Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (15:42): Rarely have we seen such a clear-cut example of why we are over here and those opposite are over there. This is yet another example of Labor's reflective solution to every single issue—that is, spend more money. It does not matter what it is; whatever the topic is, spend more money. They believe that is the solution. You want to create a political distraction? Spend more money. You want to avoid the real issues? Spend more money. You want a cheap headline? Spend more money. Absolutely anything, they will want to spend more money. The Australian people know that governing is a serious business and that simply saying, 'We're going to spend more; we're going to do more and spend more on absolutely everything,' is not sustainable. Frankly, it is a childish approach that leads to terrible problems. We have seen that no more clearly than in relation to the mining taxes. We do have to back up a little bit; we do need to talk, unfortunate though it is, about the mining tax because the situation we face in superannuation is so closely linked to that. That party over there is the party that said the mining tax would create $12 billion of revenue in the first two years. Mr Sukkar: How close did they get? Mr COLEMAN: Not very close, Member for Deakin. They were just out by 98 per cent. Government members interjecting— Mr COLEMAN: No, come on; let us be reasonable. It was only 98 per cent. They are working through their calculations and hopefully they will do better in the future. But the funny thing is there are still some forecasts out there in relation to what the mining tax would have done—they are more sensible forecasts now because they are not by Labor—and they say that the mining tax would generate about $660 million over the forward estimates. But what Labor had, and still clings to, was a desire to spend $17 billion against $660 million of revenue. Mr Sukkar: Seventeen billion? Mr COLEMAN: That is a problem as well, member for Deakin, because that involves a net deterioration in the budget over that period of over $16 billion, and $600 million is about four per cent of $17 billion. So it is slightly better than the two per cent but still very bad. It is the right direction but still out by 96 per cent. As a consequence, the government needs to make sensible adjustments because we are not just going to sleep walk into the future, pretending the budget situation is okay, pretending that two-thirds of a trillion dollars of debt in 10 years—which is the trajectory we are on—is okay. We are not going to pretend that is okay because it is not. We need to make some sensible adjustments and deferral of the superannuation guarantee increase is one of them. You do wonder about the previous government. The member for McMahon was in here earlier, very excited and speaking passionately. He was here when the member for Lilley introduced the mining tax. Why did he not take him aside and say, 'We need to go through the numbers in a sensible way before we commit to tens of billions in spending'? Why did he not make sure that there was some reality? He did not do that. It is unfortunate because the member for Lilley was not the Treasurer for the under-7 sausage sizzle; he was the Treasurer for the entire nation and that is just not an acceptable standard. The key point on the superannuation guarantee deferral is that, as many people have noted, when superannuation guarantee goes up, that comes out of wages. Obviously, businesses cannot just invent money, much as the opposition probably think they can. Business cannot say, 'Okay, we'll just find an extra three per cent.' That is not the sort of thing that happens in the real world. Consequently, there is a negative impact on short-term wages. So there is no question that, if the guarantee goes up more quickly, wages come down. So deferring it by three years—a sensible budget saving—makes no difference to the total compensation paid to an employer but it means they get more of it up front than they otherwise would have. So this is a very sensible response to some appalling public policy by those opposite. Let us just be thankful that the government has changed since these initiatives were put in place. (Time expired)