Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Bennelong for his question. The budget is six weeks away today and it will be handed down at a time of uncertainty, cost-of-living pressures and substantial fiscal constraints. The fastest growing area of government spending is the cost of servicing the trillion dollars of Liberal debt that those opposite left behind. So in this environment, there is a premium on what is responsible, affordable and sustainable, and we have been upfront about the pressures on the budget as we methodically work our way through and try to deal with them.

In October we had to find $4.1 billion for pressures that our predecessors couldn't be bothered funding in an ongoing way. And in May we will have to find billions of dollars more for spending and for programs that they announced but didn't fund in myGov and My Health Record or dental care for pensioners, the Brisbane Olympics or esafety or radioactive waste. Time after time after time they were all press release and no provision.

The member for Hume was asked about this fakery and trickery today and he said it is all part of managing the budget. This is what happens when you put this ringleader for rorts in a key economic portfolio. No wonder they had—

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