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

Not only is he warned but also he should remember that he does not work for Optus anymore. The interesting thing is that, according to the opposition, when they remove $1 billion from forward-spending projections that is ‘an adjustment to the forward estimates’ but when we remove $1 billion from projected forward spending that is stripping $1 billion away, that is vandalism. The Leader of the Opposition, in pointing out the facts to the Australian people that he presided over the stripping away of more than $1 billion from funding for public hospitals, alleges that the government is telling lies. Unfortunately, we have his own government’s budget papers, his own opposition’s approach to equivalent issues when the boot is on the other foot and, more than anything else, the ordinary meaning of the English language. Those all count against him. I would suggest that there is one party to this dispute that is not telling the truth, but it is not the government.

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