Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney) (15:18): Whilst the member for Hunter is in the House, I will note that the photograph was published on the web on Fairfax's site. That was the source of the photo. The parlous state of the government's budget is obviously back in the headlines—and so it should be. We all know the story—the four biggest budget deficits in modern Australian history, totalling $174 billion; a massive blow-out in spending, with the government this year spending $100 billion more than the last year of the coalition government; a massive increase in debt, with the $70 billion the coalition left in net assets being turned into a projected $145 billion of net debt; and an interest bill on gross debt of $12 billion a year. Madam Deputy Speaker, if the member for Lyne and the minister want to negotiate, they are perfectly entitled to do so outside this place. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would ask the minister to stop his negotiations in the corridor—and everybody else, now that I have set the precedent, better take note when they do it the next time too. Mr HOCKEY: The next parliament the ministers will negotiate, I am sure. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for North Sydney better not to tempt fate if he wants to get through his MPI. Mr HOCKEY: This government has left us with an interest bill of $12 billion a year. This would be enough to fully fund the Gonski education reforms, to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to build 12 new teaching hospitals. The government has staked its economic credentials on delivering an underlying budget surplus, but already there are private sector bodies such as Access Economics raising doubts about whether a surplus can actually be achieved this year. We will wait and see if it is achieved. The government has shuffled the money around. They have shuffled expenditure from one year to the next. They have shuffled revenue from one year to the next. They have engaged in accounting tricks. The numbers will be heavily massaged. But whether they get there or not, what matters is the sustainability of the budget and whether budget borrowings will continue to climb. The whole idea behind a desire to have a surplus is to reduce the burden of debt. The Treasurer knows this. On the day after this year's budget he claimed the reason to achieve a surplus was to pay down debt. He said, 'It is very modest. That is why you come back down to surplus. That is why you pay down your debt.' Yet the budget papers show that the Labor Party will continue to increase borrowings until 2015. This year alone the Labor government will be borrowing $24 million a day to fund just its off-budget initiatives. Next year they will be borrowing $19 million a day. So every day this government has been in power debt has been increasing. Nothing changes. Labor has now sought to increase the limit on the government's debt ceiling on four separate occasions, to increase the credit card limit. It was originally $75 billion. Then it went to $200 billion, and then $250 billion. This year the government said, 'Don't worry—we're paying down the debt. But, just in case, we want to go to $300 billion.' Just in case! Total government debt on issue is currently $240 billion, but with all the spending for an uncosted National Broadband Network and a $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, who knows where we will be in three years time. Most concerning of all, it does not include all the announcements this government has made over the last few weeks—all targeted, dare I say, not at the electorate but at Kevin Rudd. The government has announced $120 billion of new spending initiatives to put off the leadership challenge of the member for Griffith. That is what it is about. If anyone thinks it is seriously about people with disabilities, then why isn't the government allocating serious money to it? If it is seriously about submarines, then why isn't the government allocating the money to it? If the government is really serious about dental health care, where is it going to find this money? Of course, there are also the Gonski reforms. Remember it was the member for Griffith—whose predecessor had 'noodle nation'—who said he would deliver the education revolution. That is why this Prime Minister is determined to have a Gonski plan with no money. But still, they have given the commitment. This is about building monuments to Julia, as everyone in the Labor Party seems to be doing, to fend off Kevin. The bottom line is— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for North Sydney will refer to members by their appropriate titles. Mr HOCKEY: Yes, I understand. Sorry. The Prime Minister is building monuments to herself to fend off the member for Griffith. Dr Leigh: Point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker: the member for North Sydney wrote the MPI but seems unable to retain relevance even to the MPI he wrote himself. I ask you to ask him to remain relevant to the MPI he wrote. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Fraser will resume his seat. The member for North Sydney has the call. Mr HOCKEY: Let's go through them. There is the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which will cost $10½ billion a year when it is operational. There is an extra $3.7 billion for aged care and an extra $1 billion which the government says is going to $3 billion for low-paid workers. There is offshore processing. Gee, that's gone well! So far there is $2.1 billion for reopening Nauru and Manus Island. There is an increase in the refugee intake to 20,000. That is going to cost an extra $1.4 billion. For Defence there is $36 billion for submarines and $16 billion for joint strike fighters. The Greens dental care program, which the government has taken credit for, is $4 billion. Then, of course, there is Gonski, at least $6½ billion a year. Where is this money coming from? These are huge announcements. Where is it coming from? Mr Champion: A growing economy. Mr HOCKEY: Listen, old sunshine: it is not your money; it is the taxpayers' money. It is the taxpayers' money out there, not yours. That is the problem with Labor. They think it is their money, but it is the taxpayers' money—the same poor old taxpayers who have to pay for the $900 cheques that go to dead people, for the pink batts that go into people's roofs and burn down people's houses, for the massive overspend on school halls. That is the same Labor Party and you know it is the same taxpayers who have to pay those horrific bills. We know that it can only come from one of two sources. It can come from increased taxes, and Lord knows the Labor Party is pretty good at that. There have been 26 new or increased taxes since the Labor Party was elected, some of them real crackers, like the carbon tax and the mining tax. The carbon tax has had six different versions and is over $8 billion a year. Gee, that's gone well for you guys! That is terrific. That has done great things to the Australian economy. Then there is the mining tax, which now raises less than one per cent of Commonwealth government revenue. The Labor Party has been so diligent in its application to delivering a simple mining tax that there are mining companies spending up to $1½ million a year on accountants, complying with the mining tax, and they have no liability to pay it. They have no liability to pay the tax, but the paperwork of the tax is costing $1½ million a year for some mining companies, half a million dollars for most of the others. I would say to you that the coalition is absolutely determined to get rid of the carbon tax. We are absolutely determined to get rid of the mining tax. We are absolutely determined to have smaller government than Labor. We are absolutely determined to empower taxpayers to have more control over their own hard-earned money. That is what we do. But it is in the DNA of the Labor Party to have increased spending and increased taxation. That is what the Labor Party does. I always love referring to Doug Cameron. We love Doug Cameron. Dougie, with the Scottish accent over in the Senate, is a truth teller for the Labor Party. He said, 'We need Kevin Rudd to campaign for us at the next election.' Damn right they need Kevin Rudd to campaign for them at the next election. It would be a welcome change from Kevin Rudd campaigning against the Labor Party at election. So yes, they do need Kevin. But Doug Cameron said about the $120 billion of new commitments that it was: … inconceivable that this amount of government expenditure on building a good society could be funded from existing revenue. That makes everyone a little bit nervous. What tax is next? The Labor Party is refusing to release the costings undertaken by the Treasury on the Greens policies. Let's just get this right. The Greens, who are the coalition partners of the Labor Party, went to the Commonwealth Treasury and said, 'Can you cost our policies?' Then the Labor Party gives us a lecture and says, 'You should do that and then everyone can see what the numbers are.' But the thing is: the government are refusing to release the Treasury costings of Greens policies. They are claiming they are cabinet-in-confidence. I been around this place a while, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, as have you—not nearly as long as me, but you are showing your age very well!—and I have never seen a Green in the cabinet. I do not think they are there. So how is their deliberation actually in confidence to cabinet? They do not sit in the room. So we will be looking at the information office's deliberations on this very carefully. What we do know is that the Greens want to see company taxes increased to 33 per cent. We know the Greens want to reintroduce death duties to Australia—and the Labor Party struggles to answer the questions. The Greens want to increase taxes on superannuation. You might say, 'That's the Greens.' Well, the last time the Greens had a policy costed by the Treasury, it was changes to FBT on company cars. The Greens came out and said, 'This is our policy,' and then the government announced it. I thought at the time, 'Gee; I've heard that before.' What other policies do the Greens have? The Greens went to the last election promising a $23-a-tonne carbon tax. Wow! What does this government do? 'We're going to have a $23 a tonne carbon tax.' So now we know. The Labor Party have a $120 billion black hole, in an attempt to make the Prime Minister more popular with the Australian people. They have had a huge raft of announcements over the last few weeks, and now they will not tell the Australian people where the money is coming from. It is a magic pudding. But you know what? At the end of the day, there is only one taxpayer, the poor soul. Labor are hoping that everything is going to be okay, that the economy is just going to choof on. They are ignoring what is happening in Europe. They are ignoring the challenges in the United States. They are ignoring that China is coming off what seems to be quite a peak. They are ignoring that, in the last national accounts, the government sector contributed 0.5 per cent to the 0.6 per cent growth. They are ignoring that, in the June quarter results, without their cash handouts household disposable income would have been in trouble, because the economy is not performing as well as was expected. They are ignoring that company profits are coming down, according to the national accounts. They are ignoring that investment in dwellings continues to slump. They are ignoring that the terms of trade continue to decline. They are ignoring that the June quarter accounts predate the introduction of the carbon and mining taxes. They are ignoring that retail sales fell by nearly one per cent in July. They are ignoring that ANZ job advertisements declined by nearly one per cent in July and two per cent in August. They are ignoring that the Sensis Business Index showed that confidence of small and medium businesses declined in the September quarter, and consumer confidence remained pessimistic for the seventh consecutive month. These are the stats. What does the Labor Party do? In response to the general malaise across the Australian community, the Labor Party says: 'Don't worry. We're going on a big-spending, big-taxing binge.' You know what? The Labor Party are hypocrites for this. They criticise for Campbell Newman for job cuts. They are cutting 3,000 jobs this year out of the Public Service in Canberra, and they are trying to give us a sanctimonious lecture about who cares about jobs. Typical Labor—all hypocrisy.