Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I have already been through in some detail the MYEFO forecasts and how the government supports those forecasts and is determined to meet them by putting in place the savings to bring the budget back to surplus in 2012-13. We are making more than $16 billion of savings in the face of very substantial revenue write downs. What I said right through last week and what I have said this week is that we will always put in place the appropriate fiscal settings to support jobs and growth in our economy. That is the point that I made last week and that is the point that I am making again today. When you have an economy that is growing around trend, that has low unemployment, that has a very substantial investment pipeline, that has low interest rates and that has contained inflation that is precisely what we should be doing and that is what we are doing.

But the importance of that fiscal policy is not understood by those opposite, because what they have actually got is a $70 billion crater in their budget bottom line, and they are acutely embarrassed by that fact.

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