Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House the government’s fiscal strategy and explain why a considered plan to bring the budget back to surplus when the economy recovers is so important?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dobell for his question. The government does have a comprehensive fiscal strategy which provides fiscal stimulus in the short term, as I was saying before, to provide absolutely essential support to the economy during the global recession. There is also a plan to bring the budget back into surplus as the economy recovers. This plan has been endorsed by the International Monetary Fund. It says few other advanced economies have adopted such a clear commitment.

The question in this House is what the fiscal plan of those opposite is compared to that of the government. The member for North Sydney is this morning reported to have claimed that a reasonable emergency or maximum level of spending is 24 per cent of GDP. This would come as a shock to many in the House, not least of them the member for Higgins, because 10 of his 12 budgets exceeded that amount. Ten of his 12 budgets exceeded the target put by Sloppy Joe over there in the newspaper this morning.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Treasurer will refer to members by their parliamentary titles, and in the past he has been asked—

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for putting words into my mouth. I might have got there myself. The Treasurer will withdraw.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly will, Mr Speaker.

Opposition Members:

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do withdraw. The shadow Treasurer was very sloppy when he nominated expenditure as a percentage of GDP at 24 per cent. It was exceeded by the last Treasurer on 10 of 12 occasions. What would it mean? It would be the equivalent of ripping $50 billion, or four per cent of GDP, out of the economy. Is it any wonder they do not care about employment. If that were to be put in place in these circumstances, ripping four per cent of GDP out of the economy, it would drive growth down. It would send the economy back to recession if that foolish proposal was ever put into practice. They go on about budgets and they go on about spending, but the member for North Sydney and the Leader of the Opposition have not put forward one concrete savings measure. They—

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Name them.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Name one.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Treasurer will refer his remarks through the chair.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Name the savings measures that have been put forward—put them on the table. This strategy was announced on the very day that they knocked over a savings measure in the Senate worth $9.5 billion over 10 years. They have the hide to come into this House and lecture us about fiscal policy and knock over essential savings as part of a medium-term fiscal strategy in the Senate. I think the member for North Sydney must have had a terrible morning this morning. He would have got up, he would have opened his paper and the first deadline he would have seen is ‘Hockey vows to slash 14 billion’. Of course, we now know it was $50 billion, not $14 billion. A big headline this morning was ‘Hockey vows to slash 14 billion’.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He goes, ‘Oh, terrific.’ The headline on page 4 is ‘Liberals vow to slash public spending’, until he nearly choked on his breakfast doughnut because there beside it on page 5, is ‘Senate votes down $1.9bn health cuts’. That is the rabble that those opposite have become. They announce a steely determination to put forward fiscal restraint and then knock off a saving in the Senate. They simply cannot be taken seriously.

Let us look at the saving they knocked off in the Senate. They say they have got priorities. If they have got priorities we know where they lie because they knocked off the saving whereby low-income workers and middle-income workers subsidise the health insurance of very high income earners. We certainly know what their priorities are: to crash the economy and to tilt the playing field against people on modest incomes. That is very clear. They do not have a policy; they just have an interview in the Australian newspaper. They want to whinge about debt and then vote against savings, because they do not have an alternative policy. They have got an interview posing as a policy and that is simply it. That is how bankrupt they have become. In contrast, we on this side of the House do have a medium-term fiscal strategy. We are determined to support the Australian economy when it needs it, to withdraw stimulus in a timely way when private demand returns and to put in place our medium-term fiscal strategy. Those on the other side of the House are simply a rabble.