Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline the importance of building a strong and prosperous economy, and what positive signs have emerged in the Australian economy in recent months?

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

I really do thank the honourable member for Gilmore for her question and recognise she is an indefatigable fighter for her electorate—there is no doubt about that. As the member for Gilmore knows, and as Australians know, you have to live within your means. Like a household budget, the national budget needs to be structured on the basis that you live within your means. At the moment, the Australian government borrows $100 million every day just to pay the day-to-day bills. That is $100 million a day that needs to be borrowed and a great chunk of that comes from people living overseas. So we borrow it from those people living overseas just to meet head-on our day-to-day expenditure.

Of course, it was much higher under Labor. They locked in a spending trajectory that was unsustainable into the future. A hundred million dollars a day would buy you 40 kilometres of new road every day. It would buy you two brand new schools every day. In a week, you would get a brand new major teaching hospital. But instead, we are borrowing $100 million a day just to pay our day-to-day bills. It is clearly unsustainable.

Only one side of politics has a plan—that is, the coalition. We have a plan to meet head-on that challenge to ensure that we as a nation get to a point where we start to live within our means. Of course, today marks the seven-week mark until the nation's next budget. The focus of the 2015 budget will be to build a stronger Australian economy. The budget will be responsible, it will be measured and it will be fair. Initiatives in the budget will be focused on jobs, on growth and on opportunity. Initiatives will be focused on how we can do more to help Australian families and to help small businesses, because, after all, small business represents 4½ million employees in Australia. It is the small businesses in Australia that are going to be the job generators and the innovation users that are going to build our prosperity into the future. And of course if we can to more to help families in Australia through more accessible, more flexible affordable child care, then the 165,000 parents out there who actually do want to work but cannot work at the moment will have a fairer go.

So, we are very focused on a number of key goals, but overwhelmingly we want to ensure that the Australian budget works in partnership with the Reserve Bank on monetary policy, to work together to ensure that we build stronger economic growth in the Australian economy in the face of headwinds overseas, that we create more jobs and that we build greater prosperity to the benefit of every Australian household.