbol of—the overspending, unexplained spending and confusion. So much of it could be clarified if the government were to show some transparency. Tell us the numbers and tell us really what the circumstance is, and it is not just 'us' the opposition, but us the community. That is why in this important election year we have again chosen what has been the normal practice: not to rely on the Treasurer and on what have been inflated or misleading forecasts or numbers or dissembling and all of the rest. This budget this year will be the first budget in the history of the parliament which will fall in the middle of an election campaign. We could not trust the last four budgets over the last four years, and so what hope would anyone have to trust what will come out in May this year? In many ways it will be a fiction. That is my expectation. That is why we have to wait and do what the head of the new Parliamentary Budget Office suggested: wait for the real numbers. The real numbers will help us understand the ability we and others have to fund policies that we would like to introduce. Those numbers will best come when Treasury and Finance, independent of the government of the day, come down with their forecasts and state of the books within 10 days of the writs being issued.

When that happens, we will look at the capacity to fund on the real numbers, not on the fictional numbers, and we will put to the people a program which will return this country to prudent, stable, sensible, adult management. We will remove the waste. We will seek to restore the certainty and stability that people need to make decisions and get on with their lives. We will seek to remove the crisis of confidence which so envelops this country at the moment and which is not and should not be necessary given the blessings that this country has. What we need is good government, and the opportunity will present itself this year.

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