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

This government is determined to bring the budget back to surplus as quickly as possible. Members opposite used to think this was important, as is illustrated by the 'book of Shorten', which says:

In these uncertain global times there's no clearer sign of a strong economy than a surplus.

Then he went on to say—and talk about misleading the Australian people:

We've delivered a surplus, on time, as promised.

What a fabrication!

We are doing our best, despite the sabotage of members opposite, to bring the budget back to surplus and to deliver the surplus that Labor promised but never actually delivered. One of the ways to do that is to expose the kinds of rorts that we have just seen in government programs under members opposite. They established a regional development assistance fund, and what is absolutely obvious is that it was utterly rorted by members opposite, including, it seems, delivering $7.4 million to the member for McMahon's seat which should not have been delivered.

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