Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I will conclude with an observation about a specific budget matter that the opposition has commented on and criticised the government on, claiming that we are high taxing, notwithstanding the fact that, of course, all the data shows the contrary. That is that yesterday the opposition managed to put out two different calculations of the implications of tax changes in the budget—two different figures. On the basis of what we have had from the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Wentworth, it is absolutely clear that they cannot even add up. They cannot even add up their own assessments of the tax impact of the budget, because they put out two different figures.

The true picture is that government spending for the forthcoming year will be one per cent lower as a proportion of the total economy than it was in 2007-08. It will be the lowest that it has been for nearly 20 years and, importantly, it stays significantly lower—substantially lower—than in the previous financial year across the forward estimates, and broadly the same thing has happened on the tax front as well. There is a substantial reduction in the tax take as a proportion of the overall economy, and that is broadly preserved over the forward estimates.

Whichever Malcolm was on The 7.30 Report last night, it is clear he had not read the budget papers, because the Rudd government’s budget has delivered a substantially bigger surplus, substantially larger savings and a much tougher fiscal positioning in order to put the budget in the right position to put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates and protect the working people of this country.

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