Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Once again, we have the absolute economic illiteracy of the opposition on display—forgotten about the global financial crisis, weren't prepared to support Australian jobs, were happy to see our nation go into recession, which would have ended up with a declining economy, with hopelessness for working Australians, as they were in economies and communities that had been devastated and they were unable to provide work.

We made a different set of choices: we chose to support working Australians. We now are going to bring the budget into surplus, because that is the right thing to do in these economic circumstances. We will make all of the hard decisions necessary to do that, and we will be transparent about them. What the opposition will do is cook the books—that is what they did in the 2010 election, and that is what they are looking to do now.

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