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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The reason I'm running through these tax reforms is that a number of them improve the structural position of the budget, which I think the honourable member understands, including the changes to the PRRT, which will see the offshore LNG industry pay more tax sooner, as well as the efforts on tax compliance.

One of the defining features of the government's four budgets has been responsible economic management, and that has made a difference in the near term to the position of the budget but also to the structural position of the budget, which the honourable member asked me about. As to the fact that we have engineered the biggest ever nominal turnaround in the budget in a parliamentary term—a $207 billion improvement—the fact that we delivered those two budget surpluses and the fact that we got the deficit down this year and delivered an improvement every year, what that means for the structural position is that we save a lot in interest costs. The fact that interest costs are down is making a major, meaningful difference to the structural budget position.

In addition to that, we have also taken steps—and here I pay tribute to the former member for Maribyrnong and Minister Rishworth for their efforts. The steps we have taken on the NDIS are about structural improvements to the budget. The steps that the aged-care minister and the health minister have taken in the aged-care budget are about making the budget more sustainable as well. As to that interest cost difference, the fact that we've got that debt down by $177 billion this year is going to save about $60 billion over the life of the medium term in the budget, and that's making a structural difference too. So if the honourable member's question is, 'Is there more work to do in terms of the structural position of the budget?' of course there is, but we shouldn't dismiss or diminish the very, very substantial progress that this government has made cleaning up the mess that we inherited from those opposite.

See this speech in context