Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I ask: what role is responsible economic management playing in the budget’s return to surplus and why is ongoing fiscal discipline so important?

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

I thank the member for Longman for his question because this government, through responsible economic management, is bringing the budget back into the black in three years—three years early. This represents the fastest positive turnaround in the budget since the early 1960s. That is because we take responsible economic management very seriously. We took it very seriously last year, when jobs were threatened in this economy. When we created jobs by putting in place the stimulus and worked with small business and the business community, we supported jobs in electorates like Longman. Electorates like Longman are usually the first types of electorate which feel the full steel of a recession, where many people are put out of work when demand falls off a cliff. But, because we supported people in electorates like Longman—we got in there with small business and supported employment—unemployment in this country is now the envy of the developed world.

Of course, supporting jobs is the most fundamental thing a government can do. Putting the framework in place for the long-term is also a fundamental thing we can do to ensure the prosperity of all of our people, to ensure they have job security. We are providing that through our long-term economic frameworks. That is what we have done in the budget delivered this week. Because the economy is recovering, because there is a return to above-trend growth, we have put in place the very strict fiscal rules that we said we would put in place last year when we took the responsible action to support employment and small business in the Australian economy. The benefits of that have been felt right around this country and right around all of the electorates in this House.

It is just a pity that, at that critical stage of our history, those opposite opposed all of those measures, because, as we build on that success and go forward, we are in a far better position than just about any other advanced economy. We are not wading through the rubble of a recession, of prolonged and high unemployment and of massive business closures, like they are in countries in Europe and like they are in the United States, because Australia did something special last year and Australia is doing something very special this year: putting in place our tight fiscal rules, a very big fiscal turnaround through expenditure restraint, through the application of our two per cent rule. That is so important.

So the challenge for the opposition leader tonight, the challenge for the opposition, is to tell the whole of Australia when they will bring the budget back to surplus. When will they bring it back to surplus? And how will they bring it back to surplus? They have already had something like $15.7 billion worth of unfunded promises. How are they going to meet all of those and bring the budget back to surplus, to show the restraint we now need to build on the success of the last year or so? How are they going to do that? This is their day of reckoning.

They come into this House time and time again and oppose essential savings measures, and then somehow pretend to be fiscal conservatives. It would make a cat laugh. These people opposite are just not serious when it comes to economic policy. They are not serious. This is what the shadow Treasurer had to say on Sky News. He was asked: ‘If the Coalition were to win this year’s election, would you have a surplus in 2011-12?’ He said: ‘We would move faster’. Well, we will see how fast they can move tonight. We will see how credible they are tonight. They must outline a fully-funded and fully-costed pathway to surplus. If they do not, they will reveal themselves for what they are: empty vessels and very risky for this country’s future.