QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator CHANDLER (Tasmania) (15:47): Minister, under your government, Australians have suffered the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world. There have been 15 interest rate rises and now a trillion dollars of government debt. This year, $28 billion will be spent just on the interest to that debt.

That could be spent on 200,000 nurses or 400,000 aged-care packages or a thousand kilometres of regional highway upgrades. How can you claim that things are getting better when Labor's debt is wasting billions that could be helping Australians?