Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

They are having a chuckle about it, and nothing makes them chuckle more than lying to the Australian people about the culprits. Whether it is the gross debt number that I have been mentioning or net debt, which is at record levels for another three years, whether it is the fact that under the current Treasurer's budget the deficit for the coming year is more than 10 times bigger than it was projected under Joe Hockey's budget, the former Treasurer, in 2014, all of these numbers paint a really damning picture of the failures of those opposite. They start chuckling and shuffling through their notes—which have probably been ably prepared by their colleagues behind them—but what they will not mention, what they will not acknowledge, is that debt under this government, whether it is net debt or gross debt, is accumulating at a faster pace per month under this government than it did under the former government, which is especially revealing when you consider that the former government had a global financial crisis to deal with. Those opposite have pretty good global conditions to deal with and still they are racking up net debt and gross debt faster than the former Labor government.

Government members interjecting—

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