Mr ROSS CAMERON (4:58 PM) —The tremendous thing about the individual measures which I outlined in my earlier remarks is that they have been achieved without recourse to increases in taxes—without increases in income tax, without increases in sales tax and without increases in fuel or other excise taxes. My colleague the member for O'Connor, Wilson Tuckey, recently pointed out to me that no government in recollection has been able to produce three successive budgets without increases in taxes, let alone been able to produce a third budget which actually generates a surplus.

I suggest that honourable members ought not just take my word for the great qualities of this budget, but we ought to look to some of the independent commentators who are no special friends of this government. I note that the Daily Telegraph editorial on 13 May observed that:

Peter Costello's third budget is, as promised, a responsible document that lays the groundwork for a secure economy in uncertain times.

Terry McCrann on the same day said that Peter Costello `can stick out his fiscal chest with pride'. He went on to describe him as a worthy claimant to the title of the `world's best Treasurer'. Most significant of all, in my opinion, was the description by Malcolm Farr of this budget as the `signal of a generational change'.

In my concluding moments, I want to emphasise this fact to the listening public and to my constituents in Parramatta: do not focus primarily on any individual budget measure, not even the $2.7 billion surplus, but reflect on the generational change, the sea change, which this budget represents. Ours is a government that believes that, if you are going to lecture the Australian people about the importance of national savings, you have to practise what you preach. We are a government that believes that, before you can fix the national economy with any credibility, you have to get your own house in order. Before you can congratulate yourself on some new spending program, you have to have a way to pay for it. That is the long march back. As Treasurer Costello said, we have completed the first leg of that march in turning around the recurrent deficit. Now we must tackle the accumulated debt.

In doing that, this government believes in the essential capacity, the potential, the diversity, the enterprise and the initiative of the Australian people. We do not believe that the sole repository of wisdom is the government itself. We do not believe in so dominating the national life that no other voices can be heard. We seek to create the conditions under which the Australian citizen, the individual, the Australian family, the Australian company and the Australian economy can grow and flourish. The satisfaction we receive is that derived from the success of others. Let interest rates fall. Let debt be repaid. Let us begin the second phase of the long march back and let a thousand flowers bloom.