Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

We will get to Senator Minchin’s performance soon. The second legacy is higher interest rates, and the third is government spending, which has been out of control for some years.

Let us just look at each of these. The underlying inflation rate in Australia, a legacy from the former Liberal government, has hit 3.6 per cent. That is the highest underlying inflation rate in 16 years. The highest inflation rate in 16 years! Of course, higher inflation equals higher interest rates. That is what we have seen in this country. On interest rates, hard-working families are being slugged as a consequence of this higher inflation—the legacy that the opposition left us when they were defeated. Australia has now had 12 interest rate increases in a row. That puts us amongst the highest in terms of home interest rates for advanced economies in the OECD.

Thirdly we have aspects of government spending. We all know that in the current financial year, according to the budget figures of the previous government—presided over by the former finance minister, now Liberal leader in the Senate, Senator Minchin—government spending was escalating at an increasing rate of 4½ per cent in real terms. That is totally unsustainable. Not only is it totally unsustainable, Senator Minchin—through you, Mr President—it was totally reckless and totally irresponsible. What was the former finance minister, Senator Minchin, doing over the last couple of years? Clearly he was not imposing any discipline whatsoever on any of his ministerial colleagues, particularly the Prime Minister.

The Rudd Labor government is committed to delivering a higher budget surplus. We are committed to increasing the surplus from one per cent of the gross domestic product to 1½ per cent of gross domestic product in the next financial year. We are especially committed to eliminating wasteful spending, to putting downward pressure on inflation and to putting downward pressure on interest rates.

As I have already said, this was under the previous finance minister, now Liberal leader—he has been rewarded for this reckless spending and failure to impose discipline—in the Senate. The Department of Finance and Deregulation have provided data—