Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Why is the government’s budget right for the times and how does it meet the challenges of the future?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. Our budget struck the right balance, given the difficult global conditions out there and the difficult domestic conditions that we inherited. That is why we built a strong surplus. We built a strong surplus, a $22 billion surplus, as a buffer against international turmoil and to fund the investment for the future that those opposite would never fund.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Ciobo interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moncrieff is warned!

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We built it also to make room for the Working Families Support Package, $7 billion in tax cuts this year, $10 billion next year and $14 billion the year after. In addition to that, we will provide extra relief for families, particularly when it comes to child care. The approach that we adopted in our first budget has been strongly endorsed by the International Monetary Fund. I will just go through and read what they had to say: ‘The reduction in public spending growth in the latest budget illustrates the government’s commitment to help reduce inflation,’ and ‘will take pressure off monetary policy in the near term’. That is what the IMF had to say about our budget.

Those opposite had a lot to say about our budget as well. I recall the member for Wentworth, for example, saying before the budget that we did not need to cut. The member for Wentworth said we did not need to build a big surplus. Mr Speaker, you might then recall that after the budget he said, ‘Oh no, they did not cut hard enough; what we needed to do was to have a bigger surplus.’ Of course, now the member for Wentworth’s position is we do not need a big surplus. He has got it wrong three times in a row. He is out there trying to argue that we do not need a significant surplus in these global conditions. We do. They are trying to blow a $6.2 billion hole in the surplus. We have heard today that they are going to block the condensate measure. We have heard that today. This is the height of economic irresponsibility, given the global conditions that we are facing at the moment. It is about time they put the national interest before their short-term political interest.