Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (15:12): Three years ago my predecessor as shadow Treasurer responded in the MPI the day after the budget and he warned about growing debt and deficit and what a Liberal-National Party would do about it. He announced that to the House. Who would have thought that three years later—with the member for North Sydney retired to Washington to fight the age of entitlement from the ambassador's residence and replaced by the member for Cook—the member for North Sydney's successor as the Liberal-National Party Treasurer announces a budget which sees a deficit that the member for North Sydney forecast for this year tripled under a Liberal-National Party government, and a Liberal-National Party Premier outlines a budget balance off in the distance that is based on very optimistic presumptions and forecasts, and the budget sees Australia's net debt increase by $109 billion, from $217 billion to $326 billion. That is this government's idea of dealing with debt and deficit. Is it any wonder that the Treasurer was asked this morning on radio whether the debt and deficit disaster was over and whether the budget emergency was over? He was very agile and nimble in his response, as you would understand. He said, 'That's a tired old argument.' 'That's old politics,' said the Treasurer. Of course, it is pretty difficult. He could hardly say that it was over with those figures. He could hardly say, with his unfunded and uncosted taxing plans and plans in his budget, that it was over. The Treasurer was caught out. Even the figures that I just outlined in terms of debt and deficit are based on very optimistic forecasts from the Treasurer. Nominal growth, the most important growth measure in terms of impact on government revenue, is predicted to jump from 2½ per cent this year to 4.25 five per cent next year, and then five per cent over the forward estimates. Well, that is a relief. I am sure honourable members are relieved to hear that everything is okay. Nominal growth is going to just rocket up and fix the budget. I read that forecast last night in the budget. I thought: 'That sounds familiar. I've read similar figures to that in the past.' I got out last year's budget from our old friend the former member for North Sydney and I found that he was forecasting nominal growth this year of 3.25 per cent, which was revised down to 2½ per cent, and 5.5 per cent for 2016-17, which is now revised down as well. Mr Brendan O'Connor: Heroic! Mr BOWEN: They have a plan to fix the budget but it is just that for the next year they have to put in a little adjustment to say, 'Actually, it didn't quite work out that way.' I wonder what we will see about these forecasts in coming years. We have a budget based on wages growth of 3½ per cent. As the member for Gorton well knows, wages growth of 3½ per cent might be called an heroic assumption. The Treasurer has decided that the recent up-tick in iron ore prices is permanent. It will also come as a relief to the House to know that with the temporary recent increases—which we all hope are there for a long time—the Treasurer has decided that it is okay. We can bank on those, and he will build his budget plans on them. The Treasurer tells us that he has come up with a plan for jobs and growth. I have to admit—and I am going to give credit where it is due—this government's economic plan announced last night has done better than most of the economic plans announced by the Turnbull government. It has made it to day 2. It is a long-lived economic plan, this one, by the standards of the Turnbull government. The biggest reforms to Federation in our history did not make it to day 2. State income tax did not make it to day 2. The big sweeping broad tax reform that the Treasurer promised lasted a little while longer, but it certainly did not make it to budget day. Dealing with the excesses in negative gearing did not last too long either. So this plan is doing very well. By the standards of the Turnbull government, it is standing up very, very well to scrutiny. But what it is not doing well is standing up to scrutiny when it comes to its impact on the budget, because it is a 10-year plan. What we have been told by the government is that we all have to live within our means. We all have to budget for the long term. What we have to do is make sure our decisions make the budget sustainable. So, of course, the obvious thing to do is come up with a 10-year plan and have a four-year costing. That is the obvious thing you do in this situation, isn't it? It makes eminent sense to everybody. The Treasurer thinks it makes eminent sense to everybody that you would have a 10-year plan, except not cost it over 10 years. Could you imagine what would happen if we proposed that? If we said that we had a 10-year plan but we were not going to cost it over 10 years, I think the Treasurer might have something to say about that. I think the Prime Minister might even decide to get himself excited about that. We have the centrepiece of the budget, the so-called jobs and growth plan—the plan for 10 years time—and the Treasurer cannot tell us how much it will cost over those 10 years. He managed to get costed over 10 years his cuts to schools and hospitals. That was important enough to cost over 10 years, but he did not bother to get costed the centrepiece of his budget—and he expects the House to endorse a 10-year tax plan, without knowing what it costs. He expects the Australian people to endorse a tax plan on 2 July, and he cannot tell them what it costs. This is fiscal recklessness, and we will not have a part of it. We will not be part of a 10-year tax plan which is unfunded and uncosted. The Treasurer can lecture us about funding schools and hospitals and how it should be paid for, and we will remind him that his policies need to be paid for as well. He cannot pay for them, because there is a small little technical detail: to pay for something, you need to know the cost of it! That is how it works. You have to work out the cost before you can work out how to fund it. It is a pretty basic process, which the Treasurer seems to have forgotten. I understand he was rushing it. He had a week less than he thought. But he still could have thought to cost the centrepiece of the budget. This shows the hypocrisy of this Treasurer, who is simply not up to being the economics minister of a G20 economy, as we have been shown time and time again over recent days. We also know that the Prime Minister promised substantial tax reform. He promised it last Sunday on the Chris Kenny show. He told us it was substantial tax reform. We have seen what substantial tax reform is—a $6-a-week tax cut if you are on $87,000. But, credit where credit it is due. There is some substantial tax reform in the budget. If your annual income is $1 million, you get a $16,750 tax cut. That is substantial—I grant you that. Sixteen thousand dollars a year—that is substantial. We give points to the Prime Minister for that. We acknowledge that that is substantial. But we should not be too harsh on the Treasurer. It is his special day—his budget. It may be his only budget, so I am going to try and find things in the budget that I like, that we can endorse. I have looked through it and I have found some. Mr Albanese: Our policies. Mr BOWEN: We can endorse them because we announced them! We can endorse them because they are Labor policies announced by the Leader of the Opposition, by me and by my colleagues over the course of the last two years to deliver budget repair which is fair, such as dealing with high income superannuation. Why don't we make $250,000 the threshold for the surcharge? Who thought of that? We did. The Treasurer personally led the campaign against it. He said it was an attack on the retirement of incomes of all Australians. He was going to fight to the last drop of his blood to oppose it. Last night, he announced it. That was his great big plan. We had tobacco. Of course, not only did the Treasurer oppose that, the health minister opposed increasing tobacco tax. The health minister said it was a tax grab. It is just unbelievable that a government could spend two years campaigning against things, announce them and then argue that this was their plan all along. What we saw last night was not a budget; it is was an alibi for the last three years. The last three years did not happen. What we are told is that this budget is a plan for jobs and growth. I will tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, what a jobs and growth plan would not do. A jobs and growth plan would not cut $1 billion from Australia's infrastructure budget. That is what a jobs and growth plan would not do. We were told that this budget was going to be great for infrastructure. It was going to have a cities policy— Ms Macklin: Where is it? Mr BOWEN: Apparently, the cities policies, at its core, was to take $1 billion out of infrastructure. That is their great plan. Mr Fitzgibbon: Bring back Jamie! Mr BOWEN: Bring back the member for Mayo. He might have done better. The other thing you would not do in a jobs and growth plan is cut funding to schools for the future, to actually say to Australia's schools: 'You don't need that money.' Apparently money does not count. Well, tell that to the principals and the teachers in Australia's schools who are trying to improve their educational outcomes and using the resources that they have for good outcomes by doing good things under the Gonski funding model but who are about to have it cut. That is not a plan for jobs and growth. A plan for jobs and growth would not have a second-rate and more expensive NBN, which is this government's policy. Who is responsible for that? A man called the Prime Minister of Australia, who has had the disaster of the NBN on his watch. It now costs more, takes longer, is more expensive and is less efficient than the plans left to him by the previous government. We will have an election based on plans for jobs and growth. We will have an election based on your budget. We will have an election based on our priorities. It is an election that you will regret.