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

small business initiative ever delivered by a government, and it was delivered by the coalition. It was a budget for families, with a $3.5 billion increase in more affordable, flexible child care. It was a budget for infrastructure, with more than $50 billion for new infrastructure being provided through the budget over the next few years. And the results are starting to come in. The Commonwealth Bank business sales index came in today, indicating that sales across the business services sector posted a 1.9 per cent trend increase during the month, the biggest increase in three years. That is the biggest increase in sales in three years. As they say at the Commonwealth Bank, 'the news is encouraging'—and, importantly, it is broad based. Of course, you have to pay for all this. In the last week of parliament, $3.3 billion of savings passed through the Senate; savings that had, in some cases, been promised by Labor, were then opposed by Labor and are now supported by Labor, who cannot seem to make up their minds.

Yesterday an additional $2.4 billion of savings passed through the Senate as a result of the initiatives in relation to changes to the pension. These changes are because we want to give people with the lowest income more of the pension and we want to ensure that those people who have millions of dollars in their bank accounts do not get the pension. I might say that, in addition, a further $1.1 billion worth of savings passed through parliament with the changes to the seniors supplement yesterday as well. So there is good progress being made.

Today the Labor Party has been mugged by reality about the budget mess that they left behind. Today they have come on board with changes to fuel excise. It has taken them a while; they were opposed to it—

Opposition members interjecting—

See this speech in context