Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I see! I have worked it out! The member for McMahon is trying to set up the member for Lilley here. He is trying to set up the member for Lilley, because it was the member for Lilley that delivered a budget that had the biggest percentage of spending in GDP terms in modern times—26 per cent of GDP. That was the member for Lilley.

We want to reduce government expenditure, and I would just quote Chris Richardson, who is a director at Deloitte Access Economics. He said this on budget night: 'Spending is really tight as a drum. And that is the hidden magic, if you like, and why you are getting better numbers in this budget.' That was Chris Richardson in an interview with David Speers on budget night: 'Spending is really tight as a drum'. We have endeavoured to reduce government expenditure, but the problem is Labor is opposing us at every single point and, despite that, we are still getting expenditure down. The fact is 86 per cent of all government spending is locked in by legislation. Of that government expenditure, a huge amount of it, such as Medicare and welfare payments, go out the door on the basis of demand. They are uncapped. So what happens is, if you want to change the level of government expenditure, you have to change the legislation, and that is one of the—

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