Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. He is a former Treasurer of Western Australia and he is well aware of the challenge of inheriting a budget mess from Labor, as he did. The fundamental point is that if you get on with the job of fixing the budget, you have a chance of fixing the economy. When you have a weak budget that is consistently running deficits, that is constantly accumulating debt for the nation, then that, over time, can unquestionably weaken the economy. There have been many different surveys on this, but the truth is that it is good to have a strong budget. That is why we have to get back to surplus and a sustainable surplus at that. The Labor Party is in denial. They left behind deficits totalling $123 billion and debt increasing to $667 billion. They left a time frame that shows not a single surplus over the next 10 years. That is Labor's legacy. The fact is that they did not know how to control spending.

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