Mr ANDREWS (2:19 PM) —My question is addressed to the Treasurer. Is the Treasurer aware of any revisions to previous budget outcomes and would the Treasurer outline these outcomes to the House?

Mr COSTELLO (Treasurer) —I thank the honourable member for Menzies for his question. Each year at budget time the government publishes historical data on the state of the budget going back over previous decades. I will table again the historical data. To take two years in question which will be of interest to some here, in 1994-95, the outcome—not the budget, the outcome—was a deficit of $13 billion, and in 1995-96, the outcome was a deficit of $10 billion. I will table that document.

Conversely, I will also table the historical data on the Commonwealth's debt provision, because obviously if you turn a deficit of $10 billion, you have to borrow the difference. The deficit of $10 billion meant that the government spent $10 billion that it did not have. I will table the historical data on the Commonwealth's debt position showing that in 1995-96 we borrowed over $10 billion to finance our deficit. The year before, we borrowed about $13 billion to fund our government deficit. That is historical data and it is on the record. It goes back for decades. When we borrowed that $10 billion to fund the deficit, we had to go onto the financial markets and borrow it. The Commonwealth was driving up interest rates. It was not imaginary; you had to actually borrow it so that your cheques were honoured.

I am asked whether I am aware of any revisions to previous budget outcomes. Strange as it may seem, I read a story in the Financial Review today about the honourable member for Melbourne in which he revises previous budget outcomes. It is the most extraordinary piece. My eye was taken by a little insert where he describes a lot of the middle of politics as dead-cert boring.

Mr Tanner —That wasn't me.

Mr COSTELLO —Oh, that was Latham, was it? The member for Melbourne finds the middle of politics highly interesting; I have done him an injustice. This is what he said in the face of the historical records:

Apparently it was not concrete when we had to go out and borrow $10 billion. That was imaginary, was it? Government bonds worth $10 billion were issued to finance the deficit outcome and he says that it was `not concrete'. These were bonds that had to be issued and on which the Commonwealth had to pay interest. The article in the Financial Review then asks:

To which the member for Melbourne replied:

He has single-handedly revised a budget outcome— not a budget forecast but a budget outcome as recorded in the Commonwealth historical accounts, as backed up by the Commonwealth debt position and as represented by actual bonds that were issued to fund that deficit. I have often sat here and wondered whether the Labor Party are dishonest or incompetent. When they go on with the idea that there was not an actual deficit, is it dishonesty or is incompetence? Is it that they knew but wanted to cover it up, or is it that they never knew and still have not apologised? They still cannot come to grips with the mismanagement of the financial accounts. These are not budget forecasts; these are outcomes. The outcome of the last year of the then Minister for Finance, now the Leader of the Opposition, was a $10 billion outcome. After we had paid the bills and got the revenues in, we were $10 billion short and we issued $10 billion worth of government bonds, which we paid interest on and which we went into the financial markets for. That was the outcome as at 30 June and throughout that campaign, as late as February, the then Minister for Finance was trying to tell the Australian people that we were in surplus. Was it dishonesty or was it incompetence?

I want to table one last piece of evidence that might also come as a revelation to the would-be finance minister of the Labor Party. You wonder why he is the would-be finance minister of the Labor Party. He probably makes these statements to try to make the last Labor Party finance minister look good. In a press release on 10 May 1998 the then Deputy Leader of the Opposition and shadow Treasurer, Gareth Evans, had this to say:

Mr McMullan —That's how you wrote it.

Mr COSTELLO —No, that is not how we wrote it; that is where it came in. That is the $10 billion you had to borrow. You do not write $10 billion worth of unnecessary bond borrowings to try to make sure that your cheques do not bounce. They were issued. This is what Gareth Evans had to say when he finally admitted that the Labor Party's budget outcome deficit was $10 billion in the red:

Mr Reith has never done that, but the shadow minister for finance gets back into the business of claiming that black is white. He single-handedly revises the budget outcome. He tries to wish away $10 billion worth of bonds. He refuses to acknowledge the reason that we now have a Charter of Budget Honesty: the most deceitful conduct during an election campaign in Australian history from Australia's worst finance minister ever was from the Leader of the Opposition who, unlike Gareth Evans, has never had the decency to come out and admit what the situation was. And he now tries to inveigle the member for Melbourne to support him in that dishonesty.