Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is his government prepared to use the $80 billion that he has slashed from hospitals and schools to run an advertising campaign to promote his broken promises and election lies?

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition knows full well that the word 'lies' is unparliamentary. He will withdraw and he may rephrase the question.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order, Madam Speaker: the Leader of the House also used a word which should be withdrawn. I think it was 'grub', but I am not sure, and he should withdraw it.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was: stop being a grub—and a bad mannered one at that!

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition can rephrase his question.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Madam Speaker, I did not hear the withdrawal.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to withdraw.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister—

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speak louder, Bill, speak louder.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert!

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Your voters are speaking pretty loud. They're not happy.

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert is warned!

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

The member for Herbert will remove himself under 94(a) for one hour.

Opposition members: At last!

The member for Herbert then left the chamber.

We will have some silence. The Leader of the Opposition is rephrasing his question.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly will now! My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is his government prepared to use the $80 billion that he slashed from health and education budgets to the states in order to promote an advertising campaign to promote his broken promises and election fairytales?

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

There are three false statements there. First of all, this is the budget that Australia needs right now to face Labor's debt and deficit disaster. Second, there were no $80 billion of spending in any budget that has been reduced by this government.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not what the budget papers say.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will desist.

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

I challenge the Leader of the Opposition to point to $80 billion in Labor budgets that were going to be spent on health and education. Finally, no advertising campaigns have been undertaken by this government. That contrasts with when the Leader of the Opposition was in government. Seven hundred million dollars were spent on political advertising by the former government.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, on a point of order—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. All those members on my left who were using those placards will put them down, if they appear again. You know the ruling: they are not permitted to be used. And if that was condoned by the Manager of Opposition Business, which I presume it must have been—

Opposition members interjecting—

Now you can have your point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, given that when that incident occurred I had wandered down and got a piece of paper and wandered back, what on earth are you making up?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, obviously the opposition has forgotten that in the previous last two parliaments I used to have to listen to a lot of epithets and comments from the member for Chisholm and the former member for Scullin and the former member for Fisher, but I never reacted in the rude and ill-mannered way that this man does. I would ask you to apologise to the Speaker for the way you just reflected on her in the chair. If you were a gentleman, you would do so.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Prime Minister asked me to table what I was talking about. Here it is in my hand: the budget papers. There is $80 billion of cuts in the budget.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I made a ruling yesterday and indicated that there would be no request allowed if it is already on the public record. An invitation does not make a difference. The honourable member for Robertson has the call.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister inform the House why it is necessary to fix the budget now rather than leaving it to future generations to deal with Labor's debt and deficit legacy?

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

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. I can point out to her that this country has a fundamentally strong economy, but under members opposite we had a fundamentally weak budget. The government is fixing the budget to strengthen our economy. This is exactly what we were elected to do. I said until I was blue in the face during the last election that we would do four things: we would stop the boats, we would scrap the carbon tax, we would build the road to the 21st century, and we would get the budget back under control.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I can understand a certain amount of excitement from members opposite, because members opposite did not think the budget needed to be brought back under control. None other than the Leader of the Opposition said—he likes to talk about advertising, well here is a bit of false advertising that the Leader of the Opposition put out—he claimed, in a dodger distributed to his electorate, that the budget was—

An incident having occurred in the chamber

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. I have already said that those placards are not to be used. If you wish to act in defiance of the chair in that way—I would ask the Manager of Opposition Business to ask his members to abide by the ruling.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I ask that the same rule will apply to the Prime Minister who is waving a document around on that side.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Should the Prime Minister again wave it around, he will be asked to desist from that action, but I would ask you to inform your members to comply with the ruling.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will go and talk to them now.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Good. The Prime Minister has the call.

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

The Leader of the Opposition claimed back in 2012 that the budget was back in surplus, on time and as promised. I know why he is turning his back; he is embarrassed by this. He said, 'in these uncertain global times, there is no clearer sign of a strong economy than a surplus'—the surplus he never, ever delivered, the surplus Labor never delivered and was incapable of delivering.

What did we get from members opposite? We got the six biggest deficits in Australia's history. We got 200,000 more unemployed at the end of their six years than at the beginning. We got $123 billion of cumulative prospective deficits, $667 billion of projected debt and $1 billion a month in interest payments—every single month—just to pay the interest on the borrowings. They were paying the nation's mortgage on the credit card. It just could not go on; and it will not go on, thanks to this government.

We are taking the tough decisions now to avoid even tougher decisions in four or five years time. We are taking the tough decisions now to set up the prosperity of the future. This is the first honest budget in six years. This is the budget our country needs.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. In light of the Prime Minister's previous answer to my question, why did his Minister for Finance outline the details of a taxpayer funded propaganda campaign being planned by this government to sell this budget of broken promises?

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

On this issue, as on so many others, the Leader of the Opposition is simply incapable of telling the truth. This is the Leader of the Opposition who could not be trusted by either of his two previous leaders. Kevin Rudd could not trust him; Julia Gillard could not trust him; and the Australian people should not trust him either.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline how getting the budget back on track allows Australia to best prepared for future economic challenges?

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

I am very grateful to the honourable member for Lyons for the question. He is actually asking about the details of the budget, and I am happy to respond—

Mr Bowen interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMahon will desist.

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

and focus on the fact that, if no action were taken, Australian government debt would increase to $667 billion within a decade—that is, $25,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You fudged the figures.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Parramatta will desist.

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

Our interest bill alone in that time would be nearly $3 billion a month—$3 billion a month for the legacy of debt left by the Labor Party in just six years. In just six years they managed to lock in expenditure that left us with a trajectory of debt to $667 billion, with an interest bill of nearly $3 billion a month. And now the interest bill is over $1 billion a month for what Labor did over a six-year period. The fact is they have left us with the fastest growth rate in spending of the top 17 surveyed IMF countries in the world. They have left us with the third fastest growth in net debt of the 17 surveyed countries in the world.

Labor say there is no problem—'No tragedy here; no problem here'—because from their perspective they did nothing wrong. Well, they did. The first act of wrongness is their denial. We have heard about the War of the Roses, but I want to tell you about the 'War of the Bowens'—I want to tell you about the 'Battle of the Bowens'. The Bowen in the Labor Party seems to think that there is really no problem here, just a little budget repair job, but the Bowen who is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, appointed by the last parliament as the independent arbiter in these matters, said:

It is time to start coming out—

of debt and deficit—

otherwise the longer you leave it the more exposed you become and the harder it is to wind it back.

That is the independent Bowen, the Bowen who knows what he is talking about. That Bowen—Phil Bowen, the Parliamentary Budget Officer—has belled the cat. He has proven the fact, as has every other independent analyst, that we need to act now to stop the debt getting out of control. The only way to do that is to back a budget that is honest. That comes as a rude shock to Labor—an honest budget! The fact is we have delivered an honest budget and we will fix the economy.