Senator FERGUSON —My question is to the Assistant Treasurer, Senator Short. I refer the minister to the statement made during the election campaign by the then Minister for Finance and now Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley, that `We are operating in surplus and our projections are for surpluses in the future'. Given that the new Treasurer, Mr Costello, announced only days after the election that there was an $8 billion budget black hole, what can the government say about its predecessor's awareness of the real situation and Mr Beazley's credibility?

Senator SHORT —I thank Senator Ferguson for his very important question. It was obvious throughout the election campaign that the Labor Party was deceiving the Australian people and nowhere was that more obvious than in respect of the budget situation. As Senator Ferguson pointed out in his question, on 1 February Mr Beazley, then Minister for Finance, said, `We are operating in surplus and our projections are for surpluses in the future.'

That assertion was never once rebutted by any of the former government ministers during the election campaign. Indeed, the contrary was the case from the Prime Minister down. Despite that unequivocal assurance, two days after the election the new Treasurer was handed figures showing that the budget would be in deficit for the entire period of the forward estimates. For 1995-96, instead of a surplus of $720 million, we inherited a deficit of $280 million—a deterioration of $1 billion. For 1996-97 the picture was even worse, with what Labor had said would be a surplus of $3.4 billion in fact being revealed two days after the election to be a deficit of $4.9 billion. That is a turnaround of $8.3 billion in the budget bottom line.

The deceit practised by Labor and Mr Beazley during the campaign was twofold, of course. The first was that they pretended that the figures were not available. Secondly, they pretended that the budget was in surplus. Mr Beazley deceived the Australian public during the election campaign and now he is trying to continue that deception by denying the legiti macy of the Treasury figures. On 17 April—a couple of weeks ago—Mr Beazley said:

We don't accept the figures that have been put forward. This notion of an $8 billion hole is largely a fraud.

Yet during the election campaign, Mr Beazley said:

As far as we are concerned, the Treasury estimates that we had in connection with the last budget—and they were Treasury estimates—stand for good and we stand by them.

Now that Labor is out of office, the Treasury figures apparently are not good enough for him.   The only fraud being perpetrated is by Mr Beazley himself and his Labor colleagues.In stark contrast, the coalition government will ensure that the Australian people will be fully informed on the Commonwealth's budget position at the beginning of each election campaign period, as we outlined in our proposed charter of budget honesty. Mr Beazley in the last couple of weeks has rejected this valuable reform initiative, which is further evidence of his lack of commitment to open government.

So let there be no doubt about it. Despite Labor's efforts to conceal the fact, there is an $8 million black hole. Equally, there can be no doubt that the responsibilities for this huge deterioration unquestionably rest with the Leader of the Opposition and the previous Labor government. Labor deceived the Australian public during the election. It is inexcusable for them now to try to continue that deception.