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

It is very simple. The line item there shows the change from last year's midyear budget update of decisions taken but not yet announced, not-for-publication measures. What that means is, when that number goes into the negative, other numbers have gone into the positive. It comes out of that column and it goes into another column—genius! It goes down in one and it goes up in the other column. That is how a budget works.

Those opposite don't know how to put a budget together. They have no idea. I would suggest the shadow Treasurer does not phone a friend either, if ever he ever becomes Treasurer, because his best mate on putting the budgets together was Wayne Swan. We all know what Wayne Swan did when he was putting budgets together. He assumed iron ore prices at $180 forever. He had mining taxes that didn't raise any money.

Of those opposite who would be responsible for the economic management of this country, there's a Leader of the Opposition who's never delivered a budget. He spent six weeks on the Expenditure Review Committee and never delivered a budget. The shadow Treasurer has also never delivered a budget. On this side, our Treasurer has delivered four budgets. Our Prime Minister has delivered three budgets as a Treasurer, four budgets as a Prime Minister and one budget as a member of the Expenditure Review Committee. That's eight. I'll put my eight budgets up to your zero every single time, because zero is the amount of policy we've seen from those opposite. We often speak of net zero in this place. The Labor Party is net zero on policy.

Honourable members inter jecting—

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