Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Keneally. Can I remind colleagues that, in 2013, when we formed office, we inherited a weakening economy, rising unemployment and a rapidly deteriorating economy. The budget bottom line at that time was deteriorating by billions of dollars each and every week. I'm very pleased to report for all colleagues that the growth outlook today is stronger and employment growth is good. Again, let me hark back a little. Under Labor we were on a spending growth trajectory of four per cent above inflation, on average, year on year. The very good news for the Australian people is that this government has more than halved that. Spending growth, according to the last budget and the last half-yearly update, is 1.9 per cent. Spending as a share of GDP when we came in to government was headed to 26.5 per cent within the decade, and rising. Now, that is below 25 per cent according to the last budget.

But the fact that seems to elude those opposite is that, when you inherit a budget position which is in deficit, when you inherit significant debt and when you have spending locked in that manifests itself in the out years, you will see an increase in debt. And, obviously, as long as there are budget deficits and a government is borrowing, debt will increase. That is significantly a function of what we inherited from those opposite.