Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also would like to make some brief remarks with regard to the Senate Select Committee on the Abbott Government's Commission of Audit—not the title that I would necessarily have chosen, but it does capture a couple of important points. The first is that the new government, led by Tony Abbott, did indeed commission the work of a national audit commission process. In doing so, it set about an urgent review of the scope, efficiency and function of the Commonwealth government that it inherited on 7 September. In doing so, it set itself the task, through the National Commission of Audit process, to look at how best to achieve the savings necessary to deliver a one per cent budget surplus prior to 2023-24. I can understand that some people in the Senate and in the Australian community might be a bit alarmed and want to know, 'Why such a lengthy period between the present and 2023-24?' Fundamentally there are two views in our community at the moment, and these were ably demonstrated and vigorously discussed, as Senator Dastyari has suggested, through the National Commission of Audit Senate Select Committee process. Those views fall into one of two camps. There is the head-in-the-sand camp, which believes there is no problem with the financial arrangements of the Commonwealth and we are destined for a glorious future and nothing need change. The second view—a view that I subscribe to without hesitation, and a view that many Senate colleagues on this side subscribe to—is that there is a budget emergency.

If you look at the comments of the Australian Industry Group, if you look at the comments of the Business Council of Australia; indeed if you look at the comments of the IMF and the OECD more recently, you will discover that they agree that there is a budget emergency, and the Commission of Audit Committee dissenting report covers those issues well.