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

I do thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. We should first of all start with revenue and then go on to expenditure, because those opposite claim there has been no revenue write-down. They would be receiving, if they were in government, the same advice that we are receiving, which is that for 2012-13 we have had a revenue write-down of $17 billion and larger ones over the next two years. They would receive that advice from the Treasury, but they claim that that has not happened. It is just like the global financial crisis: it never happened. And now the revenue write-downs have not happened.

Then, to go on with their fiction, they run around the place with a whole lot of figures that exaggerate spending. One of their criticisms is that we now spend $100 billion more in our budget than was spent when we came to government—ignoring the fact that the economy is 13 per cent bigger. The fact is that economies grow, but when it comes to our spending levels our spending levels as a proportion of GDP are about on an average with where they were when you were in government. But you insist, like you do with debt, on the spending side of the budget to go around and make all these extreme exaggerations. The reason you are doing it is that you are not going to put your policies out before the election. You want to be able to run around and claim: 'Oh, there's a spending problem. There's no revenue problem,' and try to get through an election campaign like Campbell Newman. If you get elected then you will slash and burn. That is what all of this is about.

See this speech in context