Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

A single income couple on $60,000 with three dependents gets $17,900 from the taxpayer. It just goes on and on. People who are earning $60,000 are, as they should be, very significant beneficiaries from our social security system.

But I will tell you what this budget does for people. It saves them from Labor's debt and deficit disaster—and that means that the social security benefits that they receive are sustainable. They are sustainable under us, in a way they never would have been under Labor. That is the problem with members opposite: they were engaging in intergenerational theft. They were stealing from tomorrow's families to pay for their own unsustainable spending and to pay for their own electoral bribes. We will never do that, because that is to betray the Australian people. It will be sustainable under this government. That is what people elected us to do and that is what we are delivering.

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