Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Here we hear the same refrain from the Australian Labor Party: do not get between the shadow Treasurer and the opportunity to extend the credit card, because if Labor has an opportunity to be out there claiming to be a friend of the Australian family, even if it involves borrowed money, then we know they will take it every single time.

The shadow Treasurer stands up and says, 'We won't be lectured to about the cost pressures on Australian families'. But it is the Australian Labor Party that has left a legacy of over $400 billion of debt. It is the Australian Labor Party that in this very debate is arguing to set increased expenditure of some $13 billion.

We already know that the shadow Treasurer stood up and said, 'Oh look, there were, I concede, a couple of problems with respect to the design and implementation of the mining tax'. But let's look at what these so-called problems that the shadow Treasurer identifies actually are. A projection of $49½ billion worth of revenue, subsequently revised down to being a projection of around $24 billion worth of revenue, with expenditure of some $16 billion tied to it and what is the actual outcome? The actual outcome of Labor's trumpeted mining tax is, in net terms, $400 million. And yet the Labor Party comes in and the shadow Treasurer says, 'Oh, we won't be lectured to about standing by Australian families,' as if in some way they should wear a badge of pride that they are sticking up for the next generation of Australians.

Let's be clear, Labor Party, about what the Labor Party is intending to do. The Labor Party's approach in this debate, consistent with their approach in government, is to keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing and borrowing! The Australian Labor Party is perfectly happy to keep borrowing more money. And guess what, Madam Speaker? They will keep dishing it out. It is like the show, Treasure Island. The shadow Treasurer is like the P Diddy of his side. You can see him with one dollar notes, just throwing them up into the air if he wanted to, because he is a man of largess, a man who cares. But the reality is that that is not the right thing to do by Aussie kids. It is not the right thing to say to Aussie kids, 'Here, we'll give a cash splash to parents to make ourselves more popular', but the actual consequence of that is that they are going to be paying off that debt for decades. That is Labor's legacy: decades of debt. And that is the only consequence that will arise.

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