Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It may come as a mystery to the Leader of the Opposition—I know he didn't spend too much time on the Expenditure Review Committee when they were in government; it was almost as little time as he did on the National Security Committee. I've never known someone to spend so much time in the parliament and have so little experience when it comes to economic and national security policy. But Treasury have prepared the forecasts, independently, for the government in every single budget, and they are based on the understanding of circumstances at the time. And they will do that again tonight.

We have always sought as a government to ensure that as Treasury frame those forecasts they do so conservatively. A very good example of that is the estimate that is made on iron ore prices. The purpose of all of those estimates and the purpose of all of those assumptions is to ensure that the government can base its spending decisions on revenue estimates that are reliable. The fact is that each of those budgets, particularly those I was responsible for as Treasurer and as Prime Minister—with the exception of the pandemic hitting the 2019-20 budget—have seen those revenue estimates exceeded. Exceeded!

See this speech in context