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

Obviously it would be better if we were able to pay the courageous and highly professional members of our defence forces more. But when we are trying to deal with a debt and deficit disaster that members opposite created, it is impossible to pay everyone all that we would like. As always, we are keeping these matters under close review. But the fact is that we cannot pay people everything that we would like to pay, we cannot pay people everything that they deserve, when we have a situation, thanks to members opposite, of $50 billion-a-year deficits as opposed to $20 billion-a-year surpluses when the coalition was last in government.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

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