Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In the budget-in-reply speech, you have a $60 billion black hole. You need to identify tonight where you are going to come up with the measures. Are you going to tax people more? What we know about the Labor Party, going into this election, is that every time the Leader of the Opposition's lips move tonight he will be increasing taxes; he will be increasing spending; he will be increasing borrowing to pay for that spending. All the sensitivities of the shadow ministers opposite will not explain away why their plan for Australia is to tax more, to spend more and to borrow more.

This is a government that has an economic plan: to lower the burden of tax on our businesses and our hardworking Australians. We have a plan to sustainably get back to surplus. And we will not increase tax and increase spending endlessly in an unsustainable way.

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