photo credit: furryscalyA $58 billion federal budget deficit is forecast for next financial year - it’s Groundhog Day, according to shadow treasurer Joe Hockey.

Launching into a tirade against Treasurer Wayne Swan’s second budget, which forecasts that about one million people will be unemployed in 2010/11, Mr Hockey said deficits were inevitable when Labor was pulling the nation’s purse strings.

“It’s like Groundhog Day in this place,” he told parliament.

“The Labor party comes in and Australia heads towards recession.

“The Labor party comes in and we reach record levels of deficit and debt.”

Mr Hockey said when the coalition won office in 1996 it inherited $96 billion of Labor debt.

Labor was recklessly spending taxpayers’ money, he said.

“It is is an assault on the public finances in Australia that we have not seen in generations,” Mr Hockey said.

He said the treasury forecasts contained in the budget papers were based on above-trend growth and were bound to be wrong.

AAP