Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:33): I do not accept the premise of the question. If you want to ensure that we continue to have the revenues to be able to pay pensions, Medicare, PBS and so on, we need to lift workforce participation. We need to lift the productivity of the Australian economy. And the Paid Parental Leave scheme does exactly that. It helps to lift workforce participation and it helps to lift productivity. I know this is very difficult for the Labor Party to understand, because once upon a time they, too, believed in improving productivity. Once upon a time there was a Labor Party that believed in economic reform. And only through reform can we earn economic growth. And only through economic growth can we get the revenue to help to pay for sustainable pension systems, for sustainable Medicare systems, for sustainable pharmaceutical systems, for the sustainable defence of our nation, for the sustainability of our scientific research and for the sustainability of our education. Where is this magic pudding that the Labor Party believes in? Where is it? Where is that golden goose that lays all the eggs? I do not know— Opposition members interjecting— Mr HOCKEY: I am not inviting speculation over there! I only say to the Labor Party: you left Australia with a deficit-and-debt mess. You sure did—$123 billion of deficits over just four years; $667 billion of debt over 10 years! We are currently paying $1 billion a month in interest alone on the debt that Labor has left and 70 per cent of that goes directly overseas because that is repayment to the people who we borrowed the money from. And if nothing happens on the budget, if nothing is done—if the Labor Party policy of 'she'll be right; don't worry about that' continues—we are going to end up with a debt of $667 billion in 10 years' time, the equivalent of $25,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. And we will be playing $3 billion a month in interest alone—interest alone! Three billion dollars a month just to finance the mess that was left by an incredibly bad Labor government.