Senator ABETZ (Tasmania—Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service and Minister for Employment) (14:43): The telltale comment was in the last bit of Senator Bilyk's question. Senator Cormann: Over the next decade. Senator ABETZ: Exactly right, Senator Cormann—over the next decade. Everyone accepts that, whilst Labor made these wild and rash promises, there was never any funding base to those claims. So what the Labor Party does—in their traditional style—if they think they are going to lose office is that they make extravagant promises, they have a scorched-earth policy and they promise all this money without any revenue base. Then when we say that the trajectory is completely and utterly unsustainable, they accuse us of harsh cuts. That is when they did not have a funding base. Senator Kim Carr: You said, 'No cuts!' Government senators interjecting— The PRESIDENT: Order on my right. Order on my left. Senator ABETZ: What is unfair is when a government on its way out makes these hoax promises in a desperate bid to get re-elected, knowing full well that their promises at the time and into the future would all be funded by ongoing and extended borrowings. Indeed, Senator Bilyk and her government had us on a trajectory to $667,000 million worth of debt, which would have translated into an interest bill of literally thousands of millions of dollars per month just to pay the interest on the loans. Just imagine—$1,000 million, just one month's interest payment, could have built a brand-new teaching hospital in Hobart, our home state. Your profligacy has denied us that opportunity. (Time expired)