When contemplating their vote most people, like me, will try to match Labor’s promises against what it’s actually done. There is no doubt that their record over the past five years clearly shows that they can’t be trusted. Most of all they have not managed our economy as they promised they would.

Far from being “fiscally conservative” and with all “reckless spending” stopped as Kevin Rudd promised, they blew $42 billion on a stimulus package that saw huge waste – pink batts put in, pink batts taken out; school halls and covered outdoor learning areas that were hundreds and thousands of dollars overpriced or built in schools that have since been closed. Without pausing for breath they committed another $36 billion to a national broadband scheme without even checking whether the costs outweighed the dubious benefits. And with wireless access for all our devices, who needs it?

Worse still, their major “rock solid” “gold-plated” promise was to maintain a budget surplus over the economic cycle. But what did we actually get? Deficits were recorded in every year since they were elected. Labor’s record is that it has never delivered a budget surplus since Paul Keating’s in 1989.

The scorecard is dismal. Five years of broken promises with Labor presiding over massive increases in our living costs, including electricity price increases of 89 per cent. The voting public is not stupid. We remember the promises for Fuel Watch and Grocery Watch to keep prices low. And we see that nothing came of it - except more public servants wasting more taxpayer dollars and prices continue to rise.

Since its election, the Labor government has completely run down the country’s financial position by turning John Howard’s surplus of $20 billion into a net debt of $150 billion in the process running up the four biggest deficits in Australia’s history. We taxpayers are now paying $20 million a day in interest. That’s what we get for giving Labor our trust.

The Gillard Government has broken our trust and deserves to be booted out of office.

Robert Flynn

Dalmen