Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise to move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Abetz) and Senators Cormann and Sinodinos today relating to the Budget.

Although it was sorely tempting to take note of answers given by Senator Ludwig to non-questions asked by Senator Sterle, I did have to resist temptation!

Senator Wong's answers do deserve to be taken very careful note of, in particular answers given by her to questions in relation to Labor's $120 billion budget black hole. When that proposition—the $120 billion black hole—was put to Senator Wong, she cited a laundry list of previous Labor policy commitments that have been implemented and that have been in the budget. Her justification for not providing an answer to funding for the $120 billion worth of unfunded commitments was: 'Well, look at our previous commitments.' She said that they have all been funded and they have all been accounted for.

Now, she is technically correct. There are appropriated dollars for all of those previous Labor commitments. The question is, how were they funded? The senator gave the impression that, if these have been funded and have been provided for in the budget, it must be as a result of savings measures. That is the impression she sought to leave—but it is not the case. The bulk of the previous Labor commitments which she cited have been funded by borrowing. They have been funded by debt and have led directly to successive Labor deficit budgets. And that is the point that we are making here: you can fund anything—you can fund any commitment. It is not a problem for a government to provide in a budget for every single commitment that it makes—that is easy. The Commonwealth has the power of taxation. That is not what we are questioning.

What we are questioning is where that money will come from—and we know where the money for the $120 billion will come from, should Labor get re-elected, and should they implement those commitments. Every dollar of it, just about, would come from borrowing. Every dollar would come from borrowing that is additional to the $100 billion-plus of net borrowings that this government currently has. That is our point, Mr Deputy President. Any government can make provision, but it is how you make provision. Senator Wong has often made reference to the savings that this government has identified, but the bulk of those savings have been tax increases.

There are two great untruths at the heart of Labor's fiscal story. The first is that the budget has been in deficit, year after year, because of bad luck. And how does bad luck manifest itself? It manifests itself in declining revenues. Yes, there have been declining revenues and, yes, this government has had a lot of bad luck, most of it of its own making. The fact is that the reason why the budget is in deficit under this government, year after year, is policy decisions—that means decisions by government to spend. That is why the budget is in deficit. You cannot blame revenue write-downs, you cannot blame the global economy; it is because of spending decisions by this government. That is why the budget has been in deficit, year after year.

The other great fallacy of Labor's fiscal story is the contention that they have made savings, and that they have funded their commitments from savings. As I said before, that is not the case—these senators opposite count tax increases as savings. So you will understand, Mr Deputy President, why we are more than a little cynical about the $120 billion of unfunded commitments.

If Labor were successful at the next election, we know that the way those commitments would be funded would be through more borrowing and more debt, and we would see further deficit budgets. The government needs to live within its means. It needs to cut its cloth according to the circumstances. This government has never done that, not for one budget. It has never delivered a budget surplus.

I predict that, for so long as the Australian Labor Party is in government, they will never, ever deliver a single budget surplus because they cannot. They lack the will and they lack the strength of character to make the decisions to prioritise what is important above what is merely desirable.