Mr CREAN —I ask a question of the Treasurer. I ask him whether he recalls saying on the World Today program on 30 August 1995 when referring to the foreign debt in nominal terms:

There is some very sobering news in today's national accounts,. . . the worst net foreign debt position Australia has ever had, a jump to $180 billion. That's $10,000 for each man, a woman and child. . . in Australia.

Treasurer, doesn't today's $228 billion foreign debt now mean, according to your formula, a debt of $12,000 for every man, woman and child? Treasurer, if the foreign debt was important in 1995, why are you just trying to wish it away today?

Mr COSTELLO (Treasurer) —As I have said on numbers of occasions, debt servicing ratios were, firstly, higher and, secondly, let's have a guess: was the government in the business of saving or borrowing in 1995? Let's all have a guess. What was the government doing in relation to debt in 1995?

Mr Crean interjecting—

Mr COSTELLO —As I recall, in 1995 the budget surplus was—

Mr Crean —Hypocrite!

Mr COSTELLO —The budget surplus, as I recall, in 1995 was minus $17,000 million. I repeat, Mr Speaker, minus $17,000 million.

Mr Crean —Hypocrite!

Mr SPEAKER —The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned.

Mr COSTELLO —Mr Speaker, he was the man who was in a government which had a $17 billion deficit in the middle of a foreign debt build-up and a current account deficit. Here we have a government which has a budget in surplus and which is retiring debt. It has put $24 billion on the table and has a plan to wipe out Commonwealth debt.

The record of the Labor Party defies belief. It defies belief that, at a time when they want to claim about foreign debt, they were adding to debt. They as a government added to debt through their budget position by $17,000 million and that had to be borrowed on domestic and foreign markets.

What the Labor Party should have been doing in 1995—and the Leader of the Opposition knows it—is that it should have been doing what it said it was doing: putting the budget into surplus. That was the right policy. It was only the absolute deceit of the Australian Labor Party to pretend they could do it when they could not; to boast that they had done it when they had not; and then to fight the measures to get the Australian economy back into the situation when they did not.

Let's not forget that in 1996 when this government said it was going to build a surplus budget, the Leader of the Opposition appeared with the then Leader of the Democrats in a ride outside Parliament House protesting against expenditure restraints; protesting against a balanced budget—the thing which was required to bring the Australian economy back into the stability which has seen it sail through the Asian financial crisis better than any other economy in this region.