"Government spending cutsThe Government soon found that the...

"Government spending cuts
The Government soon found that the previous Keating Government had left them with an unexpected $7.6 billion "black hole" budget deficit. The new treasurer, Peter Costello, and Finance Minister, John Fahey worked at reducing Commonwealth expenditure. This involved reneging on a number of election commitments, which Howard defended as "non-core promises".[10] At the first Coalition government budget, the public service was "down-sized", the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) was privatised, and cuts were made to all departments including with the exception of defence.[6] $8 billion in spending cuts were made over the government's first two budgets.[10]'

Lol Zone.

After all those years in Gov Howard only Delivered a tiny surplus from some of the best economic times in our history .

The man should be locked up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Government#Government_spending_cuts