Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

And hopefully again in 2017! Thank you very much, the senators from South Australia. I don't think any of us in this place like to face the fact that savings have to be made across portfolio areas. Sadly, those opposite need to realise that many of these measures that are constantly being complained about—somewhat unfairly and, to some degree, dishonestly on some occasions—are because of the budget position we inherited.

Since 1996 we have had budget after budget after budget that gave more to the Australian people—and in good times when you have budget surpluses, that is a fantastic thing to do. Every government should aim to get budget surpluses so that we can make living standards and opportunities for Australians better. But, unfortunately, when you are running huge deficits that are constantly increasing, you do not have that luxury. I would point out that those opposite can carp all they like about the savings we have had to impose because we are responsible fiscal managers but just remember: the reason we are doing it is not the actions from this side of the Housel; it is from your actions when you were sitting over here.

It is worth remembering that $667 billion worth of debt would have been attributed to every man, woman and child in Australia had we continued on the trajectory we were on. That is $1 billion a month to pay for the interest on the debt; and how far could $1 billion a month have gone towards delivering some of the programs those opposite are today complaining about us having to deliver? The fact of the matter is that we have the fastest-growing deficit in the OECD. We can sit here and carry on all we like about the fact that the debt-to-GDP ratio was not as bad as that of other countries, but with the fastest-growing deficit, in a minute we will have.

The other thing I think is worth noting is that, amongst the scaremongering and tactics that have been going on from those opposite, they have not been telling the public the whole truth. To go out there and to scare the horses, our pensioners, people with children who are going to school and those people who might not be in good health without telling them the truth is an extraordinarily irresponsible thing. As an example, 'The budget for health has been cut'—the budget for health has not been cut; the budget for health is not increasing at the same rate as they put into their forward estimates.

Let's have a look at forward estimates. The big problem here is that those opposite are sitting there and carping about the things we are not funding into the future. How extraordinarily hypocritical! I could sit here for the next 25 minutes and give you a list of the programs that they had not funded into forward estimates and, when we chose to accept the fact that they have had to take those programs out of the budget because we simply could not afford some of them into the future, they attack us because we have not put them back into the budget.

There has to be a little accountability on both sides of this House—not just accountability for the government for their budget but accountability for the actions that those opposite took while in government that we have inherited. I will just put it on the table that an awful lot of things happened prior to 7 September 2013 that are resulting in the actions that have had to be taken with the budget today.

To further that issue of hypocrisy is the fact that in some situations those opposite are voting against the very savings that they had put into their own budget. So in taking note of and responding to the questions that were asked today, I would suggest to the House that maybe it would be a little better if we were more productive and proactive about doing some of the good things and in making sure we get this country back onto a good economic trajectory, instead of carping about hypocritical things that those opposite have caused. (Time expired)